Tiny Tip Tuesday (and a progress report)

By now, I'm sure almost everyone has one of these mist bottles for dispensing Best Press. As the starch is used, the bladder inside shrinks up making it difficult (at least for me) to refill. I had been using a chopstick to open up the bladder until one day, being in a hurry, I blew into the top of bottle as if I were blowing up a balloon. How did I not think to do this from the beginning??? So much faster!
Of course, one should always wipe the edge of the bottle before putting their lips on it. Nobody knows exactly what's in Best Press--except for Mary Ellen and she's not telling! 

Last week, I had a "buy one/ get one free" coupon from a Sunday paper insert  for Febreze One Fabric and Air mist. Naturally I couldn't pass up that deal and lookie lookie---it comes in the exactly same mist bottle I've been using for Best Press! I'll be up-cycling these for sure. Being a fabric mist, I'm assuming they mean sofas and pillows and not our stashes.
FYI: If you don't have a mist bottle yet and abhor air fresheners, I noticed several quilt shops selling them at the last quilt show I attended. Check your local quilt shop.  Lots of them have cute "quilty" decorations. I've also bought several for gifts (and myself) from this company at a great price.

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So far, my goal to use up those LeMoyne Stars is coming along nicely. I had 6" stars and 7" stars so I adapted a Missouri Star pattern called Stars and Stripes to use both sizes. I'm so pleased to have used up the stars as well as the red and tan jelly roll strips that have been aging in a bin for several years. 

Sooooo....I still have a pile of these matching stars. 

While looking for ideas to use them, I came across this Miss Rosie pattern: Due South. It requires 11 6" saw-tooth stars. I had 8 of the LeMoyne Stars and they happened to be 6".  I decided if I made a smaller size quilt, my 8 stars would work fine. 

As I was pulling fabrics from my stash for the flying geese, I found all three of the fabrics I had used to make the matched LeMoyne Stars. I chose to stitch up an additional 3 stars and make the quilt the size in the book. Also, I realized I have an enormous amount of fabric and need to make a lot of bigger quilts! For Due South, I have to make 212 flying geese.  I like to use my Quilt in a Day Flying Geese tool that makes four geese at a time so I needed to cut 53 squares of dark and light fabric.

Of course I had to make a test block--compared to what I've been working on lately, these geese are enormous!! Okay, only 3" x 6" finished, but still....

Yesterday I finished the two steps of stitching. and started clipping the back seam (if you use the tool, you know what I mean). 

This morning I finished the clipping, gave my squares a final press and now I will work on releasing the geese! I'm not sure this top will get completed by the end of the month--I feel like it's a bonus since I have Stars and Stripes put together. I do want to get that one quilted but I have jury duty beginning next Tuesday so things are a little up in the air!
In the meantime, I'm off for a little "walkie" with Willow!