Hiatus Schmi-atis

Beginner's Quilt-Along Blocks 1 & 2

Hello again.  It's crazy that right after I received all this good advice for a new blogger, much of it regarding blogging regularly, I experienced my first blogging drought.  I could give some excuses but my time in the Army taught me not to do that so I will just say: it won't happen again.  The last few weeks haven't been project free but they've been finished-project free for sure.  I've started around a half dozen new endeavors including a little quilt for my aunt to upholster a foot stool with, my first Quilt-Along, my first block exchange, buying fabric for my QuiltCon blocks (which will be my first block design ever) and last but not least: I'm working on my first tutorial.  More to come on that in about a week.

Above are Blocks 1 and 2 for the Beginner's Quilt-Along.  I used some Heather Ross fabric, some leftovers from JoAnns and the red is from Walmart.  Every Thursday there will be a new block pattern revealed; the next one comes out tomorrow. I love staring at the Flickr pool for this group.  It is so inspiring to see the creative choices of other quilters.  Everyone says that quilting is addictive; I'm beginning to understand the meaning of that!

On the left  are my cookie exchange blocks for the Minneapolis Modern Quilt Guild.  I made eight of each (using the strip-piecing tutorial from the Monkey do blog) set in order to turn in twelve but I got some duplicates back. These might look familiar to some I've made before...I had to make more since the exchange required white background and my Fairy tale Friends granny squares used Kona Bone.  The next step will be to piece together the remaining granny squares and practice sash and border before quilting.  I understand the principle but it's still exciting to look forward to the finished product.


It's late here so I'll tell you about the rest of my start-up projects tomorrow but I'll leave you with a couple of pictures from my trip this past weekend to Yellowstone Park.  We actually were visiting family in western Montana (the beautiful Bitterroot Valley) but how many people have the chance to simply swing by the first US National Park on their way home?  We just had to do it.  Although we had only 6.5 hours, we managed to see quite a few sights and animals.  

Bull Moose.

Bison.

Elk

                         

I can't believe those are really my photographs!  I've been to Yellowstone many times in my life but this was the first time since I've been an adult.  It is an amazing place filled with wonder, weirdness, and fun.  I hope I get to go again and I hope you make it there too.