This, That, and the Other

I have a couple things to talk about and none of them go together! First, in the news . . .

Here in Sacramento there's an annual football game that takes place around Superbowl time, I think--it's called Guns and Hoses, and it's the police/sheriffs against the firefighters. The money raised goes to some kind of charity, I believe, but sadly I've never been very interested in going to one of the games. (Why? Why don't I want to go see a bunch of hunky-looking, heroic-type men in tights? Am I nuts?!! Note to self: Rethink this Guns and Hoses thing. Talk to Gran, Orcsmom, and Colleen. After all, it's for CHARITY!)

Today the law enforcement team was practicing on the field of a local high school--in fact, it's the high school my kids attended and within a couple miles of my home. As they were practicing, two men ran into the field, chased by a couple of uniformed officers. Yep, you probably guessed it already. The football player cops attempted to stop the running dudes and finally tackled them--turned out they were suspects in an attempted burglary and were trying to escape the uniformed cops. What a great stupid criminal story, huh?! You can see the news story HERE.

Now, on to the quilt stuff. A couple of you have left comments asking about the Valentine's tabletopper, so I thought I'd post some directions. It was super simple to make and probably took less than a weekend from starting it to getting it quilted, bound, and on the table.

I began with three matching charm packs with around 30 squares in each pack. I cut the squares in the first pack to 4-1/4". With the other two packs, I paired up the squares from each and cut them on the diagonal. Simple so far?

For each dark 4-1/4" center square, I paired it with four matching light triangles. For each light 4-1/4" center square, I paired it with four matching dark triangles. I then sewed the triangles (seam on bias edge of triangles) to the center squares and pressed open. I suspect I then trimmed them all a little bit to 6-1/2". For the setting, I arranged the blocks in five rows, five blocks in each row, for a total of 25 blocks. I alternated light center, dark center, etc. I pieced the leftover blocks into the back. Finally, I added a 4-1/4" border. Here's the photo again so you can see what I'm talking about:

When I quilted the topper, I just made free motion hearts in each block--I'm pretty sure we all knew how to draw hearts by the time we were 7 years old, so quilting them free motion is one of the simplest things! I started with a smallish heart in the center of each block and echoed the quilt line around and around until it filled the block--then I stopped the stitch line and moved to the next block.

At the Bearpaws open house yesterday, I mentioned the red and white baskets I was working on and I realized I hadn't posted a photo of my progress--three baskets appliqued; ten to go. Not too bad, I think! So, finally tonight, I thought I'd show you a photo--

If you look, you can probably see how I've used the same basic floral shapes but in different colors and different arrangements--I think this idea is working out pretty well to give the baskets variety without being too different from one another.

Time for bed--thanks for stopping in to visit!