the end of the pony club blocks

And so, it is done. After finishing up 21 blocks over the past handful of days, I have completed 90 pony club blocks, every one in the book except one which I have replaced. I got the sashing, I just need to wash it and get it ready. This, my friends, is going to be epic. Nevermind the fact that I have no idea how in the world I am going to lay it out to decide where the blocks are going since I don't think I have any space large enough, but I'll make something work. Here are the final beauties!!

pig's tail

ribbons

railroad crosing

homeward bound

rambling road

rain or shine

sugar bowl - i had a problem with one of the templates not being the right size on this one which is why I am missing just about every point.....I'm trying not to worry too much about it....

summer's dream

sheep fold

star of hope

floral bouquet

seminole square

sunshine

telephone

trail of the covered wagon

virginia

verna belle's favorite

village school house

western star

young man's fancy

fusion star - this was my addition. It is a free paper piecing pattern from sew what, sherlock? that I printed at 1/3 size. I am in love!

I can't believe they are all done! Next week, after my parents have visited, I will get to work putting this quilt top together and I am so excited! In the meantime, I am going to try not to get distracted and go clean up before the visitors arrive. Hope everyone is having a good week!

yep, still at the pony club

No kidding, I really did mean to not dump another 20 blocks at once, but here we are and I have actually been doing 10 blocks every other day. I spend one day printing/cutting the templates and choosing/cutting fabric and the next day I sew them all. It is a bit insane but so much fun! Now I am up to 69 blocks and only have another 20 to go plus a replacement that I have yet to choose. The sashing is ordered and will hopefully be here soon. I can.not.wait! I'll be honest, these blocks are getting pretty insane. I have been tending to defer to the 3.5-year-old pretty often for fabric choices so some of the combinations got a little...crazy, especially the second half. I just tell myself it is going to make my finished quilt that much more interesting and since this will likely live in the living room, it will make a little girl very happy. So here they are!

kansas

lightning

lucky star

mother's delight

miller's daughter

mountain maze

minnesota

maud's album quilt

morning star

mayflower

north carolina beauty

next door neighbor

new jersey

norway pine

north star

new york

old indian trail

pansy

patience corners

pleasant paths

I assume I will be back early next week with another 10....or maybe the rest of them, I guess we'll see how the weekend goes. I wish I could do another group shot, but to be honest, I don't know where I have space for so many blocks. I am still trying to figure out how I am going to lay them out when they are finished. I will figure something out though. Happy Weekend!

back at the {pony} club

Guess what I've been doing! I am sure you've already guessed that I have been making pony club blocks again. Lots of them actually. Another 19 are done and I have passed the halfway point, which is super exciting! I am up to 49 blocks finished. I skipped one (indian on horseback was simply not working for me) so I will need to find something cool to replace that with so I still end up with 90.

I was sitting around this past weekend trying to figure out what I wanted to work on. And the truth is, I have both my pony club quilt and my DWR quilt taking up quite a bit of space. I debated working on the DWR and did do a bit of cutting, but I have decided that it will be better for me to just pick one to finish and get out of the way and then focus my attention on the other. The pony club quilt won the toss and I am now on a mission to get it done. I have 10 more all cut out and will start piecing them today hopefully; picking fabric has been fun and I love having a little {3.5 year old} helper to bring new ideas and combinations to my attention. I even picked out sashing, so I'll need to order that soonish so that I will be ready to go. So this is the quilt that I will be focusing on for the time being. And maybe after that I will let myself pick out one of the baby quilts on my list to make and get back to that DWR.  And now, since I have neglected to post these as I go, I will bombard you with 19 new little 8.5" blocks :)

eastertide quilt

ella's star

everybody's favorite

fishing boats

flying clouds

friendship star

good cheer

girl's favorite

girl's joy

grandmother's favorite

gold nuggets

gretchen

handy andy

hen and her chicks

home treasure

ice cream bowl

jewel

july fourth

john's favorite

And all 49 of them together

I am so in love! It's funny how I each block is so totally different and somehow they just go together to create a beautiful mess. I am hoping that these go fairly quickly so I can get a quilt top together and see how it turns out. I also kind of want to back it in voile and hand quilt it, but I haven't decided if I am that crazy yet. In any case, that's where you'll find me for the time being :) Hope everyone is having a good week!

lovely little hexies

Happy Friday! As I mentioned Monday, I am totally cleaning it out and getting it done over here so I have another finish to show today! I know, it's pretty shocking, but it's true! Today, my hexie pillow is all finished and has joined the pile on the couch.

I am a little ashamed of how long ago I started these hexies. Make that very ashamed. I had them all basted over a year ago....last February instagram tells me....and I have a picture of basting them from November before that....so um wow. As it turns out, I hate epp. I mean, I love it in theory and the results are amazing, but I personally hate all that hand stitching. It makes my hands sore and I just... don't like it. So lesson learned. Not so much hand sewing in my future.

Back to this pillow case. I went in to high gear and got the entire thing sewn together in less than a week. Which seems incredible after how long I avoided it. They are 1" hexies and I used a charm pack of lucy's crab shack (love that fabric!) that I cut into 2.5" squares. I ended up using mostly low volume on the front because that's what I basted first and realized I had enough. I used the remaining pieces on the back to do some simple patchwork with a bit of gray mixed in so that I would have enough. It is between 15-16" when all is said and done.

I may or may not have quilted this thing to within an inch of its life. I did an x and then echoed it on the front and I love it. I am never patient enough to do this on a big quilt so a nice little pillow is perfect. The back pieces just have some straight lines. For the binding, I was working with what I had and used some gray I had leftover. I am always worried about it not being strong enough for my *ahem* firmly stuffed pillows, so I used a decorative stitch to put the binding on and it looks pretty sweet. I opted for binding mostly so it will be totally washable without having to worry about seams inside. I admit it is a bit thick with the entire thing being so heavily quilted, but it does look pretty nice.

It feels so good to have that one off the list and out of the cabinet. Which means I get to spend some time just working on pony club blocks and my DWR quilt :) Soon, I'll have a new knitting project to start and I can't wait. I also have some pretty ambitious plans to make myself some new clothes, in addition to the dress I need some pictures of. In fact, I think I even have a pair of pj pants that I was planning to make at sew south last year....hm, I should dig those out and see what I can figure out. Have a good weekend everyone!