Only one more week until the Fugly Fabric Party dreamed up by Charm About You starts. I've only taken a very quick gander at my stash to figure out what I am going to offer up but I hope to finalize the selections by the end of the week.

More importantly I've been perculating exactly how I want to do it. Contest? Giveaway? Swap? I think I have an idea worked out, it is a bit out of the norm and I hope fun for my readers, but you'll just have to wait to see what I've got up my sleeve.

Don't forget to check back here on the 8th and be part of all the hoopla. It promises to be a Fugly good time.

What in the world is going on? I made 9 pinkish Nine Patch blocks and I don't seem to have them any more. Not a single Nine Patch block in sight. Where in carnation did they go? Well.....they morphed into the Disappearing Nine Patch blocks. I finished cutting them into four pieces, flipped a couple of the pieces around and then sewed them back together into their new and improved settings. Here are the remaining 7 blocks. (I have no idea why Blogger is still turning some of my pictures sidewards, but it is making me a bit nuts.)

The Before

This pairing was extremely tough. The cherry prints didn't want to work with almost anything else. Then I tried this grouping and I was somewhat satisfied.

 It was late at night when I took these photos so I'm going to lay them out again for another look-see in the daylight before I start sewing them together. Hopefully I will get enough time very soon to just that and this top will be D.O.N.E.

Amazingly last night I did not crash right after getting the kiddos snuggled in for the night and got to do a little sewing on the Pretty in Pink baby quilt. I finished up putting the Nine Patch Blocks together pretty quickly. Please excuse the poor inside lighting. It was night time after all.

I have to admit that the matching up of the charms into each block was more difficult than I thought it would be. I really had to get out of my comfort zone and think outside the box in coming up with combinations that I was happy with. There is really a total hodge podge of shades and prints and scales, and I forced myself to use only the stack from the NJ Shop Hop and I only added a few leftover Luv U charms and bits from my stash to fill in the needed quantity. I'm nervous about how it will come together and I am hoping that when I am finished I will like the result.

Next on to the disappearing part. I cut a pair of these babies into their four pieces, did a couple of flips and this block

Two down, seven to go. I was sorely tempted to keep on going but since it was already approaching 11pm and I have a busy morning today, I chose to call it a night.

In the afternoon, I'll be working on taking down the Christmas tree and all the decorations. Yes it is January 21st they are all still up but that is what happens when one has house guests the past 2 weekends and we were celebrating the holidays with them. I've never had my tree up this long before but that is the beauty of owning an artificial one now. I can leave it up as long as I want. Perhaps we should leave it where it is until Memorial Day? What do you think? Anyway I'm hoping that I can at least do the same after dinner, get some more sewing time in and finish up these blocks. I still need to decide on the sashing and as usual, I'm open to suggestions.

Whoo Hoo! My first party of the year. I'm going to be at the Fugly Party that starts on February 7th. It is a creation of Lucy's over at Charm About You. When I read about the idea on her blog, I thought "Why Not"? Surely I have some bits that I don't love and would happy to have find a new home where they will get the respect and attention they cough, cough deserve. Anyone else interested in playing along? Head on over to her site and check it out. It promises to be a total hoot of a good time.

Since I last posted about these projects, I've received a number of bundles from the class families.

 

These are the ones I picked out for our family.

And these are the ones I picked out for another family; the mom asked that I get them for her since she has a new baby in the house.

 And this is  the stack for the Assistant Teacher who likes Royal Blue and the same Construction Paper Green.

But now here is the zinger since I started the planning for these quilts. The Assistant Teacher quit. So what am I going to do???? There are now 2 assistant teachers for the remainder of the school year. My current plan is to make 2 smaller quilts, one for each of them but should I make both of them Blue and Green, somehow making each one slightly different or should I make one of them Blue

No, not my 50 year old sibling! He already has a name.

I need a name for this Brother.

A little birdie tapped me on the shoulder and told me about the post my fabrics did yesterday afternoon. Silly fabrics! They certainly have a lot of spunk to reach out to all of you for sympathy and comfort.

