Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Knitting and Quilting Year in Review

 For a knitting blogger, I started the year well and finished with a limp.  I was determined to make a lot of socks for my family because they are enjoyed by everyone.  However, two of the pairs I labored over for my husband felted beyond wearability: top and bottom left.  Note to self: use Knit Picks yarn only with great caution from now on.  The argyles I made for myself are from the same yarn but either it didn't felt or the pattern was loose enough to allow for it: I'm still wearing and enjoying them.  Daniel's Klingon socks have at least one hole in them but he wears them constantly and still likes them.  Quarta's purple socks I think are still wearable.
These were another pair I finished for Steve this year, from the Zauberball I bought in January, and they were successful.  That may be all the socks: also I finished two scrap yarn rugs from unraveled cotton sweaters:
The second is almost identical.  I started a few other knitting projects but they are hibernating at the moment.  All in all, it is time I admitted that I'm in a knitting slump.  I want to get back to enjoying knitting in the New Year, and that probably means laying off the socks for awhile, unless I knit them with sturdy German yarn in simple patterns and intersperse them with sweaters and shawls.
2013 was another good year for quilts; although I didn't finish quite as many as in past years, I'm pleased with the ones I did.  Clockwise from top left: Easy Street, Country Stars (top only - still not quilted), Orca Bay, and the Cedar Tree auction signature quilt.  I have the Farmer's Wife in progress on the frame, and after that I owe my mother-in-law a quilting job and then I will quilt the Country Stars.  I'm happy with the various quilts I have in progress, too: the Celtic Solstice mystery, my String Star, Not All Who Wander are Lost, the APQ quiltalong, and some other random scrappy projects that are just waiting to coalesce into the next big plan.

At the beginning of 2013 I set some loose goals for the year, listing 20 "UFOs" that were either on my dream list or in various stages of progress.  Of those, I am counting the following as accomplished:

  • #5, a felted wool blanket (although not "the" felted wool blanket I originally planned, it counts)
  • #6, Orca Bay quilting and binding, see above
  • #8-9, Easy Street top, quilting and binding, see above
  • #10, Crumbs auction quilt, see above
  • #14, boxers in multiple fabrics - finished for Christmas gifts
  • #16, Civil War repro/Pine Needles quilt became Country Stars top, see above
  • #19, (ongoing) clean and organize sewing area - I did this at least once this year
  • #20, have fun, or everything else is pointless.  I think if I keep this in mind, I remain in a better frame of mind to keep being productive, no matter what the actual product is.  But I need to remind myself now and then.
So 9 out of the list is not really bad.  I will reevaluate the remaining things that didn't get done and come up with a new master list for 2014 in a day or two.  I notice that I don't enjoy setting goals for knitting as much as for sewing; in the past, I have wanted to give myself permission to flit from project to project because knitting takes so much more time and my tastes do change.  But clearly, I am not devastated about it when I don't reach my sewing goals for the year, so maybe I will think about having a combined list or a separate knitting list for 2014.

I have some other ideas for blog projects percolating in my head, not all of them craft related, but we'll see where the whimsey leads.


Monday, December 30, 2013

Design Wall, Celtic Solstice Link-up, and Year End Stash totals

The end of the year is a busy time for bloggers.  Everyone is compiling retrospectives on the year and setting goals for the next one.  But to be honest, I'm just here to have fun.  And right now, the organizing bug has not struck me.  I used to believe "cleanliness is next to godliness," and then I had kids, so it was adjusted to "organization is next to godliness... a little exposure to dirt will help build up the immunities."  Well, at the current stage of the family and the school year (remember I have to go back to teaching middle schoolers a dead language on January 6) I have a more resigned attitude of "lack of chaos is next to godliness.  Or at least, that's all I can hope for."  All of this to say, I may or may not publish an official "New Years' Eve" post retrospective/forcast like I've done in the past.  I can do this much, though:
 Here's the 4th block of the APQ quiltalong.  I made it this weekend.  I'm making it truly scrappy, and it's fun now that I've figured out a system for piecing each block and cut a bunch of the low-volume backgrounds.  If I keep averaging one or two a week, I'll be able to make this top about the same time as finishing up Celtic Solstice.  And maybe, just maybe, I'll tame the scrap pile a bit.
And speaking of Celtic Solstice: here is how much I have done of clue 5.  I was sick/organizing Christmas most of last week so I didn't have much time to sew; just finished up the very easy 4-patches from clue 4 yesterday.  I'm getting the assembly line for step 5 going today.  I am so tickled that Bonnie designed a quilt for us that was inspired by those cathedral floors from her trip to Ireland... it was what I was hoping for.  I am sure this quilt is going to be stunning.  Steve and I have fond memories of singing at both Christchurch Cathedral and St. Patrick's in Dublin on the GCC alumni Touring Choir tour in 2005.  It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.  Every bit of those cathedrals is a work of loving art by skilled craftsmen.  I love the idea of paying homage to that in scrappy fabric.  I also love that scrappy quilts can use things like the safety cone scraps and the bugs fabric and the Halloween fabric that I would otherwise not have found a home for.
Last week's photo of my design wall with a sampling of my (too many) current projects.
And the final results of this year's stash report:

