A Start and a Finish All in One

Despite Rembrandt's shockingly bad behavior amongst my perfectly-aligned fabric strips...

...I was able to use part of a most generous gift from friend and fellow quilter Mary Jo (no blog) of a bit of each fabric (!!) in Jo Morton's new Spice Chest line...

...to make the Black and Beyond quilt from Evelyn Sloppy's "40 Fabulous..." book:

I also used the Jo Attic Shirtings that I won not too long ago in Kathie's giveaway. The star centers is one of Andover's Vegetable Dyes, for which I feel a recurring urge to write Andover a Fan Letter to thank them for bringing out one of my all-time favorite fabric designs ever. Thank you, Mary Jo and Kathie (not to mention Andover and Jo Morton!)!!

Oops, the very last block got turned sideways. I fixed it :-).

Les Fleurs: a lot of it together

Another picture of Little Miss Stray, who so far won't let me pet her (or carry her off to the vet); isn't she adorable? Incredibly slanty eyes and really big ears. The poor thing has a limp, although it was worse several weeks ago, so maybe it will get a bit better:

And of course Miss Kissy-Toes needs no introduction:

Thanks to multi-tasking during Day Job Duty, I finished the last regular Les Fleurs block (I moved the parts around, added a vase, and deleted a few fronds):

Then, filled with (as I told a friend earlier this morning) steely determination, I did the next six lengths of sashing (having resorted to machine applique in complete desperation since I have so much else I should be doing) necessary to allow assembly of the regular blocks:

I can't believe this thing is pretty much together. The very wide piece of applique that goes across the bottom has yet to be made. Now it's off to other Quilting Activities. What a Les Fleurs Relief!

The Little Applique Bag

Day Job has switched to a different school, elementary level rather than high school, which means I have duty three times a day outside of the media center. Now you know a quilter cannot just stand around when she could multi-task, so I am wearing this bag I just made and put in a few stitches on the fly during the first morning duty time when I am greeting students in the corridor :-).

All I need are the scissors, ripper, toothpick, thread, needle, and a few tiny pins.