Around the Block

I've been working on bee blocks for the last couple of weekends, and I've made some progress.  This block is for Sarah in the Fall Bee. 

It's funny how sometimes, I sit down to sew and everything goes together beautifully and I breeze right along.  Other times, it doesn't go so well and my seam ripper and I get even better acquainted.  Well, this was one of those projects.  Those teeny weeny 1" squares nearly kicked my fanny.  The points just would not match up.  It frustrates me so when that happens.  It is a pretty straightforward block.  Nothing really tricky here, but struggle I did.  There are two versions of this scrapbuster block, and I'm really glad I didn't make the other one.  It has 16 one-inch pieces in the center block, and then two borders of one-inch pieces.  Um...  no thanks.  At least not today.

These blocks were for Dustin in the Sew Fun Bee.  I've made hundreds of log cabin blocks, but none with logs this small.  I had the worst time getting these to work.  It should have been so easy:  cut 1" strips.  Sew together with 1/4" seams.  End result is 1/2" logs.  Well, let's just say some worked better than others.  I really struggled to get these the right size.  They were either too big or too small.  I ended up making 5 blocks instead of 4.  Hopefully, he'll be able to use them.

These colors were also a challenge.  I don't have much brown in the stash, so I really had to dig.  Luckily, I could slice an inch off some fat quarters without creating too much of a problem.

Maybe I should have just sat down and read a book...  I downloaded a bunch of free books from Amazon for my Kindle ap on my i-phone, and I've been having a blast with that.  So far, I've read Pride and Prejudice (again), The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood (for the first time if you believe it - hated the ending/epilogue) and am in the middle of The Three Musketeers (first time for this one too).

Anyway, I also made my blocks for the Craftsy BOM.  Luckily those were easy peasy.  A nice change after fighting with the others all day.

And, I nearly have the blocks done for my Little Man quilt.  One of my "goals" for the  year was to make every quilt in Camille Roskelly's book, and I'm one step closer.  You know, it's rare to find a book where you want to make every project, but Camille's book "Simplify" is that kind of book.  Too often, I purchase a book for one project, but this one is just loaded with lovely projects, and I plan to try them all.  Little Men will be #2 (or #4, if  you count the 3 Sugar Rush quilts individually.)  I ran out of Kona Snow, so it's off to JoAnn's after work tomorrow.

So that's it for today.  Thanks for dropping by.