Snow day = Sew day

 The weather people predicted terrible weather for yesterday - snow beginning in the morning Thursday and lasting til Friday afternoon.  Wrong-o!  I had run out for provisions on Wednesday and planned a sewing day for Thursday.  But it rained all day until about 4 pm when it all turned to something that became snow.  I wonder if it's icy underneath.  Guess we'll stay in again today because it's still snowing.  I planned another sewing day anyway.   Actually, I'm procrastinating - should be doing my taxes!  I do have a beef stew in the crockpot and am washing the shower curtain, so I'm not really goofing off.

Wednesday, I made a couple of purple house blocks for the RSC (the "official" color is turquoise/teal but I don't have a lot).

The bigger house is from a Moda pattern called "Brick House."  It's very easy and uses 2.5" strips.  I love the sky on this house - it's my last bit of Downton Abbey fabric.   The little houses are foundation pieced, one by Carol Doak and the smaller one from a pattern that came with the pattern printed on light fabric.  I actually prefer paper piecing for a lighter result but this size house is pretty cute.

Next on my agenda were this month's four 6" pineapple blocks which I sewed together into a larger block.  I now have 14 of these in all colors, but I'm making at least a year's worth more to make a decent-sized quilt.  These blocks use 1.5" strips for the most part, and it's fun to dig to the bottom of my bin for a trip down memory lane.

I took a little time to make a block from a bag of "crumbs."  I find making these quite tedious because they go together best if you stop, iron, and square up after each seam.  A 6" crumb block is really the best I can do.  

As I cut other projects, I put larger but otherwise unusable scraps into a ziplock bag that I keep near my cutting board.  I make the blocks a little larger than 6" and also put the cuttings into the bag as parts for the next blocks.  These will probably end up in an orphan or very scrappy block quilt at some point.