Heartstrings Blocks

What you see here are 52 blocks for the Heartstrings project that were sent to me by friends around the world for my birthday and to honor my Dad on what would have been his birthday. I want to thank each of you so much for helping to make this an extra special birthday. I still have blocks coming in so it will be a couple weeks before I start to assemble tops. I'll easily be able to do a red and a blue one by using some of the blocks I'd already made. And any of mine that are extra will get sent in to swell the block kitty. Or if I'm close to enough for another quilt I might request enough blocks to finish it out.

I had a really cool picture of all the envelopes scattered over my table but just as I was posting it I realized that anyone could enlarge the photo and get not only my home address but the home addresses for many of the ladies who sent me blocks. Since that's NOT something I want to put out on a public blog I didn't post the picture. So you'll have to trust me. It was COOL! LOL!

So far I've received blocks from (in no particular order- just whichever package my hand touched first as I was making my list):
LindaJ
Vicky
Mama Koch
Tami
McIrish Annie
Giusy
Pam G.
Fiona
Cher
Pat P.
Carol E.
Carolyn
Quilt Pixie

And if you're trying to figure out who Pat P. is - she's a lurker who follows my blog and wanted to help out with the project. I've had a few other non-bloggers respond too and I think this is just wonderful. The more the better. And if anyone else wants to find out how they can participate in the Heartstrings project I have a link on my sidebar to the groups website. NOT the Yahoo site but an independent site that has been set up because so many people responded to my call for blocks but said they didn't want to join another group. So the group leaders decided to create a website that anyone could go to and get block guidelines and information on how they can be a part of this wonderful program.

When I put out my call for blocks it was for blocks only. I was not hinting for little gifts for me. The blocks were to be my gift and will be made into charity quilts. Probably for my local sheriff's office but I'm still researching sites to donate to. Anyway I'm just trying to say I wasn't asking for and truly never expected to receive any extra gifties. But I did and want to say thank you to Pam for the lovely post its. How did you know I LOVE fancy postits? I hate using the plain yellow ones and always buy a few cute ones whenever I go buy supplies for work. I've already taken them to work or I'd show a picture.
And these lovely items were sent by Quilt Pixie. She's currently working on a piece using these cat panels and shared some with me. I actually have one of the companion pieces that goes with these so I've already been auditioning fabrics to go with them. I'm going to make a small wall-hanging to go on the wall beside "my spot" in the living room. And check out the wonderful postcard she sent. And the kitty buttons and the ribbon roses. Those will be used as embellishments on the wall-hanging. I'm really itching to get started on it BUT this is my weekend for Christmas sewing. And I'm about half finished with the blocks for the first Leukemia quilt for Clare so I really want to get those finished before I start another project. HOPEFULLY next weekend I'll be playing with my kitties.

1st UFO finish of the year!

Who'd have thought the UFO Queen list for the Stashbuster Yahoo group would be moving so quickly!!!!! I started Jan 1st at #32. As of this morning I was at #5 and with the reigning queen abdicating today that put me at #4! When I joined the group I knew it would be February before I could really address my UFO problem as I had several other things going that really needed to be done first. So I was happy to see myself relatively low on the list. Hah! Seems like most of the list had a UFO that just needed a very small amount of work to finish so they could get themselves to the bottom quickly if they needed to. And I do have a few items that fit in that category. Problem is I'd decided at Christmas that I was tired of having all this Christmas fabric and no quilty Christmas stuff to decorate my home. So I decided to devote the weekend closest to the 25th each month to turning some of that fabric into items that we can enjoy during the Christmas season for years to come. But I also promised myself when I joined the UFO challenge that I would NOT be queen at any time during the year.

Now you see my problem? This is the 25th weekend but if I didn't want to be Queen I needed a UFO finish this weekend. So what to do? Well what else but to look my UFO list over and see if I had a Christmas item that could be completed this weekend. And guess what? I found one. It's a small table topper made of log cabin blocks I made for a swap in late 98 or 99. Then for some reason I ended up not sending these sets in and a few years later I put them together into a top. Which in turn sat for another 4 or 5 years until today. And you know what? It only took me 1 hour to sandwich, quilt, AND bind it. And now it's DONE-DONE! Okay so I did just roll the backing to the front to bind (which I do often). And the quilting is just in the ditch around each 5" block. Not perfect by any means. But it looks nice. And it's DONE! LOL!

Now tell me why I let something sit for 5 YEARS that only took me 1 hour to finish? Probably the same reason I had no finishes at all last year. Because I'm too easily distracted. Always something else comes along that I just HAVE to try and things get shoved aside. I wonder how many other items are on my list that would only take me an hour to complete? It's tempting to go look. BUT that would be distracting me from busting some of my Christmas stash this weekend so I'd better hold that thought maybe for next week.

Log Cabin Finished

Just finished putting the borders on my Log Cabin. This has been my leaders/enders for the past few months. It was made from my 2" strip bin. (And barely made a dent!) I really like the way it turned out. Unless David wants it (and he has first dibs on any quilt I make!) this will go to my youngest nephew, Chris. Even though it has many floral fabrics and even a bit of pink in it I don't think it's too feminine for a man. And it's made up of scraps from his Grandmother, his Great-Grandmother, his Aunt Nancy, his Aunt Susan, and his Great-Aunt Flo. Hopefully he'll appreciate the bits of family history include and will take comfort in this piece of "home" as he travels wherever the Air Force send him.


This is my new leaders/enders project. Little 3" finished 9-patches. Aren't they cute? :-) Since I need about 450 of these I'll be working on them for awhile. LOL!


And because I can't leave you without a cute cat picture. Here's my 2 big boys, Fluffy and Sam.