Monday Mail Scramble

As Monday was President's Day, and a no-mail day, I knew I needed to use Monday night to get some items ready to post today.

Up first, Katie's block for Pieced Together. This free-piecing business is a little crazy...but fun! I had to add in a few little bits from my own stash, I wasn't keen on using every last bit of red Katie sent.

As you may know by now, I spend a lot of time in my car, driving to work & back. And on these drives, I think about a bunch of random things. While driving, I came up with the plan to make a similar block to each block I do for Pieced Together. So here is my version of Katie's block:

Now all this free piecing business leads to a lot of starts & stops, so you can press your seams. So I was doing a lot of the leader/ender business, including piecing the borders of Steve's Rocket Scientist whirlygiggles quilt:

Seriously, those giant rockets are fantastic!

I also put a baggie full of selvedges in the mail for Sonya in Australia. My first time mailing international, so of course I didn't realize I needed to fill out a customs form! But now I know, which is a good thing, since I will be sending some FQs to Katy in the UK, as part of Darci's FQ swap.

And speaking of FQ swaps, Sew Mama Sew hosted another FQ swap. I signed up for 2 groups, so I'm sending 8 FQs. I got my swap partners today, and will mail in a couple of days. Here's a copy of the card I'm including in each package:

I made the card in Publisher using postcards I still had from save the dates from our wedding (so they are at least 5 years old @ this point, I sent the save the dates super early).

(Top to bottom, left to right) Flutterby, AMH Good Folks, Hoffman's Mercer St., AH Spotted Owl (x2), Valerie Wells Olive Rose, Heather Ross Lightning Bugs, and AMH Good Folks again.

Walking in a Spiderweb...

...leave a message and I'll call you back...

I've been wondering about these spiderweb blocks, since that seems to be one of the new trends floating around the blogland quilters these days, including ones being done for another virtual quilting bee, Block Party. One of the peeps in Pieced Together is polling to see if we'd be interested in putting these together for her month; I decided it was time to try one out.

I wasn't overly concerned about getting this perfect (or even changing the orientation of the photo in this post - lol!). The tutorial recommends you use a glue stick to tack down the center fabric; I didn't do this, as I didn't have a glue stick (must look @ work tomorrow). So I think this led to a little bit of shifting, which is why my seams aren't quite matchy-matchy where the pieceing begins. And I didn't bother to switch to a heftier needle, which I agree would have punched the paper even more and made easier to remove. But other than, it really wasn't difficult, and I could definitely see myself doing something like this again. It probably took me an hour to do the block, but that time also included cutting the templates and running back & forth between the kitchen (where the iron lives) and the spare bedroom (where my sewing machine lives). Plus, I was trying not to disturb the homework process:

I'm going to call it a success! But now, what to do with that block??

Pieced Together

So...a little crazy, yes...but I decided to join a virtual quilting bee (VQB). For those who don't know what that is...each person gets a month, sends out fabrics and instructions to the other participants, and gets back a quilt block from each participant. In turn, you prepare a block for each participant with the fabrics they send out. I think I can handle 1 or 2 blocks a month for the others. From what I've seen online, people are generally slightly delinquent in their VQBs, and no one seems too riled up about that.

There are 19 participants in the Pieced Together bee, so some months are doubled. Starts in February, so I'm excited! I get June (all to myself)...and think I already have an idea of what I'm going to do. Zippity Doo Dah! Fabric will probably be a birthday present to myself.

PS - What do rockets, owls, and mermaids all have in common?? Answer is forthcoming!