Early morning sewing

 When a thunderstorm wakes you up at 5:00 am, what's a gal to do?  Make coffee, start some laundry, and head downstairs to sew, right?  I did wait until the lightning stopped before turning on my sewing machine - just as a precaution even though it's plugged into a battery back-up surge protector that cost more than my first sewing machine did.  LOL  Must protect the investment. 

Project #1 was to assemble the Twinkle Star quilt top.  I had the blocks already sewn into 7 rows, so it was just a matter of sewing those rows together.  I'm very pleased with how this turned out.  It's currently 54 x 63 which is a decent size.  

The past few days as I worked on Twinkle Stars my Leader/Enders in between blocks and rows were a set of Happy blocks. This was also the PIG (Project In Grocery Sack) I chose for July.  On Sunday I cut the jelly roll strips into the lengths needed and paired them up with the charm squares.  Monday and Tuesday the blocks came together in between my other sewing.

Now that the 35 blocks are made, the rearrangement can begin.  This photo doesn't do justice to the bright colors in the blocks.  The jelly roll was all batiks in rich colors - hot pink, gold, purple, etc.  They look a bit subdued here, but it will be a nice bright child size or lap quilt. The blocks are 9" unfinished.  Will this be a flimsy by next week?

Finally I'm back to work on my cruise project too.  The last set of paper-pieced arcs are in progress.  These are half of an arc, and there is another half of each to make.  There will be 18 of these total, added to the last set of blocks for this quilt.  

There has been plenty of handwork going on during the evenings in front of the TV in the past week or so, mostly binding.   I have some finishes to show in the next couple of days.