A few weeks ago one of our members brought information about making a “Disappearing Nine Patch” quilt.  I thought that it looked fun so combed thru the fabric squares that we had and came up with this set of fabrics…..

The first step was to put them together to make 6 Nine Patch blocks…..

Next was to cut them in half in both directions…..

…..then set them together into a “pleasing” arrangement……

I am not sure that this fills the “pleasing” requirement, but I think that it will be okay once a border is added.

I have learned a few things from this and feel that it would be better if I had organized my lights and darks better, maybe even having one fabric for all of the center blocks.

And that, in fact, is what I have done.  I have pulled fabrics for a second quilt, but wont get to it for a while. 

Tomorrow I head to Abilene, Texas to clean out my Mom’s house……50 years of stuff MUST go……

 

At the Charity Bee last week, I cut out squares and fabrics to make a simple quilt that alternates plain squares with rail fence blocks.  There was not enough fabric to cut all of the blocks the same so I added a different fabric for a few of the squares.

I easily pieced the rail fence blocks and placed all of the pieces on my design wall…..

We were having some friends over for dinner that night, so I decided to do a little bit of vacuuming…..a VERY bad idea.   As I maneuvered around my design wall, several of the pieces blew off and one got caught in the mechanism of the vacuum cleaner….

Of course it was the one that had a limited number……Oh no!!

I thought that there was one extra so I quickly pulled it out of the scraps only to find that it was not an entire block….

I ended up having to add another of the alternate blocks to the quilt…..

I like the look of the finished quilt but it would have been SO much easier if I had just never bothered to vacuum.   Believe me, I will not make that mistake again!!!!

 

For many years I had been heavily involved with the Charity Bee in our local guild.  This group of 10-15 ladies meets weekly to create quilts for the local battered women’s shelter, the Prevent Child Abuse organization, local senior citizen groups and others who are so much in need.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to be involved much in the last 18 months, so last week I happily rejoined the group.  There was much laughing, sewing and even a bit of singing!!!  

I found some fun bug fabric in amongst our stash and started cutting out a small quilt which I just finished up……

It will be returned to the group and one of the women will use their long-arm machine to quilt it, someone else will bind it and it will wing it’s way to a happy owner.

It feels good to be giving something back……..

 

I showed the first of my “Rubber Ducky” quilts a couple of weeks ago (check HERE for the post).  

The day before I was due to return to the Charity Bee I had an extra hour and thought “why not make another one”!!!

This time I took some of the leftover squares and rectangles of Ducky fabric,  added squares and rectangles of a coordinating fabric, sewed on a border and voila……

Another top to be quilted and given to a needy child!!!!

Well, it has been quite a while since I have either had time to quilt or had the desire to quilt!!!   I have definitely been in the doldrums when it comes to being creative!!

As a result, I have a large stack of partially finished projects that I should really be working on…..

So when I finally found that the mood was on me, what did I do……started another project!!!

I had visited with our guild Charity Bee this past Wednesday and was handed some scraps of a cute “Rubber Ducky” fabric, and it got my creative juices to working.

I first picked out a few coordinating fabrics….

 

And then set out to add strips to each of the rectangles to form a large block….

….the next step was to cut out the blocks, setting each at a slight angle.  In order to get them all the same, I cut the first one and then put masking tape on top of the ruler…..

 

When I had the top together I showed it to my husband, telling him that I needed to figure out a way to make it larger…….

  

His first words were  “why don’t you put it at an angle”.    A PERFECT idea.   I first added a small border and then found the perfect green fabric to make the border from.  Fortunately, there was JUST enough to cut two wide strips and then cut the angled pieces….

The final top is so cute and was just what I needed for a quick Saturday afternoon project…..

  
The top will now be given to the charity group to be quilted and given to a needy child!!!

Maybe this will be the piece that primes the pump…..we will see!!!!