Mama Sparks is making a quilt for Matt, a recently injured soldier. She is going to follow a pattern for a patriotic star quilt by Mary. I was able to get 2 blocks completed and will send them off in the mail this afternoon.

I really like the way my patriotic strings blocks turned out. These 2 are a donation towards Matt's quilt, but I am going to keep making them for a project I'd like to begin. I love the idea of looking through my scraps of reds and blues for the appropriate fabric. It's also just plain fun piecing these when you don't have to think too much about matching up shapes! I love it almost as much as making crazy quilt blocks!

I wrote out a personal note to Matt to show concern while he is healing up his eye and his elbow. The flag art is something my 5th graders made this year in the month of October to get ready for the Veteran's Day Program at our school on November 11th. We enjoyed writing out song lyrics from patriotic music in the program, names of states, and messages of thanks to soldiers and veterans. I used my collage version to have some notecards printed up and they

come in handy for times like these.

I flipped over the blocks and wrote some messages for Matt that will always be with the quilt. I had seen some other donation blocks that were done this way. I figured with the muslin foundation under the red and blue fabrics I wouldn't have to worry about the ink bleeding through to the top.

Weekend Sewing Plans

Tonight I will be cutting some red and blue fabrics into strips that will work for a string block or two. I will donate at least one of them to a quilt that is being made for Matt, an injured soldier. If I like making them, perhaps I'll set some aside for myself to make.

I am all caught up with my blocks for both sizes of the Hazel Ilene Diary quilt along. Both versions are coming out beautifully. I live laying them out on the floor and moving them around in different arrangements. I think the fabrics I chose will work well in the same room. The fabrics have a lot of reds and tans. Shelly is having a give away of Mary Ellen's Best Press in a mini spray bottle. Anyone may have a chance to win by leaving Shelly a comment on her blog.

I will need to spend some time at school this weekend. Midquarter grades are due and Monday afternoon I am doing a tie dye workshop for all the 5th and 6th grade band members. It will be fun for the kids, but I have to mix up the dye and put it into the squirt bottles before Monday! I think I will do a pair of socks for myself. I have plenty of tie dye shirts already.

Happy Valentine's Day

I wanted to share with you a lovely valentine I received from Cathy of Hazelruthes blog. She has a birthday right before Valentine's day and she thought of the idea to do a handcrafted valentine swap. Last week a very pretty package arrived in my mailbox. After I opened the envelope I saw a very pretty package wrapped up in 2 red heart doilies. Inside I found this wonderful card, that had a lacy hanger tied to the top. Here is a photo of where I hung it up on my china hutch.

I spent the day sewing at my friend's house with another friend and my mom. We did some catching up on the Diary Quilt Along with Shelly P. My mom has a very pretty stripe, but it is not a simple match for making the binding on the bias. There was a complicated stripe pattern and it involved a lot of overlapping.

We also sewed up some cute little house blocks from a Thimbleberries pattern. We were a bit short on fabric for one of the house blocks that was supposed to be cut from the kit. However, we went ahead and tried one block anyway. No way was there enough fabric for 3 blocks! The other kit was fine and we were able to get 3 more blocks. It was a fun afternoon of sewing!

Tiniest Scraps for Collages

Wanda from Exuberant Color writes her blog with such care and diligence. It is always inspiring to see how lovely her block settings turn out. I really enjoy seeing her beautiful combinations of light and dark values to carry out the design in her quilts. I look forward to seeing her posts in my reader on a daily basis. They are usually published early in the morning, so I often see it before I go off to school to teach my art classes.

This week she wrote about how she was using up some of her smallest scraps in a very colorful strip quilt and she was saying that she may get rid of the narrowest scraps.

She is so generously offering to send some of her batiks and Kaffe Fassett narrow trimmings right to my school! How delightful! We will be doing up our collages this spring in designer style! I am so happy!!!

Getting Back on Track

I was feeling a bit behind in several of my projects. Life and work kept me busy for 5 or 6 days and I was unable to do much with my crafts, projects, and leisure activities. We had a big exhibit of school work at the mall and many activities went along with that. Our school also took a winter fun day at a historical nature center. It was a blast, but holding back an anxious child on a sled with a steep hill takes a lot of energy.

On Sunday my local quilt shop had their annual sale, the biggest one of the year. It was the Super Bowl of Sales. It is a little complicated and it has a lot of parts and percentages. But it basically came down to taking 2 shopping bags home. Shown here in this photo is some of the most interesting fabrics and boxed sets of tiny charm packs that I chose at the sale!

Now after a relatively quiet Monday, I feel more caught up on my own projects.

I did seven days of work for the Hazel Ilene's Diary quilt along and I finished assembling a cute valentine for a swap. On Saturday I will attend my Thimbleberries club meeting and I have my 2 pine tree blocks completed.