Palooza Blocks, Snow, and Design Board!

Today I am going to make three pairs of the AMH pattern "Quick Change Trousers" for Gregory. I pulled out some oldies from my stash as well as a recent swap and some pieces from my haul with Sew Fresh. I decided I better make these soon because my son is growing so fast and the 24 mos size he is wearing now is none too big (he is almost 16 months). I think I have a good chance of getting a lot of sewing done today because the Air Force base is closed due to snow - another paid day off for my hubby! This is the only good thing about these constant snowstorms- I think I have gained about 10 lbs and am tempted, more than usual, to buy fabric online. Can someone say cabin fever?

This picture was taken yesterday in our backyard.

I took inventory of my completed quilts last night - I have seven with no immediate purpose - most of them baby size. I finished four of these in the month of January!

I calculated how many dresden plates I needed for my African heart quilt - I needed 600. I am now in the process of snipping the corners, inverting them with a chopstick, and ironing them flat. I keep telling myself, "To be a quilter, one must be okay with repetition."

What does one do with a 4 yd piece of slightly aged (dusty and wrinkled) flannel they bought at a yard sale this past summer? Why make a design board in their kitchen/sewing area of course! I am seriously loving it. We are running out of space in our apartment and all these piles of blocks had no home - so it was a great solution.

Here is block #3 of the Blogger's Blockapalooza. I finally perfected my 1/4" seam and fixed the first block too.

I finished this Blogger's Palooza block about a week ago. It has 81 tiny 2" squares. It came out nice looking but I don't think I want to tackle this kind of block again. My dreams of doing this quilt are over. I also finished this "UFO" a week ago. I now have only 6 quilt tops left to be quilted. I have allowed myself to start some "newer" projects now that I have caught up on so many of them. It feels so good to get these off of the "to do" list and it has been great practice in doing free motion quilting.

I did "cross-over" stipping on this. Pretty easy pattern but difficult to keep the "scale" consistent.

I backed it with a piece of Timeless Treasures banana fabric I had bought at a quilting yard sale over one year ago. My nephew has a twin to this blanket - I had made too many blocks and thus had an "extra" quilt top.

Thanks for reading this long - I thought about trying to split these pictures into different posts but decided if I didn't write too much - you would stay with me. Happy sewing!