Working, working...

Just no finishes to share! I've been alternating between two projects the past few weeks, and while there's plenty of progress, there's not an awful lot to show, finish-wise. But I couldn't just keep leaving y'all hanging indefinitely, so I thought I'd share a few shots of my works in progress...



First are these giant windmill blocks--each one finishes at 16.5" square. They're a combination of Moda Bella Solid in Cream and charm packs of two Minick & Simpson collections, Wiscasset and Clermont Farms. I spent one evening drawing sewing lines on the back of my cream squares, matched them with the print squares, and have been using them as leaders/enders while I've worked on other sewing lately. The result has been that suddenly I had everything sewn and ready to go when I was ready to put the blocks together...


I know there's more than one of you looking at these and going, "Ok, the librarian has officially gone mad. What's with the paisley?" Well, since I don't always sew for myself or the madman (or bees...or swaps...), sometimes I need to take the recipients' tastes in mind. In this case, said recipients tend to be a bit more traditional in their decor. But that's about all I can say about them at the moment, on the off chance that one of them remembers I have a blog... :D

I do have a bit of a confession to make here, though. As much as I really love modern fabrics (and you know I do), I have a deep-seated passion. For paisley. There, I said it! Ok, let me explain a bit. When I was little, my grandparents' house was somewhere I spent a LOT of time. And my grandmother's decorating aesthetic tended toward Jacobean embroidery, flame-stitched and damask upholstery, and yes, some old-school paisley here and there. So in this case, working with more traditional fabrics is no hardship--I love Minick & Simpson (you've seen me singing their praises here before). And sometimes it's nice to switch things up, right?

Especially when I've also been sewing tons of these:


See, more paisley-inspired prints. And modern! You've seen these blocks before, too. 83 completed blocks in that stack, just 17 left to go. But I'll probably hold off on putting the top together until it's slightly less hot and humid...like September. No AC here, so it requires a bit of strategy. Summer is for block sewing, fall and winter are for tops, basting and quilting.

What about you? Do you save certain aspects of your hobbies for certain times of year?