While I've Been Away

Sorry I've been missing here lately. All is well, but a combination of gorgeous weather, many an early morning

cooking for extras, a road trip or two

Where we dined on an Austrian Sacher Torte...in a French cafe... in Texas. Does that make us worldly? Yeh, let's go with that.

, an electronic mutiny staged by our Internet provider, a non-functioning camera, and a willful phone, has reeked havoc with my blogging ability. But I can't really grumble when everyone is healthy and mornings start like this:

And everyone has a job to do that they love:

I went 6 weeks without sewing, with the exception of one 10 minute stretch and I thought is was about time I make up for some lost time.

 I managed to sneak in under the wire and get some sewing in during January even if it was the last day of the month. A bit of mindless sewing was in order:

These little strip blocks are part of a scrappy UFO. Thus far I have 130 and as I was stitching,  an idea popped into my head and I started scribbling down numbers, which led to more cutting, which led to more stitching of new blocks.

I made good use of my easy angle ruler which I found I love for making square in a square type of blocks. It only leaves you with one bias edge that you stitch to your square, leaving you with straight of grain edges in your block. Less wonkiness is always a good thing:

Squaring up blocks is not my favorite part of the process, but it really does make everything come together so much nicer. Still, 360 blocks makes for a lot of trimming!

I laid out a few blocks to see if I was going to end up with the old fashioned feel I was going for:

Is been given the seal of approval:

I also stitched some blocks into rows on my Christmas Tree Farm quilt. Once they were together, I decided I needed to...yes...make it bigger. So I went in search of the templates. I started where I had last seen them, but that was last year and they were no longer there. I know I stashed them somewhere during the great 'clean up the sewing piles before company comes for Christmas' marathon. It probably would have been easier to just make a new set, but I am stubborn that way and I DID eventually run into them. Then more fabric was pulled and cut and 14 more tree blocks were pieced. along with alternate Puss in Boots blocks. Borders were added and I'm digging for something suitable for a backing.

I've got 4 quilts at Jackie's and one at Shelly's in Missouri so finished quilts will be coming soon. Its been far too long since I finished a quilt. My FIL made me a new quilt ladder and it needs quilts!