Fabric:
I used 61 yards total in finished projects
I purchased 49 yards (plus an unspecified quantity of scraps that were either passed along to me and I do not care to estimate, and the contents of that 12-gallon bin I picked up for $5 at the epic estate sale, which I also do not care to estimate).
Net used for 2013: 12 yards.

Knitting yarn:
I used an estimated 10,900 yards in finished projects.
I purchased, spun, unraveled or otherwise acquired 5800 yards.
Net total used for 2013: 5100 yards.


Saturday, December 28, 2013

Random Post-Christmas pictures

The obligatory nice picture...
 The obligatory silly picture.  I don't know why, but all modern kids expect to be allowed to do this as their fee for standing still for 30 seconds.
 Steve and his Mom.
 And the two of us.  Even though the kids and I were all in various stages of a nasty cold, we had a nice family Christmas.  I'm glad I didn't knock myself out cleaning the house, because it really doesn't look that much worse now than it did before.
 Quarta with her new puzzle ball.  It should keep her engaged for quite some time.  The farthest she's gotten so far is about 25%.
 Tertia modeling her new boots.  We also pooled some of her birthday and Christmas money and got her a Samsung Galaxy tablet, which we hope will have some good therapeutic uses for her.  So far she has taken a lot of pictures and videos, sent emails, and read a bit.  Oh, and learned a few French words.
 Quarta got some new boots too.
 I bought silly hats for the kids on a whim.  This is Tertia modeling her penguin hat with her penguin walk.  Penguins have been a favorite animal since "Mr. Popper's Penguins" in 5th grade.
 Quarta's is a polar bear, the boys are not so much silly as, I don't know what to call them.  They keep the ears warm and seem to be popular.
 The pie board: I made an apple, a grape, and a mocha-pecan which made a little too much filling for one small shell, so I had an overflow.
My "haul:" An Amazon Kindle Fire, an assortment of teas and chocolate, a can of air freshener spray (from Tertia via the dollar store), the Princess Bride, some nice eucalyptus-spearmint lotion, and Steve won the prize for coolness this year: remember when I requested, tongue-in-cheek, a Proto-Indo-European dictionary and grammar for Christmas?  I did this because I know enough about languages to know that Proto-Indo-European is a purely theoretical dead language and I didn't think enough of a reconstruction existed to even put a book together.  For linguists, it's the equivalent of the Holy Grail, and I've always had a fascination for really ancient history.  Well, Steve found two books on Amazon, one a scholarly work with the Oxford name behind it, and the other a scholarly work that seems to be an attempt to promote "Modern" Indo-European as a living language for geeks who like the Prometheus movie franchise.  Something about it being the language of the engineers?  I don't know, I've only scratched the surface of that and the Kindle.  So Steve gets lots of points for coolness this Christmas!

 I can finally reveal my secret sewing project - I made two pairs of boxers for each of the boys and 4 for Steve.  If you find photos of such things distasteful, consider this fair warning... but I think of it as documenting my sewing and craft activities.
  Northwest fish and Curious George.
Psychedelic flowers from some vintage fabric - I think it may be rayon - and the multicolored frogs from remnants of fabric my mother gave me back when the boys were really little.
I bought the safety cone fabric in blue and yellow for Steve...
and also the musical notes and Seattle fabric.  It had been a long time since I made boxers and felt good to get an actual, practical and fun sewing project done.

