A lot going on in the background!

FYI- This a long winded post or at least according to me (Tanya).  It is brought to you by Richard.

I feel like I have been slacking, as I have not been posting as often as I did last year.  I sat down a few weeks ago and talked with Tanya and explained my problem is I do not have any focus on what I can and should get done this year.  Last year it was 52 quilts in 52 weeks.  This year its been slack and don't do much.  Well, that is going to change.  A few weeks ago, I had Tanya sit down and pick out projects for me to do.  Instead of doing 1 project and then waiting, I handed her a bunch of large zip lock bags and a pen and paper and asked her to gather some of the stash that matches.  I asked her to put a note with you want me to make (dimensions and any special instructions) and I would then have something to work on.  Well yesterday I pulled a new one out of the cabinet (I think I have about 15-20 projects waiting in the cabinet and you will see many of them finished over the next few weeks and months) and off on a new adventure we go.

For those that can't read and are not in the mood to make the picture bigger it reads "Queen size for our bed 2 1/2 inch Squares"  to some that may sound daunting, how can I do a queen size quilt in 2 1/2 inch blocks, but to me that sounds like fun.  I was inspired a couple weeks back by a quilt linked up on Link A Finish Friday, here on my blog it was a Scrappy Swoon Quilt.  You can find the post about it here and a picture of it below.

I believe her quilt was done in 3 1/2 inch blocks? But hey I like 2 1/2 better (ugly things look cute when cut in little tiny squares).  Anyway on with my story.  Since I am one of those that like to do my own thing, I'm not going to make a make a Swoon, but I love the Scrappy Idea.  I mixed it with my own star design.  Back in October I created a block as part of the Glorious Autumn Block Party and I shared my "Richard's Star", yes a little conceded to name it after myself. It was my first ever created block and I had to save it and could not think of a better name.  Anyway I digress a little.  Back to this, I made a small block and as a joke to my wife I made it LARGE (originally block is 12 1/2)

As you can see with my daughters help, we showed the little block and the HUGE block.  The plan is to make the block scrappy, the size to fit the top of our queen size bed without hanging over the side.  So I plan to replace each of the 3 colors with Turquoise, Brown, and Tan.  Like the Scrappy swoon I plan to sew and then cut the material out of my sewn together blocks of 2 1/2 inch squares.  Maybe I will have to track my progress of this and make a pattern? Who would like a "Richard's Star" Quilt?

The little box of fabric my wife had is just not enough, so I dragged Tanya shopping for fabric. OK, maybe she jumped at the idea to go fabric shopping.

So as you can see, we did good at buying turquoise today, but the brown and tan are lacking.  Maybe in a few weeks we will have to do this shopping thing again. Like any good husband, while out fabric shopping with their wife, I had to add a few things to the cart.  I will explain each of my needed adds.

On Friday I pulled a bag out that said star baby quilt gave me dimensions of 40 x 40 and I cut out 4 1/2 inch squares figuring that I could do 10 columns by 10 rows.  But with my trusty math I realized that I could only get 96 squares out of the fat quarters I had (and with miss shaped fat quarters, I did not even get that).  So the squares that I cut Friday are on the left and the purple/green stars and the white multi-colored stars on bottom right will be 2 more colors for that.  Binding will be the green stars and the larger white in the back will be the back.  Any way all these are safely back in their bag and packed back away.

On Thursday, I found a bag full of owls that said baby owl quilt.  Well being the typical person I am, I decided 2 quilts are better then one.  I cut out the fabric she gave me and made 2 small quilts shown on the top of the above and below pictures.  I then explained to my wife I wanted a brown border and then a outside border for these quilts to make them the size they were to be.  She had the idea that instead of doing both with a brown borders, one would be green and one would be brown.  The stripes in both pictures will be binding.  The solid will be a 1 inch boarder and the jacks will be a larger outer border with the larger  block fabric on bottom left in both pictures to be the backs.

Of course I could not help myself when I saw this fabric below, I bought a 1/4 yard cut of each of the 10 colors.  I unfolded only one, but all are the same way they are a gradient from a lighter to darker color.  My plan is to make a lap quilt out of them.  I would explain what I am doing but it would not make sense, I tried to explain it to Tanya and she just gave me one of those blank stares.  Any way these are now in a bag and added to my to-do pile.

Lastly,  I am determined to finish at least a lap sized orange and gray even if Tanya protests.  So part of my design I wanted a gray strip to go between all the 5 x 5 blocks of orange and gray.  So I got that gray for the strips.

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Last, but not least we have 2 contest winners to announce  This month for our LAFF giveaway the winner is LAFF #57 Quilt number 2.  Which is the quilt 1152 Tumblers from Kathy's Quilting Blog.   

As you can see it is something I would love to do as I cant resist chopping all my material into small pieces and then sewing them back together.  For the record I used Random.org to pick the LAFF from the 5 in the month of march.  Then again Random.org to pick which of the 17 quilts won.  Thanks to every one that linked up this last month.

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Last of all we had a quilt giveaway to celebrate Julia's 1st B-day.  We tried to get Julia to pick one name out of a basket for the winner and as you will see below the one name pick did not go so well, the first few tries.

As you see the concept of one winner eluded her.  She wanted every one to have a quilt.

We finely convinced her to put 1 name back into the basket and we have a winner.

Congrats to Jodi, Some may find it interesting, but she was also the last one to enter.  So congrats.  There were entrants from our Facebook page and our blog both. Thank you to all that entered.