Fish

 I have a few little fish!  

I love the way these are coming together from my bonus HSTs.

Fish School

 Did you see?  Bonnie Hunter has a new Leader/Ender Challenge, Fish School.  I have a bunch of bonus HSTs already sewn up just waiting to be used.  This looks like the perfect project.  They were all squared up and stored in my "special" container, the recycled lettuce package.  LOL

The HSTs were all purples, so I'm putting them into groups and pinning each group together.  I will bag them up with 10 groups per bag.  This helps me to keep everything from ending up spread out all over the sewing room.  Finished blocks will fit nicely back in my "special" container. 

Dirty Dozen

 The Dirty Dozen is starting up again at Country Threads.  Here are the guidelines for the Dirty Dozen.

This year I'm going to work at quilt backings.  I have a bunch of quilt tops (more than 12) hanging in the guest bedroom closet.  So I pulled 12 of them and listed them out.  My goal is to at least get the backing made for each.  If I get some quilting done, great.  But at least I will have a backing and it will be one more step closer to getting to the finish line.  I have some backing pieces in my bins and some of the backings will be made of fabrics from the stash.  Should be an interesting year.

This is my Number 3.

The pattern is called "Tulsa Town" by Villa Rosa Designs. It helped to thin out my drawer of 3.5 inch strips.  I was lucky to get this shot as the wind was not helping me at all.  I'm thinking I need a scrappy back for this one.  We'll see what I come up with.

Follow.it

 I've talked about how Google is getting rid of Feedburner and if you follow by email.  I have a new service, Follow.it.   There is a bar on the side for you to sign up if you didn't get an email from Follow.it about the change.  I follow a number of blogs and some of them are using this service.  Fingers crossed that it all goes well.

I did a little shop hopping again with some friends.  It's so nice to get out and about to the quilt shops and be inspired.   I also went to the Omaha Quilt Guild Quilt Show.  I save bonus HST and this quilt inspired me so much!

And this one!

Such amazing talent out there!

Quilt Friends

 It's always fun to do quilty things with friends.  I did a little bit of Shop Hopping at the beginning of the month.  June 1 was the first day of the All Iowa Shop Hop (AISH)    This past weekend I went Retreating with some friends.  

And I worked on my Texas Braid for the first time in 2 years.  It's from Bonnie Hunter's book, "Adventures with Leaders & Enders".  Making the rows is time consuming.  I only completed 2 rows the first time I worked on it.  This past Retreat I completed 3.  So I have a total of 5 now.

 I did get all the pieces organized and set up to be a leader/ender, but I'm doing a bunch of chain piecing with those pieces.  I want to get this done, it's been sitting as a UFO for too long!

June Nebula Blocks

 One of the June Nebula Blocks is done.  I'm cutting out the other one today!

I love the stripes in this block, the movement it creates.  The best tip I have discovered, take it very slow when doing the cutting of the block pieces.  Correct measurements make the block go together so much smoother.  

Stash

Does anyone else feel like this about their stash? 

I was cleaning out some patterns I had cut out of old quilt magazines and I came across this pattern called Sadie's Stash by Christine Carlson.  It had been in the June/July 2011 issue of McCall's Quick Quilts.  The pattern called for 3.5 inch strips of fabrics and my drawer of precut strips was getting tight.  So I cut out the quilt.  

There's more room now in the drawer.  And I have a new leader/ender project!  Win/Win all the way around!