As I was finishing up Paisley’s cardigan (it’s on the blocking board now), I was thinking about getting all the presents together, and I realized, I forgot one! For Paisley’s boyfriend, Cameron.

He’s a nice young man, who’s been around for about a year now, so I think that’s deserving of a present. So as soon as her cardigan was blocking, I cast on for a hat.

The pattern is Two by Two – I figured it was nice and simple and good for a teen. The yarn is the leftover Cascade 220 Wave from Ray’s socks. You can just see a bit of the colour shift in the picture.

I am playing a bit of yarn chicken here, I’m not sure exactly how much yardage was left after the socks were done. But it looks like enough. Here’s hoping!

My fellow quilters out there will understand this… while it’s not to hard to find nice “boy” fabrics for kids. Finding fabric that are “manly” for the older gents…. is much more difficult. Soooo much quilting fabric is flowers, flowers flowers. And most of the manly stuff out there is all woodsy/lumberjack fabrics.

So when I saw this collection of 2.5 inch strips on sale at MSQ, I snapped them up!

Now, of all the precuts, 2.5 inch strips are probably the hardest to work with. Not in terms of skill, but there’s just only so many things you can do with long, thin strips of fabric. Still, a little searching on the internet, and I came up with this block.

It’s mostly strip piecing, so it doesn’t take too long to put a few together.

I should be able to get 16 more from my strip set. That will give me 20 blocks. And I’m thinking a little dark blue sashing and some borders will bring this one out to a nice lap size quilt. Eventually…

I know it’s Friday Felines, but I just HAD to share this pic of my two favourte hounds that Mom sent me the other day…

Have you ever seen two more pathetic faces. Obviously these are the most starved and unloved dogs EVER!

Ham it up pups! It’s totally working.

If you’ve been around the blog for a while, you’ll know that one animal I love almost as much as cats, are chickens! I had chickens when I was young,

I’ve been wanting to make a chicken quilt for ages, and in November, MSQ offered a sale on the sweetest pack of ten-inch squares.

And I bought a pattern for a chicken block…. but it was only after I bought it that I realized it was for use with Fat Quarters. My 10 inch squares weren’t going to give me enough fabric.

No worries, I bopped around the internet, look at several different chicken blocks, and decided to combine the elements of a few into my own!

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It didn’t turn out too bad, if I do say so myself. And as you can see, Burton agrees! And what do you think of that background fabric? I found it on Connecting Threads!!! And the best part – it’s actually a 108″ wide backing fabric. So I bought enough for my background AND the back of this quilt!

Once I knew my block was going to work, I cut all the pieces to make 15 more. With everything cut, these blocks motor right along. I managed to get two more done before it was time to pack up for the afternoon.

Oh this one is going to be sooooo much fun!

Despite Burton’s best efforts…

I worked on Paisley’s cardigan in every spare minute I had. And as a result…

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The hood is done!!!!!

I still have ridiculous long front bands to do. (Then eleventy billion ends to tidy up), but I think I can confidently say this will be on the blocking board by the weekend.

Look for an FO post on this one next week!

My new HST ruler is getting quite the workout.

Eons ago, when I made the Pinkerville Parade quilt, I did my math wrong and accidentally cut way too many squares. So by the time I was finished, I still had a pile left. I’ve been meaning to use them up in something for a while.

And then, a few months ago, I got this cute little panel in a mystery bundle of fabric, and I knew just what I would pair it with.

I surrounded it with this nice dark magenta solid, and used the same fabric as my contrast on all those HSTs….

…and created this pretty pinwheel/flower block. Seven more will follow to surround our little hooter and create one cheerful little baby quilt.

Huzzah! Paisley’s cardigan now has both sleeves and looks very much like a cardigan. Of course it still need its hood. And front bands… onwards and upwards!

It’s finally happened. I’ve paired up all the Leader & Ender four-patch/snowball pairs.

But this baby isn’t even close to coming off L&E and into regular rotation. Now I have to pair all these blocks together.

And then all these will have to be paired together, but still – progress is progress.

As you may recall, Mom was working on one of these as well. She started well before me, and finished it up the other week.

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She fancy quilted it and it is just STUNNING (So stunning, it sold in the shop within minutes!) She put her blocks together a little differently than I am, so our quilts will vary a bit. (Plus, I won’t be fancy quilting mine) But it gives you an idea of how it will look….

Eventually.

As expected, it didn’t take long to finish the first Winters Frost sock

This yarn really looks different in every light. Here you can barely see the pale pink.

Some days you catch the red dot…

Some days the red dot catches you!