Truly! I've Been Busy!

Last weekend I spent a 4 wonderful days with 8 other women at quilt retreat. Due to it being a small number of attendees, we were bumped into a room that I was not familiar with. Turned out to be a beautiful place for us to sew, sew, sew! The room was octagonal with huge picture windows on the south side. We saw deer & wild turkeys. Right as I was pulling in, the freezing rain started to fall = perfect timing! By evening, our cars were all iced up. Who cares? We were there to quilt!

So what did I get done? So glad you asked! I got the centers appliqued down on all 18 dresdens and then appliqued to their 5" background squares. This is my Dirty Dozen #9 and also my 2020 UFO Challenge  for January/February with my LQS. Amazingly enough it is also on my 2020 PHD list! It's called A Very Merry  Christmas QAL from Suzn Quilts.

I've cut out almost everything for the ten red thread blocks and the green ones will be next. There will also be stars & 9-patches before this is done.

Angela from SoScrappy has chosen light/bright green for the 2020 Rainbow Scrap Challenge for January. I decided that I need to make 9 of these blocks each month for 9 months. The blocks are 6" finished and there is sashing which form the secondary churn dash blocks. I've got BUNCHES of black & white polka dot fabric that I believe I inherited from one of my deceased quilting friends. I'll think of Marie as I use this fabric from my stash. The pattern I'm using is called Awesome Land and it is from the book "Oh Scrap!" by Lissa Alexander. Such a wonderful book with so many ideas!!! Thank you, Sarah, AGAIN for this wonderful book!

At retreat I thought I had enough fabric ready to assemble the nine blocks but it turns out one of my green strips wasn't as wide as I thought. So here are the eight that I did finish!

My friend Edie was happily sewing together her Frolic blocks by Bonnie Hunter and I walked over to admire her progress. And what did I spy? A beautiful green fabric that Edie was no longer using. I told her that I would really love a 2-1/2" x 12" piece and she told me to take what I need. This is what became of that strip when I got home.

Isn't that green wonderful???!!! Thank you, Edie!

The main project I worked on at retreat was Shark Bite. It started as a leader & ender project with Bonnie Hunter on her Quiltville blog a couple years ago. Earlier I had seen a similar project on an American Patchwork & Quilting magazine that I loved also. The difference between the two: Bonnie used 4-patches and AP&Q used HSTs. The gorgeous turquoise fabric? It's a Jinny Beyer fabric that I managed to have my sister pick up for me quite some time ago. In the middle of this 2-3 year long project, I ran out of the turquoise and so did the original store. I contacted Jinny Beyer's shop and successfully got my hand on more.

This quilt has 121 blocks. 61 blocks have the "teeth" going one way and 60 blocks have the "teeth" going the other way. So glad I tried laying it out when I only had about 30 blocks made. Easy to catch up the alternate blocks that I didn't realize I would need! The blocks were all ready when I arrived at retreat, just needed to sew them all together. The quilt is 11 X 11 blocks, the blocks are 8". Do the math = 88" X 88". Still need to put a narrow border on it to finish it off and I think I have enough turquoise for the binding.

Such a big quilt. It was hard to get a picture of the whole thing. I'm really loving this one!

I also finished knitting a pair of socks. Picture later as they need to be blocked first.

One last couple of pictures that warmed my heart.

Gracie was so happy to see me when I returned home. Such a greeting followed by falling asleep with her bone on her paws.

And my Big Boy, Brody, sitting up all by himself. Can't believe how fast he's growing up! Seven and a half months old and wearing size 18 months clothes!

And Polly loving her morning nap on my fluffy robe. Life is good at the Hoover house!

Linking up with Angela and all the 2020 RSC quilters at Scrappy Saturday! Only a few more days to sew using green. Angela announced early that February's color will be ORANGE!