{WiP} Wednesday ~ 8/52

Happy Leap Day!

Happy WiP Day!

I can't believe how quickly the days (and nights) go by. Whoosh. Another week is gone, and I don't have much to report.

It was a great week, of course. We had our guild retreat last weekend, so there was a lot of prep-work for that, and then a couple of days recuperating, of course. :o)  There wasn't a whole heckuva lot I had to do to prepare for others coming to the retreat, it was more preparing all my stuff that I wanted to take. (And then eliminating what I knew I wouldn't accomplish, but still taking WAY too much!)  :o)  In hindsight, I wish I had taken a picture of the myriad stuff I took! It was pretty ridiculous. Haha!

Here's a shot of the lovely, talented, vivacious Amy of Stitchery Dickory Dock, at registration.

And here is the group on Sunday morning. We had 18 attend, but only 17 made it into the early morning photo. :o)

I'm not sure when I actually put my sewing machine on the table, but I think it was about 9:00 on Friday night! Late start, eh?

The first thing I worked on was my Sea Glass quilt. And I quilted, and I quilted, and I quilted. Now, keeping in mind that I am S.L.O.W., and that I wanted to socialize a bit, and that I can't really sit still long enough to sew 3 rows at one time, I finished quilting it sometime on Saturday. Productive, I know. :o)

Then I took off my walking foot, and went to fold up the quilt, and I saw a bunch of tension issue blobs on the backside.

Tension issues cause tension issues!! Amen?  Wow. I was SO disappointed!!!  The tension issues aren't horrid, but I have been working on that thing for SO much longer than I thought I would be that I just folded it up and put it a.w.a.y.  Harumph.

And I started working on bee blocks.

The first one I finished as Amy's for our in-guild bee. It's a sweet little 5-sided wonky log cabin, using this tutorial from Aneela Hoey.

(the fussy cut deer is from Toyland by Bored, Inc. from Robert Kaufman, and it's a couple of years old)

Next I tackled our Fabric Dance block for our group quilts for Firehouse Quilts of Colorado.

The "fabric dance" was a little swap activity we did as a group. Those who wanted to participate brought in a fat quarter, and the dancers stood around in a circle...or maybe they sat, I had to leave for about an hour, so I missed the actual dance. They brought their rotary cutter, and in the first round, they cut their fq in half and passed it to the next person. Then in the second round, they cut the newly acquired half into half again, and passed it to the next person, then they cut the second acquired half and cut it into half, and passed that. Et...cetera. :o) So, at the end of the dance, everyone had a handful of scraps from the majority of those who participated (apparently, the fabrics didn't make it all the way around, but, again, I wasn't there!) When I got back from my errands (the bank and Starbucks and home to give Dave my key to the car since he couldn't find his...), I discovered a colorful pile of scraps on my machine.

This is the block I made.

And this is a picture of 9 of the blocks that were made at the retreat. We are hoping to make 2 quilts. The Firehouse Quilts are made for whenever the firemen respond to a call involving a child. The firemen like to give the child a quilt or a blanket or something comforting, and Firehouse Quilts is the charity our guild is going to focus on this year, so we're starting off right. :)



I also worked on my granny squares for the {Faith} Circle of the do.Good Stitches bee. I finished the second one at home. I haven't trimmed it yet, but you know what it looks like. :o)

I worked on some other blocks, but didn't get anything else finished. I am totally impressed at how much other people accomplished, though. Amanda made 3 quilt tops - start to finish. And they weren't tiny, either! She was a MACHINE!!  Granted, she lives in a teeny, tiny apartment and doesn't get a lot of time (or space) to sew, so she made the most of it, but still! And then Andrea completed an entire quilt, from cutting to binding. It was a "bargello" quilt, too!  Sheesh!  The other stunner was Traci making 6 stinkin' adorable dresses for her (stinkin' adorable) daughter.

I'm glad that everyone else accomplished so much... :o)

When I got home, I was completely shattered, as you can imagine, but I still wanted to sew!  I took all of Monday off, and only started sewing on Tuesday. Since I am working on some Mod Mosaic blocks, I wanted to try stand-up sewing, so I set up a little sewing station on my kitchen island.

It has its advantages, but I don't know if I'm going to be one to sew standing up all the time. It's great for lots of little piecing, lots of pressing, lots of trimming, but it's also hard on a pregnant woman's back. :o)

Speaking of pregnant women...
(A) I had another friend announce her pregnancy this week, and one friend had her baby, so with one up and one down, we're still at 14 pregnant women in my immediate circle. And one will be induced on Friday, so I need to finish her receiving blanket! (Get on it, Melissa!!)
(B) I had an ultrasound yesterday, and Mr JuiceMan is growing nicely, right on track. If he doesn't come sooner, we'll induce on April 9th. I'm pretty freaked out by the fact that in less than 6 weeks, I will be holding a baby boy.  I'm ready to not be pregnant, but not ready to have a newborn! :o)  I know you know what I mean.

That's it for today. As I always say, hopefully next week, I'll have more to show you! :o)  I'm linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced. (She's also got a giveaway this week!)

Hope you have a great, and crafty, week!