Cracker Box

I feel a little behind on my quilting cause I didn't get much done this week, but I don't know why. It doesn't matter, as I have no deadlines. I finished putting together the Cracker Box quilt last night at Studio 3. It's a bit small - only 46". It was a spur of the moment quilt and I used all the yellow background I had, actually two different yellow pieces. I guess I could think about a border for this, or maybe a round of a different block. This one will stay "as is" till inspiration moves me to either quilt it or add something for a border.

I went to quilting at church on a sloppy snowy morning. The forecast was for freezing rain but we never got that. Of course we didn't know that so only a few of us showed up and then we left a bit early without going for lunch. The ladies got another 9-patch quilt together and a few others worked out the sashing for a sampler kit I bagged up. That means I gathered a bunch of orphan blocks the same size and they had to cut sashing and cornerstones. Our newest quilter needed a lesson on how those go together.

The oak tree block is done. I don't think I want to put a border on it. Just this brown for a binding. I don't have much wall space for it. So next I need to decide how to quilt it. I don't want it to look modern or artsy so I hesitate to quilt it to look too modern.  Mark suggested simply straight diagonal lines to simulate rain drops or sun rays. Talk about traditional.

This morning back at Studio 3, I prepped the binding for my star quilt. I will attach it here at home though. Earlier this week I cleaned out my drawer of Civil War prints. I'm trying to keep that in a certain order till I have all the charms cut for the Thousand Pyramids charm quilt I am working on. So I gathered all the smaller pieces  for that and cut those this morning. From the same scraps I cut a few bow tie blocks for that ongoing project and a few miscellaneous pieces - mostly strips for another log cabin. I counted the charms and I have just over 500. I've got a lead on a source for more prints for that quilt. It sure is putsy cutting one patch from all those prints, the cutting alone is a bit like an ongoing project. I found I need to plan another few quilts to cut  as I cut the next 500 charms. I am keeping the charms sorted by color for now to make it easier to check for duplicates. The other ladies are working independently right now and need only a little help with their projects. Tomorrow we are finally having the free-motion quilting class. Should be fun.