I’m so glad there are two weekend days.  The first one usually gets lost with TV, feeding everyone, a unproductive nap that leaves me more sleepy than before and just a little sewing.  I still have 5 1/2 hours left in ‘the day’, but there is still one more meal to provide and laundry piled up on the bed to fold.  I hope to get my Avalon block pieced tonight though, so another post may be warranted tomorrow!

Today, I got a small bit done.  Very small.  I added four sashing strips to Block 5 of Reach for the Stars.  I took the opportunity of changing the sheets on my guest bed to lay out all of my blocks now and take a quick picture:

I’m still so in love with this quilt and can’t wait to see it grow over the year.

Last night, I decided to add a decorative yo-yo to Block 5, using the background fabric from the block.  I like the results.  A little surprise!

I also started getting nervous about the state of my focus fabric, which is mostly obtained from a panel I purchased in the Palm Court collection by Benartex.  It isn’t the easiest fabric group to find, but I had purchased it, and other items from the collection, from Rossville Quilts.  I decided to get another panel so I could make it comfortably to the end of this quilt with as much fussy cutting as I wanted.

Here is the new panel:

And here is my Swiss Cheese panel, with still a bit of undisturbed design in the center that I will utilize soon.  Maybe I can find a way to use the stripe portion too:

Hope you are having a quilty weekend, or doing something that makes you happy!

Jennifer

Hi!  I feel a bit back to normal after doing some much anticipated piecework yesterday.  I had missed it and wished I had a few more Saturdays to keep it going.  Alas, work is back again tomorrow and today we try to focus on housework and homework.

I found Block 4 of Reach for the Stars to be much more complicated than it needed to be.  Here’s the center of the block:

My problem with the piecing was with the two longest white print strips in the center.  The middle section should be 6 1/2″ unfinished, but they wanted you to cut those strips 7 1/4″ long and then add triangles to the end.  I sewed, unsewed, sewed, unsewed, cussed a little, put it down, came back and decided that I knew how to make what I needed – just in my own way.  I cut the strips down to 6 1/2″ long and then sewed a square of fabric to each end, on the diagonal and did the stitch and flip method.  Perfect.  Easy.  The same thing applied to the other strips they wanted cut at 7 1/4″.  Just cut them 6 1/2″ and sew the squares on the end and trim the corners off.  Trust me on this.

Here is my finished Block #4.  I used more of my panel piece from Palm Court in the center, the black polka dot from Little Black Dress II, the small cream/black floral from American Gothic, and the light outer border and sashing strips are also from Little Black Dress II.    One of the interesting aspects of this quilt design is that four (?) of the blocks use a lighter sashing, and the others use almost a solid black.

So, that brings me to my center medallion and four blocks done.  I’m pretty sure the other two blocks in this months issue of Quilters Newsletter will go much faster.  I wanted to tackle Block 4 for two reasons yesterday – I can hardly stand to go out of order and I wanted to get the most difficult one done first.

Now – for a special progress parade from my two newfound quilt friends who are also doing Reach for the Stars!

First up is Jennifer Thacker from Houston, Texas.  Jennifer searched out for all of the original inspiration fabric and found most of it.  She has her center medallion done here:

Jennifer Thacker – Center Medallion

And has also completed her Block 1 (another tricky one I think)…

Jennifer Thacker – Block 1

She’s off to a great start.  I’ve invited her to a play date soon, and maybe we can work on this project together!  I would love a grown up play date!  Think about it Jennifer!

Sherri Crisp, from Knoxville, Tennessee is going gang busters on this quilt!  She started off on the center medallion as well, but then reconsidered her fabric placement and unpicked it to add more contrast.  Here is her parade of blocks!!

Sherri Crisp – Center Medallion

Sherri Crisp – Block 1

Sherri Crisp – Block 2

Sherri Crisp – Block 3

Sherri Crisp – Block 4

Sherri Crisp – Group Photo

Ladies – keep them coming!!  Finally, please hop over to Dawn’s blog, First Light Designs, to see her activity.  She loves this quilt so much, she is making it twice!!  In two different color ways!  Please check it out!  (for some reason my hyperlinks are not obvious anymore since my blog upgrade… so here is the URL for Dawn’s blog:  http://firstlightdesigns.com/)

I hope to see you again soon … I have my BOM delivery from Fat Quarter Shop due early this week … another Avalon house block to put together and I’ll be 75% of the way through the blocks!

Have a great Sunday and end to February (can you believe it??).  Thanks for stopping by!

Jennifer