Steve gives a "date with Dad" to each of the kids for Christmas and has taken the girls out so far - Tertia for bowling and Wendy's, and Quarta for Despicable Me II and pizza.  I took three of the kids out clothes shopping yesterday and will probably do more next week.  I've been working on getting to know the new Kindle and trying to get a good night's sleep.  For some reason I have been either not able to fall asleep until 2:30 a.m. or have woken up at 3:30 a.m. for the last 5 nights.  A little sewing has been going on, but not too much.

I blame President Obama and the insidious "pajama boy" commercial for spoiling my enjoyment of staying in my pajamas until late in the morning and even -- this should be criminal -- hot chocolate.  I mean, who spoils Christmas with political propaganda, smirking twenty-somethings in infantile jammies, and bad associations for chocolate?  It's enough to make me want to watch Duck Dynasty.  Well, not really.  What we have been watching: the Hobbit part 1 (preparing to take the girls to see part 2 sometime next week maybe), Wreck-it Ralph, Return of the King extended version, first disk (the girls just finished having Steve read it to them), and Tertia just watched an old grainy video of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.  Games, social gatherings and plans to watch Frozen are going on.  And someday, preferably sooner rather than later, I really, really need to clean the house.

Hope to get at least one more retrospective/goal-setting post in before the New Year, and maybe enough of Celtic Solstice to participate in the link-up.  But if not, you'll know I'm enjoying a certain amount of well-earned laziness and studying Proto-Indo-European.

Monday, December 23, 2013

Design Wall and Mystery Link-Up Monday

I rearranged the design wall, trying out a new arrangement of my rainbow string star diamond.  I think I like this one, with yellow points, better than the one that was up before this:
 This previous version had purple points and centers.  However the final arrangement of diamonds is, I'm thinking of a solid gray background and some kind of rainbow string border.  I'll stare at the two diamonds and think about it some more.
 Bonnie Hunter's Celtic Solstice mystery is chugging along.  I made just enough of clue 4, the 4-patches, to put a border around the experimental block I put up on the wall last week.  I will need to cut a variety of greens and oranges still. But I think this design is actually kind of fun.  I wonder if I'm close at all to the final layout?
I'm turning out about one block a week in the APQ quiltalong.  There's a Flickr group now.  For me this is truly a scrappy quilt and so the cutting can be a bit of a chore, but I'm cutting extra low-volume pieces each time I have a chance and it's still fun.

For comparison, here are the previous two blocks I've made:


This will probably be the last time I post until after Christmas.  I did some shopping, errand-running, wrapping, and cleaning today and there's still a lot more to do, especially the cooking and cleaning.

Saturday, December 21, 2013

Randomday - Pre-Christmas

Daniel came home from college late Wednesday night!  Steve and I, as a kind of late birthday present to him, went out to Powell's books and then to a 9:30 reservation at Ava Gene's restaurant.  We had a very nice, leisurely meal and then picked him up at PDX.  The next evening he joined his little brother to go out to Cedar Tree's Winter Social.  Steve took a nice picture of them with me before they left.
School is out for Christmas break for us too.  Daniel and Quarta came along Friday to watch Tertia's dance routine of "Rollercoaster" at her school's assembly before Winter break.  It was a bit of culture shock for us private school folks, kind of like a field day midway through the year... there was a staff-student volleyball game, boisterous cheering sections, and a pie in the face for some of the teachers.

Steve had Friday off and we did a Costco trip in the morning.  I am doing my best to have a relaxing break; my grading is up to date, I have been playing Civ 4 and sewing a little bit.  The house is still a mess, and that's not likely to change.

I just heard that the girl who was shot in the Arapahoe High School shooting has died.  This has been such a heartbreaking news story to follow this past week.  I knew two kids in that building, when they were babies and we lived in Denver 15 years ago, and am still Facebook friends with their mothers.  Littleton Adventist Hospital was where both of my boys were born.  I am so sad for the community there, and those who have such a heavy burden to bear at what should be a joyous time of year.  I have no words, only prayers.

Monday, December 16, 2013

Design Wall and Mystery Monday link-ups

I'm loving all the quilty fun on my design wall right now.  I just don't have enough space for all of it, or time to finish it all!  There's the Not All Who Wander are Lost quiltalong, my scrappy rainbow String Star, playing with possibilities from the first three clues of Celtic Solstice, and the APQ low-volume quilt-along.
Here's a closeup of where I am with Clue #3 of Celtic Solstice.  I love all the citrus colors in this gray weather!  I have all 200 half-square triangles made and should finish the 25 pinwheels soon.  Friday and Saturday I did a lot of stitching.

