Building Blue Boy Blocks

It's been rather quiet around here lately as I've been slogging through a lack of sewing mojo, trying to finish up my Mum's Christmas quilt and working on blocks for Kevin's quilt. Mum's quilt is so.damn.close to being done that it's almost painful. In fact, if I hadn't somehow miscounted / miscalculated how many white strips I had cut, it would be cut, basted and in the process of being quilted. I am one strip short. It's so frustrating I could scream. Grr. Argh.

Yup, that's how I feel.

But, besides that slight slip up I'm really pleased with how it is turning out. I stopped by my LQS over the weekend and picked up 3 yards of some gorgeous white minky with a scroll work pattern on it. It is so cuddly and soft, and I know that my Mum will love snuggling up on the sofa with it. I'm not really looking forward to dealing with all the fluff and fuzz that will be all over the house while I'm working with it. Oh well. I've put in a request for some more of the Bella Solid Bleached White at my LQS as it's on back order, and just ordered a yard of it today on Etsy so hopefully I'll be able to finish it up by the end of next week.

In addition to working on Mum's quilt I spent a big chunk of the weekend working on the blocks for Kevin's quilt. As I mentioned in this post I'm using the Orange Quilt Dimensions tutorial from Cluck Cluck Sew. I love the simplicity of this one - it looks so crisp and clean, and I'm absolutely loving the combination of blue on white. Over the weekend I got all of the blocks put together, and now I am working on squaring them up and hopefully will be able to start assembling the top this weekend.

I think I have finally mastered the art of chain piecing. It is such a time saver, and cuts down on thread waste so much. So glad I learnt this tip!

These little Gingher scissors have to be my favorite gift to myself.

I love the cute little leather sheath they came in.

I'm waiting to get all of the blocks trimmed before I take any pictures of them so hopefully you'll get to see them all next week.

Additionally the kit I ordered to make my Dad's quilt arrived this week and I can't wait to get started on it, though as always I'm dreading the joy that is the cutting process. Blech.

On top of all that I still need to whip up a table runner for Kevin's dad and his wife, and I really want to make some stuffed cat toys for our horde of fluffy minions fuzzy family using some fat quarters I got from the Hip Holiday collection by Josephine Kimberling. I adore this fabric collection and have been eyeing it enviously on several blogs that I follow. When I spied some fat quarters for sale on Etsy last week I finally broke down and treated myself to some. They're so pretty I'm almost sad to cut into them. Does anyone else have this problem??