What I’ve Been Up To Lately

I’ve been mainly focusing on the quilt along, but I have been doing a little work on my Rainbow Scrap Challenge project, the second version of Circadian Rhythm, and putting together a fabric pull for another yoga student who has requested a Positive Flow bag! Here’s a quick look through these projects. I finished up enough snowball blocks in March’s colour which was red.

These are not the same block as January and February, which were dark blue and dark green nine-patches. What am I doing?

Well, this quilt, you may recall, was inspried by one on Saija’s instagram. I had an embarrassment of 3” squares that I needed to use up, so I chose to use them. Problem: they result in 7 ½” finished squares, so the quilt would be a virtual parachute were I to do all the RSC colours! Solution: ooh! Dark blue and dark green look good together; just use those and do black star points. Better solution: use dark red! March’s colour.

Here is what the building on the design wall looks like. Saija did hers all in squares, but I chose to cuct 8” squares from my grey scraps. I had to use some yardage from the under ½ yard and under drawers, but that’s okay; using it up is my motto.

It will measure 45 ½” square, unless I add another border.

I have now filled in half of the outer border star points, and have decided to do grey 3” squares between them all the way around. I haven’t started pink, which is April’s colour. I’m leaning towards making nine-patches out of pink and May’s colour, which I hope will be a warm colour, so I’ll have a complementary quilt to this one, but not sure yet.

Next, the small pile of extra pieces for Circadian Rhythm have been quietly sitting on a corner of my counter, raising their sweet little hand from time to time to pay me some attention please! So on the weekend, I did, since I need a bit of a break from concentrated pattern-writing. Here are the block centres:

and here is the building of star points, some HSTs, others QSTs, that go around the centre.

I had to re-cut some of that zigzag fabric for the HSTs, as I forgot to switch the direction of the diagonal so they’d all be zigging right side up instead of some zagging. ;-) It’s fascinating to me that I don’t have to worry about that when making the QSTs. Have I mentioned how much I love my wool pressing mat? It’s a Canadian company, based in my home province of Alberta, Prairie Spirit Alpacas. No affiliation, just love it! As of today, everything is cut for the four blocks, so I’ll sew the HSTs in between the RSC parts and the second QAL quilt. At least that’s the plan; I may get carried away and just sew up the four blocks!

I mentioned in my Gratitude post how thrilled I was to see one of my Positive Flow bags made by one of my quilter/yoga students from my pattern. Well, another student was quite taken with said bag, and asked me if I’d make her one. She wants to use it as. carry-on for a trip to BC this summer. Having used mine on a few trips, I know they’re a terrific size for it. She was drawn to the black and white makeup bag in my Etsy shop and requested something similar with a pop of pink. With some back and forth photo shots for fabric selection, here is what she’s decided. I think it will be great! She says there is no rush, and she was surprised that I got on the fabric pull as fast as I did. 

However, it will wait for a little bit to get assembled as the QAL takes precedence. Speaking of that, I am making another quilt during the QAL, and here is my pull for it:

This is a little pull I did last year when I was pullting fabrics for something (maybe a bag request, who knows) I loved it so much that I kept it together (I may have two or three little sefl-made bundles like this on my stash shelves!) I think I am going to do the alternate version I hinted at, but not sure yet. The cutting instructions come out on Friday.

Lastly, Liz, a good friend of mine, who I met through teaching yoga - honestly, the friendships, and quilting friendships I’ve met through teaching yoga these past 13 years truly blows my mind and warms my heart - sent me this article, Your Neighbour Canada Has Changed and You’re Not Going to Like What is Happening. Liz and her husband, like many who live here, where it is only a day and a half drive to drive to Florida, used to spend part of the winter there, as did his parents. They came home early last year, and did not go this year, nor will they be back anytime soon, as is the case for many Canadians. George Froehlich the author of that article, has kept it free and asked people to share it “because this story matters too much to keep it behind a wall.” I hope you’ll read it because you won’t see this in mainstream news.