Just a Couple Things . . .

First, if you haven't stopped by for a few days, you will probably want to scroll down a couple posts and check out the quilt pattern by Hen House Designs/Monice Moffat.  She's given me a pattern to give away to one of you and there's a link to her Etsy shop you might also be interested in if her style appeals to you as much as it does to me!

When I quilt, I always have the TV on something, and much of the time, it's just background "noise" more or less.  And I'll watch just about everything, but I never thought I'd get into anything "redneck," "cars," or "swamp" related . . . until now.  Now I'm oddly hooked on Duck Dynasty.  Tonight, for instance, I found it hard to pull myself away from Willie, Jase, and Si.  There was some sort of Duck Dynasty marathon--and it didn't matter whether the episodes were ones I'd seen before or ones I hadn't seen.  If I didn't have to go to work in the morning, I'd still be watching.  How about you?  Have you seen Duck Dynasty?

I wanted to pass on this idea someone had mentioned to me some years ago--you may or may not already be aware of it, but just in case . . . .  You can purchase adjustable magnetic curtain rods and use them to hang quilts on metal doors, the refrigerator, a dishwasher, etc.  I was told they were available at WalMart and that's where I found mine but I suspect other stores carry them.  (This is the door from the kitchen to the garage.)  It's nice to be able to decorate a door with a small quilt.  When I first brought it home, Hubby thought the rod would fall off the door when it opened and closed; it's always a point of satisfaction when his doom and gloom predictions don't pan out!  So far, so good!

Florence left me a comment saying she always makes just as many blocks as she needs for a project and she's surprised when I make little projects like the patriotic mug mat from random blocks and half square triangles, so I thought I'd explain.  Sometimes when I'm playing around with a design idea, something won't turn out right--or even when it's not my own design, after I get some blocks and sashing up on the design wall, I'll decide a color or pattern just doesn't look like I expected.  So I start again and end up with some stray blocks to play with.  That doesn't happen very often though.  What DOES happen a fair amount is that I seem to make a lot of flying geese blocks and I like the method where you sew squares on the diagonal to a background piece and fold the corners back, then trim away the underneath layers.  If I'm feeling kind of frugal, I'll sew a second seam, so when I trim away the excess layers, I trim between the two seam lines.  The "discarded" pieces then form "extra" half square triangles.  If I'm sewing flying geese where those side squares measure 2-1/2", I can usually trim the half square triangles to measure 1-3/4" or even larger.  It doesn't seem to take very much more time except the trimming part, and I usually work on trimming when I've finished whatever my main project for the evening was, but Duck Dynasty isn't quite over yet.  Hey!  Win, win, right?  That's what I thought.