I'm finally posting what I did last night!!

Alright, where to start? Last night (Fri. Aug. 17th) was the August Friday Night Sew-In, AND the deadline to finish one of my current projects. When I signed up for this month's FNSI, I was asked to indicate what I was hoping to accomplish, and I commented that I had lots of things to work on, including my Quilt of Valor mystery quilt.... A while back, I saw a picture of a great quilt - and I tried and tried to find out what the pattern was, so that I could make it. I finally found out that it was a QOV quilt, one of many that had been offered online as a mystery quilt. One thing led to another, and I ended up signing on to make a QOV. This is the second one that I've done this year (One of these days I'll share the other one here). So, I'll start with my mystery quilt - we had 2 weeks to complete the last step, and I really needed every minute of it. I'm still working through my mom's death, and, with a few family members, helping dad through it as well, so planning sewing time has been kind of hit and miss. Added to that is the christening of the baby of one of my son's friends - and we can't go to that without a gift!

SO, it was finally Friday night - and I grabbed my mystery quilt, and some fabrics for baby Ava's quilt. I had the body of the mystery quilt done, although I made it a bit bigger; I needed to make up the border and attach it. To make the star points for the quilt, we had the option of using whatever method we chose, and I picked the method that yields bonus triangle units. I later took those off-cuts, and joined them for the border (and I threw in a surprise or two!) I can check that project off the to-do list (now I have a few weeks to get it quilted....). The other project is an "I Spy" quilt for baby Ava. She's a bit too young to fully appreciate it now, but it will make a great gift in the years ahead, as she realizes all the different things that she can find. An I Spy quilt usually has all sorts of images on it - some have doubles of every image, some only one. The game can be as simple or complicated as the player (or parent) makes it. I chose to make each picture different, but many of them are themed ( for example, a number of blocks have stars; others have animals) - so at first she can find all the blocks with animals; as she grows older, it can be narrowed down to black and white animals (cows, zebras, pandas, etc.). And, it can be passed down from one child to the next. I spent a large part of my time last evening cutting images for the quilt, and also strips for the "checkerboard" that separated the blocks from each other. The pattern is based on the one on Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville site. I only managed to sew a few of the offset checkered squares - more strips have been sewn, but assembling them is my job for Monday - did I mention that I need to have the quilt done so I can give it to her parents on Sunday? Guess there won't be any sleeping in next week! Here's a picture of some of the featured pictures, and also the checkered squares that will keep them apart.

Well, it looks like this is going to be a busy week! Thanks for your encouragement and comments.