No change in fabric or yarn to count in a stash report for this week.  But check out the linkups at Design Wall Monday and Celtic Solstice to see what others are up to!

Saturday, December 14, 2013

Randomday

 The tree is up!  Take your pick of with flash...
or without.  It's a Noble Fir, and thanks to the generosity of the Leuthold family farm.  It makes a nice change from the less than perfect specimens we've been raising in our backyard for the last several years.  The natives were complaining.
 Secundus' filled raisin cookies were a success.

We have been appreciating a nice clean fridge this week, after last week's defrosting adventure.  And so far, it appears to be keeping the temperature cold enough.  For the first time in a long time, we actually had some food in the fridge get TOO cold!
 Star Wars snowflakes -- who knew?  It may become an annual tradition to attempt making one.  Yoda has been hanging out on the fridge until today, when he started hanging out on the tree.

The Cedar Tree Christmas program was last night.  It was Quarta's last year to sit on the Grammar school side of the church.  I graded Latin quizzes through the program, occasionally stopping to ponder the fact that Latin teachers don't get the glamorous jobs at Christmastime, like the music teachers do.
I stayed up late and finished my second of the APQquiltalong blocks.  Or maybe it should be #APQquiltalong.  I'm not sure how to use hashtags.  I didn't even know pound signs were called hashtags until this year.  In any case, I'm liking this low volume scrappy background with the graphic diagonal bits of color.  Here was the first block:
Today I have made more than half of the half-square triangles in yellows and oranges needed for the third clue of Celtic Solstice.  Glad I'm doing the smaller version rather than the King size!  It was a good day for lots of scrappy piecing.  It was not a day where I felt inspired to catch up on all my Latin grading, unfortunately.

Daniel had three final exams today; he has one more on Tuesday and then is flying home Wednesday.  We are really looking forward to having him back, although I already know Christmas break will not be long enough.

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

WIP Wednesday

For the last two days, I've been home from school on (arguably) "snow days".  Yesterday it was a 2-hour late start for the district we follow on top of a 2 hour early release for our school, so it was a snow day on a technicality.  Today it was attributed to freezing fog and black ice, but I was able to get out and do the shopping at Winco when I still thought it was only a 2-hour late start, and the roads were fine.  I came home to be told that there was no school because the roads were too icy.  Hmm.  Well, I'll take it.  I'm a little worried about how we're going to make up all the missed lesson plans, but that's a problem to resolve when I'm actually at school with access to my actual lesson plans.
 I've been cranking out chevrons for clue #2 of Celtic Solstice.  What do you think about Bob and Larry peeking out?  Too much?
 I have some plain yellow fabric that I played with my Book of Kells rubber stamps, too.  Very appropriate for this mystery! There hasn't been quite as much time as I hoped to sew this week, and I'm fighting the pre-Christmas fatigue thing.  What, you didn't know that was a thing?  You must not have hyperactive kids.
This is the first block I've made in the APQ quilt-along, a low-volume Burgoyne Surrounded.  I'm so pleased with the way it looks, I definitely want to make more!
I couldn't take both Secundus and Quarta bouncing off the walls and playing with candle wax all day, so I suggested to Secundus that he bake some cookies, and directed him to Filled Raisin Cookies, which have been on my brain lately.  See, lots of people in the Sew Mama Sew giveaway day/week have been asking about your favorite Christmas treat, and this is it, or one of them.  Note the broken spatula.  This is what happens when Secundus cooks.  He also put in 2 tablespoons rather than 2 teaspoons of vanilla in the raisin filling.  It will probably be ok.  When he's done with the kitchen, I'll let Quarta make fudge.  For some reason, they never want to do anything boring like cleaning the house; that's apparently my job.
Not much progress since last week on my argyles, so I'll use last week's picture.  I did finish the argyle pattern for the first sock and jumped to the ribbing for the second.  I'm a little concerned about whether I'll have enough blue.

On top of the snow days, both Steve's and my cars needed maintenance today, so we've been in and out of the dealership.  Steve worked from home this morning, but I had to laugh because he put Kleenex in his ears to block out the noise.  I'm really hoping for no snow days tomorrow, so I can at least have a half day of a quiet house and no complaints that there's "nothing to do!"

