Do. Good Stitches. December Blocks

December is my month in the do. Good Stitches {a charity bee} over at flickr. Since December is such a busy month, I wanted to think of something quick and simple. I've been enjoying playing with color lately, so I decided on the blocks above. I put these photos together for the gals in the bee, but I thought I would post them here in case anyone else would like to give these super easy blocks a try.

Gather some fabric and cut some strips of various widths (but nothing wider than about 3") and at least 14" long in warm colors and in cool colors. Remember from art class, warm colors are reds, oranges, and yellows. Cool colors are blues, greens and violets. Try to choose scraps/fabrics that have an obvious color feel to them.

Sew your warm strips together lengthwise and trim into 13" blocks. Do the same with the cool strips.

Cut both of your 13" blocks into four equal triangles.

Lay the blocks out as shown above (match a vertical warm to a horizontal cool, a vertical cool to a horizontal warm, etc.) and sew each set together to make four blocks.

This is what you'll end up with, four approximately 9" blocks. If you are in my bee group, please don't trim the blocks before you send them to me. If you aren't in my bee, by all means, make some more, trim them up and sew them together!

Getting Settled

What a crazy couple of weeks I've had. The day I returned from the retreat, I began preparing the house for a baby shower which meant unpacking and attempting to bring some semblance of order to my front yard (aka, the mud pit) while the city repaved the street and installed new driveway approaches, curbs, and sidewalks. The shower was Saturday and I think it went off wonderfully and the new street is open and so smooth!

The house still isn't finished, but I thought I'd take a few photos while it was cleaned up for the shower.

The kitchen.

It's open to the living room, which I initially didn't think I would like, but now I think I love.

My sewing room is functional and I started on a new baby girl quilt.

(Recognize the pattern, Michelle and Lisa? :-)

I wish I had more free time to spend in here. I love being surrounded by all the color.

But, I've got a huge stack of new work projects (the kind I actually get paid for which means they take precedence over the fun ones) and a commissioned knitting project (a fair isle Christmas stocking) to work on this week.

At least my house is all cleaned up for Thursday. The family is coming to my house for Thanksgiving!  Who else is having Thanksgiving at their house?

Quilting Retreat

I went on my second quilt retreat this past weekend with the Dallas Modern Quilt Guild. On Thursday afternoon, I drove south into middle-of-nowhere Texas to the Compass Centre, just outside a tiny town called Mount Calm. The Compass Centre was built from the ground up as a retreat facility and sleeps about 30 people. They cooked yummy meals for us and kept the iced tea flowing.

I didn't take very many photos, but here's a look at the quilting area. You can see the work of the talented ladies, Juanita of Settlers Peace and Michelle of Tapestry Tree on the design wall.

There are more photos in the DMQG flickr group. This is only about a quarter of the room. The pretty Amy Butler patchwork on the design wall to the right belongs to Lisa of Vintage Modern Quilts.

At the retreat, I finished binding a Freshcut string quilt, 

finished piecing the Good Folks quilt top,

and started on a new project, my first solids quilt.

I worked on other projects also and left feeling like I got a lot accomplished. It was fun to catch up with friends I hadn't seen in a couple of months and make some new friends too. I cannot wait to get together with that group of creative and fun ladies again! It was a blast, girls!

Life is good...

when one of these is about to open within walking distance of your house.