My blocks were sent out.

Yeah ! my blocks were sent out for a week before I left to Hawaii. They took trips to 6 towns
Logan, Chesapeake, New Kensington, Provo, Belleville, Denton, and San Antonio.

I also got 2 packages back from 2 teammates from Provo and San Antonio.
LOVE them all. How many times I said this :-) Thanks a lot!

Here we are some pictures from our Hawaii trip. The way quilter's took control of camera.

Should I send them out?

I made 2 more blocks to substitute 2 blocks that none of the secrets and tips can manipulate them. They are 2/8 inch short of 12.5' so I don't think adding another strip can help. Ms. a Little Short and Ms. Almost Right will stay with me - no pictures for these 2 blocks hee hee :-)

These 6 pair of beauties will take a trip to 6 towns.

I squared up all of them to 12.5'.

No pressure here my friends. Should I send them all to my teammate now? Is it too early to send out? I have so much of free time to finish early. No kid, one dog, and a low maintenance husband are a good combination for a beginner quilter like me.

First 12 Chrismas blocks swap

I've just finished these 12 blocks this afternoon. They all are red and green predominantly. I'm having fun and each block is easy to make (even I have to hide my first 2 blocks - that came out smaller than 12.5). Now I know the secret. It's a scant quarter inch. I need to sew some more so more choices to send to Beth (for charity block) and the other 6 friends swap. More blocks also mean my good time to experiment with color combination. I have to set 'smiling Santa' fabric aside in a full yardage. I figure that only the Santa face is bigger than 3.5' square. Why didn't I bring a small ruler to fabric store! It was an hour drive. Anyway...whatever I had good time :-)

Got fabrics

I got some fabrics for the Christmas block swap. I plan to use candy-colored Christmas by Alexander Henry as a center square. There are many many cute candy colored graphics. But the smiling Santa is also lovely. How about .. lines of pine tree from Figgy Pudding. Um.. glad that I signed up for 12+1 blocks. Tomorrow I will pull out more fabrics from my scrap bin and sewing factory will be opened.

Junior and his quilt

I've made this quilt from my husband's old jeans and couple of my fat quaters. This quilt is especially for you baby! Junior loves to sleep by the lakeview window and barks at geese.

I'm excited.

I'm a big fan of 'Oh Fransson' and today I follow her link to find

Scrappy Christmas Block Swap - Check out here ... http://modernjax.blogspot.com/)

I'm in for 12 blocks swap plus one for charity.This gonna be so fun for me to join this group.

In the past 2 weeks I reached the pinnacle of my boredom (as being a homemaker and wife). I even consider to move back to my home country and get a job. Beth… you probably don’t know that you pull me back to my Martin, a small town in Tennessee. I'll keep myself busy busy with the quilt blocks, cooking, gardening, and updating my blogs.

Disappearing 9 Patch

I went to Paducah Quilt show and stumbled to Eleanor Burns’ demonstration. She’s amazing and all of her quilt are gorgeous. Eleanor introduced ‘Tossed 9 Patch’ quilt block as one of her tutorials. Some quilters call this blocks ‘Disappearing 9 Patch’. I tried once with Amy Butler fabrics. It’s so difficult to keep this block accurate. Finally I squared the finished quilt top. I chopped it off 2.5 inches.