Starting but no finishes

 I have completed a number of tasks in my quilting world and have added to the 'hangers' of finished quilt tops as well as getting up to date with my blocks of the month. The second happy blocks quilt is put together using blocks that a good quilting friend made plus mine and added in a donated panel of Canadian cities.  Added to the hanger section.

This is not a new, finished quilt.  I took a picture this week so show other Quilt of Valour reps how I can present all the blocks that are free on the Quilts of Valour Canadian website for making hug blocks for our hugs from across the nation quilts.  The blocks MUST be made from Northcott Oh Canada line of fabrics to be included in the sets of 30 blocks to be included in the quilts.

My pink Rainbow scrap challenge blocks for January got started and finished.  My problem with starting was that I had save about 15 ideas for potential blocks to make and had to make a decision.  This year I decided to go with three simple and one a little more complicated.  And, I figured out the finished size of each of the blocks and how many blocks I needed for one completed quilt.  Usually the blocks are made for 10 or 11 months so divided the number of blocks and most of them need 5 or 6 blocks of each colour.  My usual 'thing' is to just make blocks so this is a little organized.  First I have simple rail fences made from pieces of 2.5" strips. 4 strips makes an 8" finished block so an 8x9 quilt would finish at 64 x 72 which is perfect for a donation and it means I need 72 blocks which is about 6 or 7 a month.

This is the most complicated one using 3.5" squares and half square triangles and finishes at 15" which means 4 rows x 5 rows = 20 blocks or 2 blocks per month.  I had already made 3 before I decided to figure out the math and not make more than I needed to. 

Friendship stars are made and those finish at 9" which means 56 blocks: 7 x 8 rows

And then I finally got to move into making my blocks for February!  I still have a week left in the month so am not behind.  I dug out my yellows and made my block for Patterns by Jen.  Sadly, I didn't seem to have a really nice, light yellow and probably should have used a dark gold as my dark yellow.  Lesson learned.  I didn't really like making this block but should push myself to make another one with better contrast.

And my RSC blocks for February.  The rail fence blocks are done.

And the friendship stars, the strip pieced blocks and the larger sister's choice blocks are finished.  The best part is that I have cleaned up and tidied the pink scraps from January and the yellow scraps from February and they are put away in their proper places. I have decided that the next friendship stars I make will have a lighter/whiter background and they can alternate with the black ones.

My heartstrings challenge for February is to make something using half square triangles.  Since I had all my fabrics with Canadian themes out, I decided to make churn dash blocks with a Canadian center.  I cut my 30 squares and part way through, realized that alternating the red and white placements in the blocks would look more pleasing? I am about 2/3 of the way through these.  It is good practice for using my Accuquilt to cut the half square triangles and I am liking the way they are cut and sewn and don't need trimming for accuracy. The best about this as well... I have tidied and organized my Canadian fabrics and I know what I have and the scraps are sorted into chunks, strips and larger pieces. 

The Morehouse mystery blocks are finished for February and the blocks are now assembled into a top, folded and living on a hanger and waiting in turn for quilting.  The lighting isn't so good for this picture but think retro kitchen from the 70's with harvest gold and green. 

Our weather is all over the place as far as rain, snow, cold, gale force winds and then a surprise, sunny day.  This was sunset one evening and it is lovely to see and also am appreciating that it is staying lighter longer in the evening. 

We were both happy to get this jigsaw finished.  It took us almost a month to finish which including opening up the vacuum bag and finding a 'munched' piece which turned out later to be two halves of different pieces so I gave up searching through the dirt in the bag too soon.  I will tell you that it wasn't me that vacuumed the pieces but at least the guilty party told me about it when it happened.

This is one of our snowy days.  As you can see, we don't get a lot of snow but enough to keep us off the courts.

And then suddenly, out of nowhere, we get a lovely dry day with sunshine and enough warmth to shed our winter jackets when we play.  Seniors are a crazy bunch of people and there are 8 of us who play as often as we can and can be seen drying the courts with towels when there are puddles. 

We are 'not so patiently' waiting for Covid vaccinations and it makes us so frustrated that we probably could have/should have headed south to Arizona for the winter and we would be vaccinated by now.  But, my husband has had a number of Moh's surgeries and the Canadian government has made crossing the border back into Canada really difficult which I find annoying because they haven't given us any statistics as to how many travelers have brought covid with them and infected others?  This isn't meant to be political but more to express my aggravation with our lack of production of vaccines in our country and our total dependency on other countries and hoping they will take pity on  us and provide us with some just like they are for third world countries.  

So we stay home and wait for spring weather so we can be outside more often. I have a lot of quilt tops waiting to be quilted so will stitch away for February and then alter my daily habits of sewing to quilting and binding.