I’ve been broadening my podcast horizons lately and have started listening to the “Modern Sewciety” podcast and I love it, Stephanie has such a lovely way of chatting with her guests about quilting and the quilt world (which I admittedly do not know much about). I have made a number of quilts over the years but would not consider myself a “quilter” because, well, I didn’t use an established pattern, I made everything up and made my own patterns. And, I don’t quilt as in put the three layers together and hand stitch them on a quilting frame the size of my dining room table…no thank you. I have quilted smaller quilts on my home sewing machine, tied a number of larger quilts and sent one out to Nebraska to be machine quilted, hmmm funny still didn’t consider myself a quilter. Well, I guess that is all about to change with this quilt-a-long I heard about on Stephanie’s podcast a few weeks ago. I’m embarking on the Modern Half Square Triangle (HST) Quilt Along this year courtesy of Alyce at Blossom Heart Quilts .
2 blocks per month x 12 months will equal enough squares for a nice sized quilt. I’ve pulled fabrics from my stash and purchased just a few pieces to round out the color palette, I’ve also purchased a light grey fabric with white printing that will be the background fabric in each block, I am waiting until the top is done to decide on the sashing and binding fabrics.
Aren’t they pretty?! I went with very highly saturated colors for the most part which I think will give some nice contrast against the background.
Aaanndd….here is my first block! Yay! I have had that dark blue fabric for YEARS! I’ve been hoarding it as it’s one of my all-time favorites but now it has found it’s perfect home as part of the new quilt! The block is a little rough around the edges as I need to “true” the block up, I’m waiting to do that until I purchase a 12.5″ square ruler specifically to that task. But it’s done! It didn’t take forever! It didn’t make a huge mess! Everything went back onto the shelf until it’s time for the next block! Win Win Win!
What have you been making this weekend?!
Looked great!! Of course it did, fit just like I’d planned. So excited to have drawers! So many I’m not even sure what I’m going to put in them (ha ha ha). On my list of things to do was to clear out the shelves and re-organize them, and take down all my notes on the wall from 2015. 
Yay organizing project. In addition to cleaning out, I found $6, and a bracket for the shade I would like to hang on the driveway side window (hopeful bracket #2 will turn up soon), and I cleaned. I am going to swap the workstations with sewing on the right with the ironing board behind me and computer/memorykeeping on the left. All was going swimmingly, until the subject of this came up… 
and yes, people I went down that path. I thought I’ll just put a coat of poly on the top so I don’t mess it up. Um no…. old poly, wrong brush means took for.ev.er. to dry and didn’t cover well. One new fresh can of poly later (read on the This Old House blog you should 
Put the stuff back in that’s been junking up the upstairs hall. 
So excited, can’t wait to work on one long continuous counter, spread out my fabric or my projects, a home for the scanner and maybe the tablet, this is going to be great! Or not, wait, it seems a little low for me. Get out the tape, measure, yup, the worktop needs to come up 1″ – 1 1/2″, and I need a big piece of something for on top of the cart to make up the space on the back that won’t be covered by the top, since I have to move it forward to the edge of the drawers (overhang = not getting into the back of those drawers) *sigh*
Charlie joked that I used it 3 times the first week I had it… and the problem with that would be???? I thought it might be fun to share what I’ve been making in my new toy this year. We are in the season of basketball now and I am finding that planning a soup/stew item and a casserole that can be time-baked in the oven gets us through the dinner hour on the nights we are out over dinnertime and want to come home to a hot meal. It worked during soccer season and seems to be working so far for hoop.
Chili for the win! This one was deemed a keeper. My alterations were chicken stock rather than beer and the aforementioned reduction in chipotle peppers (love the flavor need to moderate the heat). I also tried using some boneless chicken thighs instead of some of the chicken breasts…won’t be doing that again, waaaay too much trimming for the picky eaters so chicken breast it will be next time I make this. I highly recommend, give it a try!!
triggsey 