And a Gift from the FedEx Man!

I keep getting these lovely packages from strange men! Yum! Not the men, the contents of the packages. Here is the little treat I got this morning. One pinkish Kaffe Fassett, and 4 others that just caught my attention as I glanced through the sale fabric. Dramatic florals and paisleys always catch my eye. I think they will enhance the stash quite nicely.

I have had the time of my life these last two days! I promised myself that I would work only on the baby quilts and the 2 tops that needed only the borders added. And I have done a decent job of sticking to those self-imposed rules. One baby quilt is completely done, binding and all; the batik circles has its borders on and awaits a trip to the long-arm. The second baby quilt is in the quilting frame and has about 18 blocks quilted. The final quilt top - Erin's - is still waiting on its borders.

But yesterday afternoon, I just had to break my rule! I could hear the Kaffe Fassett Broken Dishes fabrics calling out to me, all the way from up in the sewing room! There they sat in a nice little box; they were cut and mated into pleasing pairs, and even marked on the diagonal for sewing and cutting purposes. When I did these things, I do not remember, but they were patiently waiting for me to get back to them. Well, once I broke down and dug it all out, I sewed "just a few" squares into hourglass blocks. Then 3 hours later, I had enough hourglass units to make 6 blocks! It was a delightful afternoon!

The pattern has small hourglass blocks in the center of the quilt, surrounded by larger hourglass blocks as a border. I am working on the small ones now. There are 16 units of 64 pieces in each block! Those are some small hourglasses, to be sure! It has been so much fun seeing them come together. I was chain piecing them, of course, as this makes quick work of such small pieces, but I found myself wanting to see how some particular fabrics looked together, so I often broke the chain to finish off a block and peek at it. It was like I was experiencing the thrill of Christmas morning, or something!

Here are some pics of the work I accomplished - about 3 hours yesterday, and 3 hours today.

These pieces are just laid out on a mat so far. I have not sewn them into the full block yet. Each individual hourglass unit shown in the photo on the right has approximately 4 more stacked underneath. The photo on the left shows just one block (not sewn; just laid out) and beside it is a pile of units waiting to be laid out. Mixing and matching all of these tiny pieces will be quite an undertaking. But it is one that I look forward to.

Now, I will, will, WILL get back to those other unfinished projects. The baby quilt is the most pressing, but I really want to finish Erin's quilt, too. Maybe I will report some progress on these two items in the coming week.