Still A Mystery

I'm not sure where this week went!

 I've been super busy getting things ready for retreat: deciding what I will work on and doing some cutting in advance. 

My exchange four patches came in the mail last week. It's been so much fun going through them--so many fabrics that I wish I had more of! I already had a few ideas as to what I would make from them and I've spent a few evenings trimming them up as needed.
 This is one of my projects all cut and ready to pack up. 

I finished part 8 of the ThimbleCreek Mystery

Here are all the clues of the mystery so far--I have no idea where this could be going--do you??
A row quilt? A medallion?? Hmmmm....

And here is my very last wool hexagon --yay!!
I may not have time until I get back from retreat to put them up on my design wall and figure out how many side triangles I will need to cut, but I'm excited t get to it!!

Linking with Needle and Thread Thursday HERE

and Scraptastic Tuesday HERE
and WIPs Be Gone HERE

Mission Accomplished--not quite!

I thought I was going to celebrate a red letter day--my Stitching Society 180 wool hexagons were all finished! 

Hallelujah!!

The Bell

Pine Branch

 I don't think I've shown these yet--

Dresden Plate

Endless Chain

Winding Ways

 When I got to these last two pattern pages, I was feeling pretty lazy and was so ready to be finished with my hexagons.

The last two designs #179 and #180I just couldn't face doing all those tiny bike parts or musical notes--I am stitched out!

 So, being super lazy, I came up with two very simple designs of my own:

Stork Embroidery Scissor
I laid my scissor on the wool and traced it--one piece of wool.

Sad Iron
I just kind of eyeballed this from a Google image--that's why it looks weird!
But only 4 pieces--yay!!
180 designs DONE!!
Wrong.
I counted and recounted and could only come up with 179 wool hexagons---whaaaaat????

It took a while--a long while--for me to figure out where I went wrong.
 I had never duplicated the hexagon I used in this pillow--rats!
 So, you know what my Slow Sunday Stitching will be--the last hexagon!!!

Linking up with Kathy at Slow Sunday Stitching HERE and WIP's Be Gone HERE

Update

I thought I would do a quick update since I am going to gone all day Friday quilting with Sue Patten (and a trunk show in the evening).

 Saturday I have an all day gardening expo to attend. I have to admit I'm really feeling the Spring Fever now that the lake opened up !

Part 7 of the Thimble Creek Mystery

I gave up on the traditional piecing for my square in a square units.
 I'm half way through paper piecing them for my Devil's Claw quilt.
A painful decision, but totally necessary!

 And I'm a few more wool hexies closer to the end:

Holly and Swirl

Wreath

Christmas Tree

Mistletoe

Poinsettia

Have a great weekend!!

Procrastination

Nope--nothing new here....

But,I was so taken with the Devil's Claw quilt on the cover of my new Country Threads book, I had to do some fabric cutting!

I thought my stash of Kim Diehl fabrics would be perfect for Devil's Claw.
I am making mine a bit larger than the pattern in the book, so I needed 21 dark prints and 21 light prints. 

I was a little short on Kim Diehl lights, but it was easy (and super fast) to order a bundle of her Butter Churn Basics (all lights!) from the Fat Quarter Shop! 

I made a few test blocks. They are very labor intensive--lots of waste triangles!
I think I am "square in a square" challenged. but I love how the blocks are looking. I'm also a bit worried about setting the blocks together--there will be some challenging matching involved!I know it seems like I am avoiding quilting Words to Live By, and in a way I am. On Friday I will be taking a couple classes from Sue Patten. She will be in the US teaching very close to my home--so exciting! I'm hoping some of her magic will rub off onto me and I will be doing some fabulous quilting next week!

Linking with Sew Cute Tuesday HERE

and Linky Tuesday HERE

More Wool Hexies

I'm getting very close to the end now!

Ring of Stars

Sailboat

Bunting

Star & Stripes

Crossed Flags

Flag Heart

 I realized a couple weeks ago that I hadn't re-stitched the seven designs I used to make my mantle cloth--sigh.....

 I took a bit of time yesterday and prepped them.
I was SO close to the end!
These will keep me occupied for some Slow Sunday Stitching at least one week more!

Peaky and Spike--yikes!

I'm getting a few things ready for a retreat later this month.

One of the projects I want to work on requires a lot of these units;

Tri-Recs unit aka Peaky and Spike aka Triangle in Square
... from the orphan block bag.

I found my tool set and I was all set to start cutting my fabric.
Everything was pressed and ready to sub-cut into the required strips...

I had planned to use this method using my Tri-Recs tools, but then some little thought bubbled to the surface--didn't I have an Accuquilt die to cut these units?

Well, it turns out I did and it was exactly the size I needed--yay! 
 Once I had the strips cut to fit the die, I cut units for 80 blocks in about 10 minutes.

It may have gone faster if I hadn't reversed my darks and lights on one cutting--ack!
 I was cutting 4 layers and the die cuts two blocks at a time, so I have 8 un-usable units to go into my orphan block bag--rats. 

Fortunately the sewing went pretty quickly since the cutting was so accurate. 

My test block 9" finished--only 19 more to go! 

April Goals

I managed to finish almost everything on my list for March--I hope I can do it again in April!

The main focus for me each month is to finish a UFO.
 Success!
Austen Family Album quilted and bound.

The gravy would have been to finish Words To Live By, but at least I got it loaded onto the quilting machine. It's been moved to the April list and hopefully will be my April UFO to complete.
Amazingly, I remembered to attach the label to the backing before I put it on the machine. I usually float my tops under the take-up bar, but since this is such a large quilt, I rolled it--hope that works out for me! 

In the meantime, I made my 20 snowballs for part 6 of the ThimbleCreek mystery. 

Next up: the April blocks for the 1718 Coverlet Quilt Along. 

Linking with A Lovely Year of  Finishes 
and Binding Blitz