Monday, December 9, 2013

Design Wall Monday and Celtic Solstice #2 link-up

 Celtic Solstice is rolling along, and I have two of the cute little chevron units made so far!
 I cranked up the production line last night, and made about 25% of the "downhill" patches before going to bed. (I read left to right, so "downhill" to me means reading them from left to right, or what spinners call "s-twist."  This is complicated because when you look at the backside, they go uphill.  This is one of those mysteries where I have to think things through carefully and be very organized, because it would be very easy to go in the wrong direction.  That's why I'm going to do all the downhill units first and then the uphill ones.)
I finished cutting the greens but am still cutting the yellow and neutral squares.  I'm going a little darker or grayer for the greens, partly because that's what I have in my stash, and partly because that's what I like.  I hope that by the end of this mystery, I'll have tamed my current mountain of scraps.
And here is what I did Saturday; this is the APQquiltalong, a low-volume version of Burgoyne Surrounded.  I'm really liking it and wanting to do more blocks.  It will make a dent in my vintage sheets and shirtings.
Linking up to Celtic Solstice, Design Wall Monday, and I finally have stash to report:

Stash Report:
Fabric:
Fabric used this week: 8 yards (project not to be seen until Christmas!)
Fabric used year to date: 61 yards
Added this week: 0 yards
Added year to date: 49 yards
Net used for 2013: 12 yards

Knitting yarn:
Yarn used this week: 0 yards
Yarn used year to date: 10,900 yards
Yarn added this week: 0 yards
Yarn added year to date: 5800 yards
Net used for 2013: 5100 yards

Saturday, December 7, 2013

Randomday - Major Appliance Maintenance

Warning:  the following photo is not for the faint of heart.  This is what greeted me after emptying the fridge for its defrost and cleaning today.  Yes, I'm pretty sure there were a lot of different microorganisms growing in there.  I made Steve deal with the worst of it. Then I spent most of the day, on and off, cleaning and scrubbing.

It looks so much better now.  Our downstairs freezer is packed to the gills and the two coolers are holding most of the fridge contents.  I feel like I know my refrigerator a lot better.  I had never figured out how to take off the bottom grille before.  I found a set of Mickey and Minnie Mouse magnets and some ferocious dust bunnies.  This is only the second fridge we've bought in 21 years of marriage - the first one lasted from 1993 to 2007, and this one is still young by comparison.  But if I can get it working without churning out frost so much, it would be nice not to have to buy another for a few more years.  After we put the food back in it, I need to defrost the basement freezer.

In between the fridge cleaning there was a little sewing on my secret Christmas project, and I made a test block for the APQ quiltalong, and a tiny bit of Celtic Solstice.  I took Quarta to the library, did my two Latin assignments (but didn't touch my grading) and was present for watching 2 Dr. Who episodes and the last of The Sound of Music.

Yesterday was a bizarre weather day; it looked like a small dusting of snow in the morning, but it was quite a difficult commute to school for everyone, and the general consensus seems to be that it should have been a snow day, but it wasn't.  I grew up in an area where we always heard about "lake effect" snow but never actually got any ourselves.  Now, it appears that if conditions are just right we can get "river effect" snow from the Columbia.  Only, it doesn't happen very often.

Even the people who couldn't make it to school made it to yesterday evening's production of A Christmas Carol.  It was beautifully done.  Tertia couldn't stop chattering afterward about Mrs. M's makeup - she played the Ghost of Christmas Future, walked on stilts, and had skeletal makeup and a skeletal claw.  Definitely creepy.





Thursday, December 5, 2013

The Turning of the Holidays

Monday when I was laying out my units for Bonnie Hunter's Celtic Solstice mystery on the dining room table, I took this photo.  It encapsulates how I feel about this rather awkward time of the year.  I really should throw out those warty gourds and spread out the Christmas tablecloth, and get ready for Christmas with all the cleaning, baking, and decorating that entails.  Especially the cleaning.  Sigh.

I did a tiny bit of cleaning today.  It was mainly to demonstrate to my children how the chore chart is supposed to work.  Do you try a chore rotation with your kids?  Has it EVER worked?  My three at-home kids are supposed to rotate between sweeping the floor, dusting/picking up the living areas and feeding the pets, and unloading/reloading the dishwasher every morning for their "morning chores."  They get a different morning chore each week, so it stays the same for enough days that they should actually do it at least once a week.  It seems I do more nagging to remember to do their morning chores than I get to enjoy a nice tidy house.  So today I straightened and dusted and vacuumed the living room.  I had to empty the vacuum twice, it hadn't been done in so long.  Seems the "living spaces" person feels that the pets HAVE to get fed, so everything else is optional and therefore unimportant.  One day, and it will have to be when I am good and mad and ready to live with the drama that will follow, I really will follow through on my threats to dumpsterize anything left lying around.

