Friday Finishes

Aaahhhhh, doesn't that title just sound great?  The feeling of accomplishment mixed with the joy of continued progress.  I am back, baby!

I finished up all of my bee block responsibilities for the month yesterday.  That's all four of my Nubees blocks, my 2 blocks for the Empower group of Do. Good stitches, and two spiderweb selvage blocks for the Modern Blocks Bee.  I love participating in bees because anybody can do one block of something, so it's fun to try out new things and get new ideas.  It also means my to-do list of future quilts will never get any smaller because I'm always finding new things that I love, but hey, that's what creative hobbies are all about, right?

I showed off one of the Nubees blocks on Wednesday, but here are all 4.  Again, this is the Grandmother's Cross block which is very old-school, but with fun and fresh fabrics looks great, I think.

 Next up, Ronit asked for neutral log cabin blocks ala Rita for Empower this month.  She asked us to use solids or prints that read as solids in neutral tones of light gray, tan, white, etc.  But to please add a pop of bright color in the middle.  I made these almost exclusively from my scrap stash, only cutting one strip of the white from yardage.  This is so different from my normal bright color explosion that it was fun and calming.  I think this quilt will be amazing when it's all finished and hopefully will be a spot of calm for the young woman it will go to when finished.

I don't know why these are showing so dark in blogger, they are much brighter and calmer in person and in my photo-editing software.  They only look dark and highly-contrasted on blogger.  :(

And for my Modern Blocks Bee this month, Staci sent us these great cool-colored fabrics and asked for Spiderweb Selvage blocks like Jacquie's.  She included both the paper-piecing template, great directions from Jacquie's blog, and the middle background fabric already cut!  With all of that prepwork done, these web sections flew together.  I hope Staci likes them and that she'll post pics when this quilt is done, because I think it's going to be awesome!

So, that's my finishes for the week.  And I'm already started on my next project which I won't be able to show till it's done since it's for a special someone who reads this blog.

And two random notes to end:
1.  Thanks for all of the kind words about my running.  It is very encouraging to know people are rooting for you when you don't feel like finishing!  I'm headed out now for my long run of the week and while it's hard because of length, I'd rather run 8 miles slowly than 1 mile in sprints any day of the week!  ;)

2.  I took Sydney's quilt to her last night and got to hold that sweet baby!  After Emma of course, who showed up, washed her hands and begged to hold Sydney first!  My Em loves her some babies.  She's going to be one good Momma one day, but I don't even want to think about that for awhile!  ;)   I can't even remember my two being as small as Sydney and she actually weighs more than either of them did at birth!  Time flies...