Finish it Up Friday

One thing I love about the online community is the chance to learn from others.  While I learned to sew and many techniques from my Mom, my 4-H leader and classes I took, most of what I've learned about quilting has been from online friends, online classes and reading books on my own.

Being able to communicate with others and learn from others is such a blessing to me since I have few local friends who sew at all and none that quilt.  

Case in point?  Sizing of blocks.

Nicole asked us to make the lovely kaleidoscope blocks that I mentioned on Monday.  I printed off one and measured it and it was thisclose to 1" square so I printed out 7 more and cut them all out.  But then I noticed in our online discussion board that many mentioned sizing difficulties when printing.  So I went back and measured the cut-out foundation and it was 7 inches!  If I'd been on my own, I'd have made Nicole blocks that she wouldn't have been able to use because they'd have been a half-inch wide all the way around.

Thank goodness for community and me reading before I got busy sewing.  See, procrastination does help out sometimes.  ;)

I ended up copying the template and opening it in photo-editing software where I could manually size it to print out at exactly the size I wanted.  It worked out perfectly.

And here are my two kaleidoscope blocks for Nicole.  I really want to just keep them and tell everyone in the group that Nicole moved and have them send her blocks to my house.  ;)  I won't of course, I'll just add this to my never-ending list of quilts I'd like to make. 

And that's what I finished up this week.  Next on my list is to quilt my purple do. Good stitches quilt.  I've just got to sweep my kitchen first so I can lay it down to baste it.  

What are you up to this week and weekend?  Any big plans?  We're taking it easy after the first week of school and before softball gets cranked up for Chris. I'm planning on doing some more conquering of clutter that's been hanging around and trying to get that quilt finished up.  Wish me luck. 

Linking up with Amanda Jean.