1 week later - a pineapple update

I have finished 12 Pineapple blocks. I will be making a total of 16 for the quilt and it will be finished as a square instead of a rectangle because I have discovered I don't have enough background fabric to make 24 blocks. It's good to be flexible when you are making a quilt. 

Here is a 4 block unit. All that's left to do is make 4 more blocks and 3 more 4 block units. Then find a border and the top is ready to quilt. I was thinking of doing a white border, but I just spied a Kaffe Fasset fabric in my collection that might make a better, brighter border.

Getting Organized

The first day of spring and it's snow again in DC. Snow days mean sew days for a quilter. I took the time to organize my strips to make a new quilt. It is called Pineapple Rings and I am using my Pineapple Trim Tool by Creative Grids© to make the 10" pineapple blocks. Here is what my sewing space looked like as I organized it to sew the blocks.

I have started using a sectioned flatware tray to organize my strips before I start to sew. the tray helps me keep my strips in order by color so I can select just the right one to add next. I always post a picture of my projects before I start to sew to keep my plan clearly in view. Pineapple Rings will be a pattern available about mid-May. The Pineapple Trim Tool is available on my website www.jeanannquilts.com

All the way to Australia

Life is great when you have good friends. My good friend, Michelle Corliss, sold my house before I even put it on the market. Michelle is a realtor and helping me get the house ready to sell when she invited a couple over to see the house before it was listed. In three days it was sold! What a blessing.

Now, how to to say thank you to Michelle? Easy! Michelle was about to travel to Australia to meet new  twin granddaughters. I had almost matching log cabin quilts. Both quilts were squeezed into Michelle's suitcase and flew off to greet the twins "down under".

Here are the twins enjoying some play time (or is it nap time) on one of the quilts. The individual blocks are 8" so you can see how tiny the twins are.

Here is the Lickety Split Log Cabin quilt, made with my original Log Cabin Trim Tool. The pattern and tool are available on my website www.jeanannquilts.com

Snow Day

What do you do in Washington DC when the snow is almost blizzard level, the sidewalks and roads are icy dangerous for driving or walking? Stay home and sew of course. First I want to show you the bus that slid off the street onto the snowy lawn across the street. This is the view from my apartment window. It took about two hours to get the bus back on the road.

My apartment window faces Connecticut Ave so I had a full view of the action (or lack of it) outside while I was sewing my very own Courthouse Twist table runner. I finished four blocks because I had to find and sort my batiks (they were under my bed in a sliding plastic box). I managed to finish four blocks, took an iphone photo of them and then duplicated them to get an idea of what my finished runner would look like. This is a good way to have a peek-a-boo at a finished project before sewing all of the blocks. I am not the best photographer, but what do you think?

UFO - Better late than never!

One of our Kanuga Quilters has finished a project that we gave as a class 3 years ago. Denise did not take 3 years to make the project, just started after she went home from our wonderful winter weekend in the mountains of western North Carolina.

Here is Denise with her finished project, a wedding gift for her very special friends.

Janet Houts, my sister and co-teacher at the event designed the table runner using my first Log Cabin Trim Tool in the Courthouse Steps version of the log cabin block. You can see that Denise kept running until she has four placemats to go with it.