Strip Exchanges

I am completely in love with Edyta Sitar's latest book, "Friendship Strips and Scraps".

The first quilt I fell for was the spools.  A few of my guild friends were also hooked, so we organized a strip exchange.  We're each cutting 40 1" strips and will mix them all up and return them to participants in November.

When we were up at Kinderhook a few weeks back, we saw another quilt from this book at The Hickory Stick in Hannibal, MO.  Of course we decided we needed to do that one, too...



We have a group of 13 people that are going to exchange smaller strips for this one.  We are combining batiks and prints for this exhange.  The quilt in the photo has Civil War reproductions, batiks, and miscellaneous other fabrics and is absolutely gorgeous.  We're going to trade these strips a bit sooner.  I can't wait to get started on this project!

New & Old

I was lucky to have the opportunity to spend a few hours here and there sewing at a friend's house last week.  Although I wasn't able to devote a lot of time to "retreating", I did make a bit of progress on a couple of blocks.  I tried my hand at back-basting on one of the Applique Affair blocks:

While I am happy with how the block turned out, I have pretty much convinced myself that back-basting is not for me!  It took far longer to trace the pattern onto the back of the fabric and baste everything than it would have to just trace freeer paper templates and trace the patterns onto my fabric.  And I didn't find that I could follow the thread holes (I had to "connect the dots" with a pencil), and I also didn't find that the fabric turned any better.  I'm glad that I gave it a serious try, but I think I will go back to my old way.

I also had a chance to finish up block one and prep block two of this year's BOW. It's a lot more involved than the little blocks were last year, but I am very happy with how it is turning out:

I also had a chance to spend time in the sewing room over the weekend, and even hooked with a friend on Saturday night.  More on that progress later...

State Fair

I actually got my act together in time to ship rugs to the Illinois State Fair this year! It is really a shame that more people don't participate. There weren't many hooked items this year. My rugs took 2nd and 3rd. First place went to a very nice fine-shaded rooster. We went up to the fair on Friday. It's been at least two years since we've attended.  We had a great time! 

It was difficult to get a good picture through the glass...

Now I just have to keep my fingers crossed that they both make it home safely!