Sidetracks

 Last week I went down a sidetrack from my existing projects.  It happened without me even realising it, I was just looking for something to thin out my 2.5" strip drawer and remembered Bonnie Hunter's Boxy Stars. It seemed like it would be just the thing to gallop through some strips, so I cut a few pieces and used them as leader-enders.  Then I cut a few more blocks, I thought 12 would be plenty.  

I had no ideas about colour or theme, I just wanted to use up the scraps. It began with random strips, no particular plan. Then I started rummaging through containers to find more strips, and pulling drawers of fabric apart to hunt out more things to cut down. 

I found so many leftover bits of jellyrolls, layer cakes and charm packs, and decided that it was time to deal with them.

Before I realised it, there were 20 blocks on the design wall with a brown, light blue and red theme. 

I wasn't planning on making this when I started! There are a lot of leftovers from my Homestead Star quilt in this,they are nice companion quilts.

I can't quite remember the fabric collections these jellyrolls came from,I know one was Park Avenue, and one was from Blackbird Designs, maybe Antique Fair. They seem to be never-ending.  I'm so sick of the pinked edges that I might just make a Rail Fence out of the remainder, and get rid of them once and for all.

They're pretty though; I used mainly the large florals, so there are still a ton of small print strips.  

I could cut them down to a smaller strip and get rid of the pinked edges, I'll have to find a pattern that would work with a 2.25"strip.

The random colour blocks were still sitting there waiting. But now I was interested in a blue and green theme, and I was off and running with that. The blocks are so easy, and take so little planning, that they seem to make themselves.

So I'm up to 20 of these blocks, with more strips waiting to become blocks.

They're no good as leader-enders for me.  I just want to keep sewing them, and my projects get pushed aside.  Oh well, I might as well go with the flow.

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Where was I?

 Hmm, what have I been doing since last I posted? Family get-togethers, quilting customer quilts and one of mine, a week of illness, my first Covid19 shot, catching up with friends, deep cleaning my kitchen and getting rid of as much as I could. Of course there was some sewing time, but not a lot of progress. 

There was a trip to the Jamestown Patchwork shop to choose border fabric for the Granny Squares top. I was hoping to find a suitable Tilda fabric, but I just couldn't fit in a trip to an Adelaide Patchwork shop, so I chose something with the right colours. 

I have the strips cut, ready to attach, but that will have to wait till I find time to get into the workroom. I need the big table in there to square up the edges of the top. I don't fancy trying to do that in my crowded sewing room.

In family news, Thomas had surgery to remove his broken front teeth. He's been living with a pretty severe abscess behind them, and antibiotics failed to clear it up. He couldn't use those teeth anyway, so the dentist recommended removing them. We were a lot more upset than he was. He had a couple of rough days, but now he's like a different child, laughing, playing, being loving towards his siblings. He must have been in a lot of pain for a long time. 

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