Yes they were right in that I have been overloaded the past few weekends with guests. First my family's Christmas celebration, which had to be postponed from the previous weekend because my sister was in a car accident (she is ok) and then my BFF and her family were visiting this weekend, plus the kiddos also had a play date here in the afternoon. Needless to say that I have really been looking forward to some quiet time to arrive and to get back to some sewing.

In the slow sorrowful style of a deep, rich baritone voice we hear:

"L O N E L Y.....we're so lonely!"

"We arrived a little over a week ago but she hasn't touched us since she took us out of the box."

What should I make a neighbor friend who is expecting her baby girl in March? A girly quilt of course. After having 2 very intense and rambunctious boys, said neighbor is overjoyed that this new little one is a girl so something warm and cuddly is in order to welcome the precious darling to the world.

This will sew quick I thought. What pattern? Well I'll use the same pattern I used for the Loving Sunshine quilt. It pieced together lickety split the 1st time. I still have some of those charms left over and by adding a few from my stash, I will be all set. Peachy! Does anyone even say that anymore? I am trying to keep it clean here ya know. But over the weekend my darn brain started thinking (which isn't always good because sometimes I can come up with some really outlandish ideas). Don't I have a pretty decent size stack of pink squares of various prints and shades from last year's New Jersey Shop Hop? Yup, I sure do. Well ain't that just perrrrrfect! Now don't get me wrong. I do like Pink and I wear it often but the likely hood that I would have found many other ways to use these squares up is slim at best. So a Pretty in Pink quilt for the little miss it will be.

Brake! Swerve. The plan shifts onto the detour. Previously decided pattern woullllldddddd work but I don't feel like doing the same thing. I want to do something totally different. Fast forward...it's Sunday evening. I hauled my 2 giant and overfilled binders full of saved patterns downstairs and started flipping the pages. Next thing I knew, a page jumped out and landed smack dab on my lap. Which one has the audacity to be so bold? The Disappearing Nine Patch table topper that I saved from a Moda Bake Shop tutorial. Bold little pattern! I guess it has been lingering too long in that book and got tired of me just glancing at it. It screamed to be made. And so it shall.

3 by 3 makes Nine patches. And 3 Nines by 3 Nines makes 9. Put this one with those ones and move the other one to that set. The group over there looks great together but this one? Blech! Me no likey. A little cursing under my breath (the kidlets are within earshot) and Dag-nabit! Me thinks mixing these up into the perfect combinations is hard.  I will succeed. I will succeed. Little pieces of fabric will NOT get the best of me.

Tomorrow is another day and I'm tired of their bickering anyway. A few of these bits aren't playing nicely together. I think some of them need a time out and to learn how to get along better. By the time I am able to return to them on Friday, they should have learned their lesson and be more willing to cooperate. I have no time for fabric that is just being persnickety. A baby is coming soon and it's cold round these here parts.

The quilt's future owner loves Pink and Light Green. Her mom originally thought she wanted the sashing to be pink but when I got the fabrics and layed them all out, I quickly saw that there was already a lot of pink and if I had used more for the sashing, the other fabrics would have gotten lost. Hence the decision to use the butter yellow Fairy Frost. But I thought pink in the border might look great. Mid range pink, not pale baby pink or in-your-face bright pink. Perhaps some sort of print with light green and some yellow highlights to bring out the sashing color. Or I could even switch it up and use something light green with a little pink and yellow in it. I JUST NEEDED TO FIND IT! I'm sure you know what it is like to have a vision in your head and not be able to find what you need to make that vision a reality.

After hunting all over the web, looking at practically everything that exists in pink with a little pale yellow or light green in it, I came up with fabrics from the Soiree line by Lila Tueller for Moda. Of course since it originally came out in Feb 2009, yardages are hard to come by but I finally scored over at Quilt Home. The one on the left will  be the border, the middle fabric will be the backing and the one on the right will be the binding. I think these will work really well with the what is in the quilt top plus it will also make the pink and light green loving little girl very happy.

Now it just needs to arrive so that I can finish my part of the work and then get it to my long arm quilter. It will feel great to finally have this project completed and in the arms of it's future owner.