Two for Tacha

Boy, the posts sure have slowed down over here. It's completely indicative of how much the sewing has slowed down, too. Life & work has just been too busy to get anything done in the evenings. Know how many homemade gifts I'm giving this year? Exactly one, but it was a good one! It was my contribution to our office's gift exchange, which had to be homemade. I made two scarves out of Anna Maria Horner's Little Folks voile fabric (a la Jona of Fabritopia ... thanks for the great & easy gift idea, Jona!) Have you worked with that fabric yet? All of the raves about how nice it feels are not at all overrated. I highly recommend that you pick some up.

I also threw in 3 fabric covered Moleskines using some of my Amy Butler Midwest Modern scraps. They are always very well received and super easy to make ... every time I make them, I wonder why I don't do it more often. A great scrap reducer, by the way.

Anyway, it was one of the more popular gifts of the day -- stolen twice in the first 9 rounds of the Dirty Santa exchange, thereby frozen for the remainder of the swap!

Oh, and before I forget, be sure to check out Scott's great giveaway over at Blue Nickel Studios. He just reached 200 posts, so I think some congratulations are in order! He's got 7 (!) amazing grab bags full of quilting supplies for some lucky readers. Head on over and enter ... be sure to tell him that Quilt Dad sent ya'!

Now, here are a few things that I have been able to get done over the past few weeks. These two quilting bee blocks are both for Tacha (hanies), an amazing and prolific quilter from Berlin, Germany.

October was Tacha's month in the bee inspired group ... and yes, this is the long overdue October block that I referenced a few weeks back! Tacha asked if we were up for the challenge of hand sewing some hexagons as the basis for her block. I was terrified and completely overwhelmed but, feeling accomplished by my recent mastery (ha!) of paper piecing, I decided I wasn't about to back down from this challenge.

Well, it turned out that it definitely was a challenge. It took me nearly a week to make this single block, and my hand sewing skills are most definitely amateurish. I can't relate to all of you that talk about how meditative and peaceful you find making these blocks, since I alternated between feeling anxious, frustrated, nervous, and angry throughout the process. BUT, I am so happy that I tackled it, persevered, and finished the block. Sure, some of my seams are showing through, but I'm still very proud of finishing it.

Take a good look, because I'm not sure I'll be making another one of these!

November's block for Tacha for the Cottage Quilting Bee fell much more in the center of my comfort zone. Tacha asked for a range of squares & rectangles, which could include mini log cabins and could be wonky or straight. I looked back to a block I made for another quilting bee a few months back for inspiration, but was decidedly more wonky in my construction.

I really love how this one came out, and the process of making it was a welcome change from the hand piecing of the previous block. I had a lot of fun using all of Tacha's different fabrics and choosing some coordinates from my stash. I hope you like it, Tacha!

I'm going to try to get back over here at least once more before Thursday to wish you all a proper Merry Christmas. In the meantime, I hope you all are enjoying your friends, families, and the spirit of the season!

P.S. Thanks so much for all of your Quiltmaker love from my last post. I really appreciate it!