I did a bunch of sewing on a certain Christmas project yesterday, attempting to withdraw to my sewing corner and listen to Bonnie Hunter on quiltcam while I sewed.  But the same instinct that draws toddlers to pound on the bathroom door when Mommy seeks refuge there seemed to draw the very people I was trying to keep from seeing my sewing projects to come ask me things like, "Is it okay if we store the leftover enchiladas in the pan?  And do we need to put a cover on it?"  or better still, "Do you think my hair is getting darker?"  "Would I look good driving a Saab?" (just kidding, the Saab question was from a week ago... but the hair question was last night.)

Thanksgiving and Christmas being holidays that revolve around food, I am rather concerned by the state of the fridge.  It is producing a lot of ice and snow that overflows into the fridge section (enough to cancel school in Clark County, probably) and the ice seems to have grown over the blower so the fridge section is not staying sufficiently cool, while the freezer section is super cold so that we can't buy a brick of ice cream any more because it would be, well, too bricklike to serve.  This weekend we are going to try a manual defrost experiment and move everything to a cooler (or outside, it's cold enough) while we try to get the fridge working adequately for the holidays.  The budget says it needs to last for another month or two until the next tuition payment is made, and then we might consider replacing it, because this ice thing is not totally new, just a lot worse than before.  In the meantime, I am buying dairy products in smaller quantities and manually removing the snow before it forms puddles on the bottom of the fridge.

We watched an episode of The Middle this week.  Secundus was scrutinizing me rather closely to see if I was crying as they dropped Axle off at college.  I do tend to cry during this show, I can't help it.  It's just a little too close to home sometimes.  Come to think of it, my mom used to cry during episodes of Roseanne, way back when.  We all looked at her funny, but I totally get it now.

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

WIP Wednesday; Yarn-Along

Wow, for a couple of weeks I haven't really had anything much going on in any of my hobbies, and now I've got stuff by the bucketload.  Feast or famine, I guess!
It's Roman Culture day in 7th grade, and we're talking about the role of women in Ancient Rome, so here is my spindle collection all ready to give the kids that want to a chance to try their hand at spinning.  All of them except the Kundert (2nd from right) were hand-made by me; the far right one is my iconic Ancient Roman spindle whorl, made of lead and purchased on Ebay, set on a dowel.  It doesn't actually spin very well, compared to the Tinkertoy ones.

If you are married to me or one of my sons, the next few pics contain potential spoilers.  On your own head be it; I'm far too tired to police these things.
Secundus' argyle.  I'm making very slow progress on these and they will not likely be done before Christmas.  But I did turn the heel of the first sock!  I consulted an old favorite book to remind me about how to turn the heel; it's crazy how I forget these things.  Also I did a review of How Civilizations Die yesterday, and I'm almost finished reading House of Hades, the latest in the Percy Jackson series.
I cut out 8 yards of fabric yesterday, and these will be for Christmas gifts.  I'm going to set up a production line and use black thread on all of them.  I've been meaning to do this for over a year.  It will feel good to use up so much fabric!
As many of you know, Bonnie Hunter's Celtic Solstice mystery is going on... here's the first clue, and I'm looking forward to the second coming out Friday. I'm making the smaller version, if 75" square can be considered "small."
 I'm also doing some cutting for what I hope will turn out to be another quilt-along, the one in the February issue of APQ magazine, for a low-volume Burgoyne Surrounded.  I find it oddly comforting to cut out fabrics for a scrappy quilt, and I'm slowly working on taming the mountain of scrap fabrics that has built up around my sewing area.
Since I haven't updated my design wall photo for awhile, I took this picture today.  Not much change, but the "nine" and "Nazgul" blocks have been added to my NAWWAL quilt and I made enough diamonds to complete one diamond of the scrappy String Star.  I'm going to think about the color progression this way and whether or not I want to change it.

Linking up to Yarn-Along and WIP Wednesday.  Go check out what others are doing!  Oh, and I just found out that next week is the famous giveaway day at Sew Mama Sew... get ready!