California Girl in Oz

I've chosen the pale pink dots for the sashing, and I'm liking it a lot. Also a mottled raspberry pink for the cornerstones...I'm hoping the regularity of the sashing and cornerstones will tone down the multiple colors a bit. Here's how it's looking, laying on the floor in the quilting studio. Now for the fun of sewing all those bits on, and then trying to choose setting triangles. Can you tell I'm avoiding the stress of piecing the wishes? Actually, I've printed off Tonya's tutorials and am reading them again. More on that front soon. In fact, I'm not going to post any more pics of this quilt until I'm ready to start on the wishes. Feeling the need for something simple, I decided to start a pair of socks that I can wear with sandals. (Rumor has it that warm weather will arrive here soon...I'll believe it when I see it!) These are Grumperina's Jaywalker pattern, which I love a lot. I've already made two regular pairs of Ja

So, as you can see, I made a little change...decided to make more stars and leave out the plain blocks between. I've not got 32 blocks, enough for the design I want to do. This doesn't show the sashing and cornerstones, because I haven't decided on what fabrics to use yet, but it feels good to have the pieced blocks finished. And I made a tiny start on Tonya's words...actually, I decided to wing it first, so I could learn about the issues on my own. This little "LOVE" is my first attempt, and it's pretty poor, but now I have enough confidence to print out Tonya's instructions and make a real start. Here are the ten wishes I'm thinking of putting in the borders of this quilt, which would then be called Ten Wishes for Tessabell: love, joy, peace, hope, kindness, humor, grace, spirit, patience, grit. I'm nearly in a faint, just thinking about actually making all these words, though -- anyone got better suggestions (for SHORTER wishes!)?

Only four more blocks to be made, and then the fun begins: So there's good progress on the Pale Stars quilt for Tess. Wanna see some up close? These are such fun 6" blocks. I'm planning to set them on-point, with maybe pale pink or pink on white sashing, and cornerstones of various pinks or maybe multicolored. What do you think? And I'm toying with the idea of making pieced words for the border, a la Tonya , with the words being "wishes" for Tess's life. Here's a scribbled look at what I'm thinking. Now the challenge will be to come up with words that will be meaningful, but that aren't too long. As this will be my first attempt at pieced words, I don't want to get TOO ambitious. When I need to take a break from all the bright colors in the quilt, I revert to a knitting project: Gentleman's Fancy Socks, from Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks. These are on 2.25mm needles, using a lovely "creamed spinach" wool from Page

But first, before we get to the quilting news of the day, here's the Pink Misti Alpaca Shawl finished. Not blocked yet, but I need to work out something to use as blocking wires first. It's pretty big, even unblocked: 19" x 65", and it's supposed to be about 22 x 78 when blocked. We'll see about that. I'm worried about getting all those points going in the right direction, but I'm thrilled it's finished and beautiful. And now...without further ado...quilt news! I hauled out all the tubs and started ratting through, looking for pretty, "girly" colors. It's shocking to me how many different fabrics I have...no trouble at all in coming up with several pinks in pale, medium and dark...or blue, or green, or orange, or turquoise...seem to be a bit low on yellows. And cutting things up is always fun. DH always wonders why we buy big pieces of fabric, cut them up and then sew them back together...doesn't make sense to him. Men!