WIP Wednesday

Since school just started back up again I'm not really much farther along than when I last posted about the Orca Bay mystery.  I may have sewn a few more units, but that's it.  One of my projects this year is Judy L's UFO challenge: she drew number 5 for this month.  #5 on my list was the 1996 Piecemaker's Calendar quilt: I broke it down into 2 months' worth, each of them being to prepare half of the pieces for the applique in the setting rectangles and triangles.  I brought out my Piecemakers' Calendar quilt so I could assess the amount of work I'll need to do this month.  I am making a twin-sized quilt with fewer blocks: so I will need a total of 6 rectangles and 4 triangles.  The rectangles will need 3 stems, 5 leaves, 3 flower centers, and 12 petals each.  The triangles will need 1 stem, 2 leaves, 1 center and 4 petals each.  So I will need a total of 22 stems, 38 leaves, 22 centers, and 88 petals.  I have some leaves prepared, plus what you can see on my sample block.  I will declare victory if I can make all the stems, and half of the remaining pieces, and lay them out on the backing.  I'm not going to require myself to applique them down, but if I do, it's all to the good!  I use the freezer paper/ spray starch method to prepare applique pieces, and all the bias strips from stems are already cut.  I think it's doable in one month.  But of course I've also got Orca Bay and the Crumbs quilt to finish.

Yesterday I signed the completed Happy Quilting STARS quilt over to Cedar Tree for the auction.  They require you to place a value on it because they are not allowed to do that themselves... so I guessed $300.00.  If any of you have sold quilts at charity auction before, let me know if you think that's a good estimate.  It's really hard to say; it's a balancing act between the work and materials that go into a quilt and what the market will bear. 

In knitting, after my yarn barf episode, I cast on another shawl.  This is Melinda VerMeer's lovely and intriguing Nautilina, and it's autographed because the designer is in my knit group (Hazel Dell Starbucks, every Monday evening!)  Really, how cool is that? The yarn is my handspun, from a batt by Butterfly Girl Designs called "Seashells."  It's got lots of sparkly stuff in it, angelina and firestar, in a base of merino and bamboo.  I'm well into the second section so far.  So fun to knit.  The yarn was just recently washed in Kookaburra wool wash, and I love how it smells!

I'm linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.