Scraps . . .

of things to talk about today. First off, it's back to work for me. Do you feel my pain? Back to the "kids" to see what they've been up to, and I'm pretty sure it means a good amount of work for me, but I guess that's what allows me to pay bills and buy fabric! Tomorrow night I have my Jo's Little Women Club and I haven't made this month's project, a journal cover--too many other projects calling out for my attention. In fact, I haven't made any of the projects for the last two months because I was working on my Quilter's Hollow Retreat (aka "The Monster"), so I'll take that along with me for show and tell, even though it's nothing like the cute little Jo Morton projects!

May Britt asked me about the roses in the center of the Round Robin quilt, and I mentioned to her that I had made another quilt using the same kind of roses. She asked me to post a photo, and we all know that May MUST BE OBEYED! If you read her blog, you know May is recovering from shoulder surgery and planning all sorts of new projects while she recuperates, so I thought I'd show this one:

Here's another closer shot of part of the quilt.

The roses are fairly easy to make. Start with a center and sew on scrappy strips, pressing each back as you go around and around. Vary the colors of the fabric a little so you get some petal definition. Once you have your "rose" large enough, trim the edges a bit so they look more like petals and applique them on.

I've been working on an older applique project in the evenings and watching movies with my husband while I sew. Last night we watched The Painted Veil which I thought was a really excellent film! It's set around 1925 in China and it "feels" like a real old-fashioned movie. If you're looking for something good to watch, rent this one. We also watched The Queen the other night and thought that was quite good too, but it didn't touch the heart the way The Painted Veil does--sorry about the too-dark photo. Hey, I'm a quilter, not a photographer!

I've found my Hometown Christmas kit! Woo-hoo! I was all ready to cut into it when I remembered that there were things I wanted to change, so I'm taking a little time to look at the pattern and try to remember what those things were. We now have 12 of us working on this project (along with a few others who don't have blogs to link to), and you'll see in my sidebar that in the last couple days, I've added several quilters' blogs. Tina, Cathy, Patty, Beth, and Michele are all members of my online group and have just started blogs. Check them out if you get a minute!

And look what I found when I went looking for my Hometown Christmas kit!

These are the blocks for a much older Thimbleberries BOM, The Quilters' Garden. I had made all the blocks but wanted to set them differently, so I put them aside. This photo shows the "original" configuration of the quilt minus the setting triangles and borders, but I still want to do something different. I'm going to leave it on my design wall for now and think about how I might want to set these. I don't think I'll use those pre-printed squares, but I thought I'd stick them up there for the time being.

That's about it for today, I think. See you tomorrow!