Grandkid fix and New quilts started

This little guy, Mr. Liam, is now in preschool and wants to go everyday.

And Miss Alia, NEEDS to go every day--or so her stay at home Dad would like! She is the most inquisitive, daring one they have. And the other two were quite the adventurers. And who couldn't resist a puddle?

I've been busy making a rag quilt for a friend's wedding, purging closets and I started two NEW quilts! What on earth possess' me sometimes?

The rag quilt is one of fall colors and I forgot to take a photo of it when it was finished, but here it is, without the borders (I put a folded edge border to avoid having 'raggy' edges) and before it was clipped. I love these quilts, they are always the warmest ones in the house. I've made so many of them and I vow that I won't make any more, but then when you need a gift, it just seems so perfect.

Shakespeare in the Park is a quilt by Judy Martin and a year or so ago, a group on Stashbuster's talked about doing it. So we broke off and formed a group and then went nowhere. I missed all the initial talk about getting it going again, but suddenly everyone is talking about doing it again. It's been on my list for quite some time, and decided it's now or never! So, I chose 40 fabrics (20 in creams/tans and 20 in blacks and ONE lone burgundy for a bit of spark) from my stash. I JUST got done cutting all the pieces for the Snail's Trails, and now to start on the star blocks. Sure takes a lot longer to cut from a variety of fabrics, rather than one or two. But it looks SO much better with a bigger variety of fabric. It gives depth and movement that just a few fabrics just can't give. I made a test block before I started cutting the massive stack of fabric. I was going to only cut a little, sew a little. But I tend to like it better to get most of my cutting done first, then I can concentrate on just sewing. My friend is just the opposite, she can't stand 'production' type sewing. To each his own.

The second quilt I started came out of nowhere. I was searching for something (and that thought is LONG gone! hahaha) and stumbled upon Lynne's blog and her quilt. It's a Celtic Knot quilt with 3 strands and she referenced a verse in Ecclesiates about God being the 3rd strand interwoven into our lives. It was neat. She didn't design the quilt, but she posted it online (with permission) as a mystery. It took me ALL night long to write down the block 'formulas'. I originally thought I'd make it similar to hers, but my greens and pinks were calling out to me, begging me to be in a quilt again. But geez, pulling out bits of fabric, pressing them so you can cut a 2" square, is a bear. This is block #1. There are 25 blocks with most of them having 81 squares per block. Only the last row is 9 across and 7 down, so only 63 squares per block. I have some cuttin' to do!! I love the look of scrap quilts, but the only problem is cutting. Nothing can be cut quickly or efficiently. I often thought I'd take my box of scraps and cut them up into a usable size, like Bonnie does. But then so often I need a piece that's bigger, longer or whatever. And if I've cut everything up, it wouldn't work. But I need to do something, My scrap bins are overflowing! Especially the bright colors one. I wonder how long I could just sew out of that bin alone? Kind of scary.