AHIQ monthly report and my a busy four days!

First, I have to thank Hilda and Vicki of http://www.colorwaysbyvicki.com/ for their help yesterday to get the links live for the blog tour of Rayna Gillman's new book Create your own Improv Quilts". Today you can leave a comment on Victoria Findlay Wolfe's blog http://bumblebeansinc.blogspot.com/ thru Dec. 8th for a chance to win an electronic copy of Rayna's book.

My four day weekend involved sewing, lots of cleaning, laundry, and a bit of shopping. I will write about the sewing! Lately I have been making herringbone quilts which is not improv piecing, but left with lots of small pieces and with trying to start using up my mountain of scraps I decided to dig out the pink scraps to see what I had to work with. I think this fits into the spirit of the AHIQ philosophy of using what you have. I had leftover 6 1/2" blocks from making zig zag quilts and it was time to put them on the design wall to see how many I had. I did find some strips of pink and Kona snow that were in the box so it was time to sew those together and cut blocks.

Then there is almost always a dab left of the strip so I found a bunch of those in the scrap box and cut 5 1/2" blocks for another baby quilt.

I found a few pieces of leftover binding just big enough to sew into a block and cut at either 5 6 1/2" or 5 1/2".

I continued finding scraps, sewing them with the Kona snow, and trimming them into blocks. By the end of the day Friday I had three step zig zag baby quilt tops. I got one of them sewn together Sunday and here they are:

With all of this effort sewing bits and pieces together to make blocks, the scrap box still looks about the same - FULL! It is going to take some serious sewing to make a dent in my scrap pile! I did find some other little gems aka scraps in the scrap pile that I plan on making into baby quilts.

I did mostly on-line shopping for stuff for myself this weekend. The sales were too good to pass up! I don't spend much money on clothes, but it was time to get a few new things including a couple shirts and pants that were 30% to 40% off and free shipping. Superior had discounted their King Tut because they are changing colors around. The cones were 30% off so I bought a blue for when I get into making blue baby quilts and the darker colors for t-shirts quilts. Of course I bought enough I got free shipping too!

I did breakdown and go to a brick and mortar store. JoAnn's had embroidery floss on sale so I stocked up for my next t-shirt quilt for the High Art Prize.

I got a few one yard pieces of flannel. I have been trying to use up what flannel I have, but I need just a bit more to make a decent sized quilt.

Then I got a bit of this Cleveland Indians fabric just because.

I have the gray and pink herringbone quilt quilted. I used a light gray thread. Tonight I will work on binding it

My birthday was earlier this month and yesterday I got a present from my sister with a beautiful card. She knows how like minions so now I have a minion Xmas ornament! She bought us matching bracelets. I will think of her every time I wear it.