{Post 1,123} Fifty-Six Wild Geese

I am trying out some layouts for my geese.  I don't want them side by side because the quilt would be soooo heavy with all the tiny pieces, plus the seams won't nest.

Not crazy about this layout on the gold fabric.  Notice I have all the geese flying out horizontally from the center.

{Post 1,122} Forty-five Wild Geese

I have enjoyed making the last few of these blocks so much more than the first!  On the trip to my FIL's surprise 80th birthday party, I tamed all my stash of shirts, Thimbleberries, and some random leftovers from baby quilts, etc.  Now I just reach into the appropriate pile and get the right sized piece for paper piecing.  So fast, and much less waste.

Don't really have a plan for these other than to tame my overabundant stash of scraps.  Making little plastic templates really helped as well.  When I eye-ball a piece, it's sort of like putting leftovers away...the container is always way too big for the amount of food!

These are 4" unfinished:

{Post 1,121} Scrappy Selvage String Spiderweb Top Finished

Pushed through yesterday afternoon to get both the outer borders on this quilt.  I already have a quilting pattern in my brain, so I might get started on quilting this soon.  It is about 80" square.

Here is an all-over shot and 2 close-ups:

My plan here was to 1.  use selvages.  2.  use up a bunch of the bright blue fabric (which the back will be made from as well).  3.  make a rainbow theme (please tell me you noticed the stars are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet diagonally).

Now to quilt and deliver.

{Post 1,120} Bed Pillow Finished

A decorator I am not.  But I wannabe!!  Those of you who have been patiently reading along have seen the lovely quilted pillow shams I've made for my everyday bedding and my Christmas quilt.  Well, I thought it would look better with a red rectangular pillow in front of the shams.  This is not exactly the look I wanted, but it's close enough for now.  I thought it would be taller.  It is a plump little pillow, not too much unlike a sausage!

Without and with:

The two quilts I'd use it with have different reds, so I decided (after much contemplation) to make a top using many different reds.  The dark chunk on the right side stands out too much (not as much in person as in the picture), but it's good for now.  When my teenage daughter came in my room and said "love the new pillow", I figured finished is good!

{Post 1,119} Wild Goose Blocks

These little blocks are paper pieced.  Last night I had an epiphany about them.  I don't like paper piecing because I hate to waste even the tiniest bits of fabric.  I don't like digging around to see what size piece best fits the place that I need a scrap of fabric to fit!

So last night before I took my daughter to karate, I cut plastic templates for the 3 sizes of pieces in this block.  I took my scrap box and cut cut cut the whole 75 minutes I was there.  I got nearly all the box tamed!  So now I'm going to add to it a handful at a time from my color boxes (only the smallest pieces).  I made it easy peasy.  I used Ziploc sandwich bag with the piece written in large letters on the outside.  I cut the biggest template I could out of each chunk of fabric.  Now when I sew, I will know which bag to look in.  

I don't have a goal for how these blocks are used.  I am just going to keep making them.  I drew the pattern myself.  They are 4" square unfinished.  Soooo cute in person!  Mostly Thimbleberries, but a smackerel of shirts and oddballs that sneaked in there somehow!

{Post 1,118} Surprise Squishy!

Yesterday I received a squishy envelope from my b-friend at the Country Log Cabin.  She hadn't told me she was sending me anything, so that just increased the anticipation.  You know when you get an unexpected envelope from a blogging friend, it has to be good, right?

It was full of selvages (with lots of the fabric showing!).  How did she know I was working on these for my dear daughter in Wisconsin?  There are 6 rows total.  The leftmost row is folded under to make it fit on the design wall.  The 3 rows on the right are just lying there, waiting to be joined to the mother ship.

Below is my sad little selvage box...it's nearly empty!  My new selvages are going to beef it up quite a bit!  Thanks, Country Log Cabin lady ;)

{Post 1,117} Painting Update

Here's Rachel's room.  I got the paint mixed early this AM at Lowe's.  I cut in and rolled the first wall.  It looked great.  

When I added paint to my roller tray and paint cup, it looked like a different color...pinker than the grape popsicle color I used earlier.  Hmmm...was it just my imagination?  Unfortunately, no.  I did the second wall.  

When I got to the third, I had to add more to the paint cup but not the roller tray.  Now there was a definite difference.  I was very discouraged as I had been painting for 5 hours already.  So I went to Lowe's and had them mix up a quart of grape popsicle and add it to what I had left in the gallon container and mix that.  I did the fourth wall (the one with the air conditioning ducts on it if you know the room).  That one has lots of cutting in.  I painted the whole small walls around the ducts with a brush.  Arm yelling ouch!  

I will repaint the whole wall with the different color cutting in and walls on Monday.  Right now my arms and neck are aching.  I just can't stop when I'm doing a huge job.  I should have.  I'm eager for Rachel to set the room to rights.  It looks like several natural disasters happened in there.  See the pics for evidence.

The first one is just the primer color so you can see the difference the paint makes (the paint looks a lot darker in person):