August Stitching and Something NEW is Coming!

I went 40 days without sewing on a sewing machine.  I've been busy hand quilting instead.  Speaking of hand quilting, I'm now up to over 237 hours of quilting on this quilt so far (over 114 hours since July 11th of this year). 

I finally got up to my sewing room last weekend.  I needed to make exchange blocks.  I pulled out some matching sewing themed fabrics, and made enough HST's for 16 blocks.  I sewed a set together, and OOPS!  Silly me picked 2 fabrics with no contrast between them. 

no contrast

Nice fabrics, but I needed a nice contrast.  Oh well.  These will make some low volume blocks for some project down the road. I pulled some more fabrics, and started over.  Why do things like this happen when you are in a rush?  Here are the new blocks (16 in a stack).  These are for the Virtual River Rat TOGA (Treadle On Gathering & Academy). 

exchange blocks

I also needed to finish the last 4 blocks for my Spool Block exchange (also with Treadle On).

Spool blocks for exchange

I made a total of 37 blocks for this exchange, but I only needed to send 32 blocks.  I'm keeping the other 5 blocks.  Here are the rest of the blocks that I've made.

I finished the last 18 Striped Circle blocks (Woohoo!)  Now to get them sewn together.

Last Thursday was our grandson's 1st Birthday.  We Skyped with our son and his family to watch Korin open his presents from us.  During the Skype call, one of my son's friends (from junior high, etc.) came by with a cake for us from my son and his wife.

We're going to be grandparents for the 3rd time!  This baby isn't due till late April, so I have some time to make some quilts.

Hopefully I'll have more to show soon.  I have several quilts that need to be made in the next few weeks or before Christmas.  I also need to finish hand quilting, and bind the quilt that I've been working on since early July (actually since 2010).  And no, that isn't my oldest UFO.