Mid-week stuff

There has been progress with the Dresden project.

The first 3 rows are sewn together.  Because they are on point, the rows are actually done in the diagonal.  The other 5 rows are pinned into the stack and labeled.  Rows 4 and 5 are the longest ones, and once those are done they won't fit on the rug in my sewing room.  The plan is to add a row or 2 each day before working on anything else. 

It seemed like a good day yesterday to do a little more red, white, and blue sewing, and some organizing and cutting too.  And cleaning!!  Underneath the pile on the right is actually a large bin to hold the Quilt of Valor yardage.  Under the pile on the left is a canvas cube holding QOV scraps.  And it's very obvious that the whole mess is out of control - again.  I even discovered some patterns and some random blocks all mixed in with fabric.  It needs some serious attention before it will fit back into the containers. 

I don't have the mess ALL organized and cleaned up, but I did get a fairly good start. The priority for now is to clear out a lot of those scraps by cutting them for more QOV blocks.  Some parts have been cut for more Gleam blocks, and for more 4-Patch Fun blocks.  For Gleam - if I had only 3.5" strips then I cut triangles for the HST units.  If I had 4" I could cut squares to make 2 half square triangles.  The 4-Patch Fun blocks are made from 2" strips - so the smaller scraps get used for them.
  

The Gleam pattern has 4 units that look like quartered stars. Two have light backgrounds, and 2 are reversed.  Each block has just 1 red unit and 3 blue units.  So far I have 4 of these blocks made.  There are enough units made for a couple more blocks.  But the scraps are plentiful so hopefully I'll get enough for a whole quilt just from the scrap bin.  And then maybe the scrap cube will be partially empty, or at least not overflowing.  

While getting some of the mess organized, I was able to kit up the parts for another Quilt of Valor top.  I want to get 3 or more kits put together for our members to work on, possibly at a group sew day. There was a big stack of random 12" blocks, so I sorted out a dozen to make a sampler quilt.  Sashing and cornerstones are cut.  The border on the right side is a Navy themed print donated to us, so this quilt will go to a Navy veteran when it's done.

What else has been going on lately?  We spent Saturday at a swim meet.  Both granddaughters are on the Sioux Falls swim team, and this past weekend both swam at a meet in Yankton SD.

Sophia is 13, and also a wrestler on her school team.  Olivia is 12, and also plays viola in her school orchestra.  The girls had a good swim meet with times improved in nearly every event both days.  We only went on Saturday. 

Tuesday we had rain - and thunder and lightning - a good share of the afternoon.  Our street has a storm drain on each side but both must have been clogged with leaves because this was what it looked like as we left for Brookings about 4:30.  My neighbor said it took the city quite a while to get the drains working again.  Notice how green the lawns are yet.  After that snow we had about a week ago, the grass has turned bright green again.  Crazy weather for November in eastern South Dakota.