elsie's life and stuff: it's summer, what can I say?

Sunday, July 1, 2012

it's summer, what can I say?

I've been pretty lax about posting lately. However, it is summer, and I've got a case of those "lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer"...without the crazy part.

Things have been moving along. I painted the hallway last week with paint leftover from painting my bedroom. Still need to do the baseboards and trim, but progress comes one step at a time. And I made some curtains for Elise and Lily's playhouse (no pictures).

And I've been working on some signature blocks for a swap on the HGTV message board. The signups for this swap were about a year ago, and I thought, why not? I'd have plenty of time. Right. We have to have 62 blocks turned in by the end of August, and I've finished sewing 25 of them. And I still have to sign them. Sigh. But I'll get there. At least they don't all have to be alike. Here's a sampling of what I have so far.

Then the other day I was out with one of my quilting buddies, Linda, and we visited a couple of our LQSs in the area. (That's local quilt shops for those of you not in the know.) We each got a book called Kaleidoscope Symphony by Marilyn Foreman. As I was looking at it, I knew the concept was similar to a project I started from the HGTV message board several years ago, but alas had not finished. Now with the book, I'm enthused to do something with the blocks I've already made. Basically you take a fabric that has about a 12" repeat, stack four of the repeats on top of each other, and cut out a square through all thicknesses. You then have 4 identical squares that you turn and stitch together to form the kaleidoscope effect.

Here's the book:

Here's a picture of what I have on hand as a UFO. At the bottom of the pic is the original fabric that these squares were cut from. Oh, and you'll also notice my foot in in the picture so you know I'm really the one taking the picture. The squares are sitting on some coordinating fabric that will be worked into the finished piece.