Barrister's Block: February 2015

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Lunch date

I was excited that I could meet Lori for lunch today in between her busy schedule. We went to a new place that has so-so food but we loved their drinks! The place was called The Red Martini!! So we had to try something exotic!

On a sewing note, I'm trying to do a little sewing on my cheddar swap. This is a lot of quarter square triangles that are paper pieced. I haven't made much progress: just cutting them apart takes a long time but they do generally come out perfectly! These papers are from the cd Triangulations, which I love!

Look at this adorable caddy I got at the new Hobby Lobby! I think it'll be great to keep my sewing stuff handy without it looking messy.

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Distractions

Here are a few quilts I saw during my time in Wisconsin. These 2 are Debbie's:

There are a few more rows waiting to be added. Isn't it darling??

This is an Irish Chain. I love the colors!

Debbie wanted to make the same little quilt I had done last fall so here are the two side by side:

She was tryng to decide on borders but she used a lighter background, which made a huge difference, I think.

Terri made a cute little doll quilt for our newest sewing sister, Lucy, who is absolutely adorable and very distracting!!

She was very tired after playing all morning!

She is DarLynn's puppy called a MalShi.

Terri also brought a quilt she made so I could look at her center blocks. This was a swap we did last year called Under the big top. I think Lori had seen the quilt and drafted up a block on her blog, HumbleQuilts. We swapped half square triangles in different sizes. Terri did a great job!

This is my favorite, I think.

The colors are so vibrant!

Magic number is 4!! Woohoo!!

Monday, February 23, 2015

25-patch lesson

My friends wanted to know how to do those 25-patch blocks so we did a little class!

Look how cute their blocks are!!

Terri decided to resize them (she was bored with the Dipped in Chocolate top). She made 2 other blocks using strips that were 2-1/4 and 1-3/4" strips. What a huge difference the smaller strips make!!

This is using the 2-1/2" strips

This is using 2-1/4" strips.

This one is adorable with 1-3/4" strips. She's going to make a baby quilt out of the blocks!

I want to show you the label on Debbie's Dipped in Chocolate:

Last but not least this is what they have in downtown Delevan! Adorable!!

Sunday, February 22, 2015

I'm losing it

Or maybe I've already lost it.

I was on the phone with my darling grandson, Ryan, this afternoon, as I was packing my stuff up to leave my dear friends in Wisconsin to head back. While chatting with him (he wanted details about this coming weekend when they are coming over for the weekend!), I packed up my computer and charger.

On the way to the bus to get to O'Hare, I had a sneaking suspicion that perhaps I hadn't put the laptop into my carry-on bag. CORRECT.

My sweetest friends tried calling me to come back (my phone was in my pocket and on silent)...so Debbie's even sweeter husband came barreling down the highway to meet me at the bus stop to deliver my laptop and charger, just as the bus was getting ready to pull away!

Morale of the story:
Doing more than one thing at one time at my age is dangerous~!

Oh, and by the way, the magic number is SEVEN!!!

I'm in Denver on my way up to Bend, Oregon. I'll be home on Thursday, in time to get the kiddies!! WOOHOO... Oh and see my dearest, sweetheart of a husband, Mark~!

Samples returned

I've made a number of samples for my friend Pat's quilt shop over the past few years, which was great fun and a huge honor.

She has closed her shop in order to open a retreat: Prairie Hill Retreat Center in Janesville. Anyway, she gave me back 3 samples I had made (and honestly had completely forgotten about!!)

I love this simple pattern, just 16-patches on point!

Another very simple quilt! Flying geese and half square triangles!

Ridiculously simple!

And the back:

Here are Terri and Peggy's projects on the same Dipped In Chocolaye-- they are further along than I am, of course:

Terri has hers in rows, ready to assemble:

Debbie has hers finished

Here is another Debbie Dodge masterpiece:

This was a Kim Diehl pattern

We are having fun! I now have about 55 blocks done for my 25-patch - only about 25 more to go!! Ugh!!!

GIVE AWAY

For an unknown reason, I feel the need to get to 700 followers! It's a nice, round number!

I'm only 12 away.

So, I'm giving away a couple of patterns and some fabric to whoever becomes follower #700 (I'm assuming I'll be able to tell when I get to that benchmark).

So there you have it.

I'm looking for love!!! ;-)