Random but interesting

Isn’t the detail on this lamp post interesting? I stepped outside our hotel for a little fresh air between conference sessions, and saw this. 

A travel day

One of the biggest benefits of flying out of a regional airport- rarely having to stand in line very long.Headed to Chicago this morning for work. 

One Block Wonder - 3 sides pieced

Three of the 4 sides of my Halloween One Block Wonder are now pieced and hopefully this afternoon I'll get the 4th side at least pinned together into vertical rows.  The black on the top and bottom was a "design as you go" decision.  We'll see how wide this quilt turns out and maybe I'll add black to the sides too.  

On the left side (about center) I have pinned a half hexie to overlap the panel. I'll do 1 or 2 on the right side too but maybe toward the top half. Both the bottom and top sections overlap the panel rather than being cut off for a straight seam to join them.  I may actually hand applique those sections to the panel.  That big polka dot edge on the panel just peeks through in places, and that is what I was hoping would happen. 

No sewing is likely to happen tomorrow as we'll be going to one of the daughter's for Easter.  I need to get some laundry done today, and make some deviled eggs for tomorrow.  

I've linked to Design Wall Monday. Go check out more: http://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com/

A very slow process

Crawling around on the floor to arrange and pin these hexies may be the end of my wanting to make any more OBW quilts.  This has been killing my knees and my back, but I have 2 long vertical rows sewn together and 2 short vertical rows sewn. Several more are pinned. I have to take each pinned row to the basement to sew and press, then bring them back up. So this will definitely be a slow process.

My Halloween OBW is progressing

I'm glad I have a large floor area in our living room, where I can lay out blocks and they aren't in the way of walking, etc.  (We mostly live in our family room.) But with this OBW project I probably need even more space due to the paper plates the hexies are on. I have to say it makes it really easy to move these hexies around and change their locations.  I've had this laid on the floor for several days now where I can pass by, observe the way it looks, and move a hexie or two to a better location.  You can even see on the left where I have half-hexies remaining on plates. The other halves are pinned together into the vertical row next to the panel.  

I have one vertical row pinned together and am ready to sew it together later today after work - and a pedicure.  Once I do that and determine that it is the correct length that I want, then I can get more serious about lining up the rest of the hexies exactly where they will end up.  I don't want to have straight edges lining up with the panel making a sharp division between hexies and panel. A few hexies will extend over onto the panel, but I'm not sure yet exactly where or how many.  So this will be a slow process with other projects happening in between.  Enjoying the process, right?

My social media vent of the month

Over the weekend, some person (pest, hacker, cyber criminal) posted comments in an unidentified Asian language onto 9 of my blog posts.  Five of the comments were on separate posts from March. But 2 of the comments went onto posts from 2012 and 2 more onto posts from 2011.  I've had this happen before, sometimes in an Asian language and sometimes in an Arabic language.  Very frustrating to be targeted. 

I found them all (hopefully) and deleted them, then deleted the emails that come from Blogger to notify me of a new comment.  Since all of the words were live links I was careful NOT to click on any of those words.  But I have to admit that I'm always curious about the real purpose of these.

Are they hiding criminal communications?  Are they attempting to get me to click on the link and by doing so to install some kind of malware on my computer that could steal my identity or clean out my band account?  

By hiding these on posts from past years or past months, it suggests immediately that the motive has to be criminal.  I'm just thankful that Blogger sends me an email each time someone leaves a comment so that I know where to look to delete them.  As if we don't have enough criminals lurking in our own communities, now we have to worry about people on the other side of the world messing with us.  GRRRRR!  

Happy Blocks

Sunday sewing included some playing.  I saw a cute quilt made with Happy Blocks on Mary's blog and just had to make some.  These are made with charm squares and 2.5" strips, both of which I have in abundance.

The link to her instructions is https://maryquilts.com/happy-blocks-from-charms/, plus she has a lot of other free patterns.  

I had a small bag with lots of charm squares that I have collected from online swaps over the years and knew there were some cute dog and cat charms.  And there were also lots of polka dots, some bugs, and dinosaurs.  Overall I think there will be enough to make a child sized quilt.  I know I don't need any new projects but these were too much fun to not make some. 

I might have to put the Minnesota loon charm square back in the bag, but the rest of these should work well together.  

A lot of other quilty fun was had on Sunday.  I worked on hand quilting while watching the Masters golf tournament on TV this morning.  About half of my Saturday Sampler blocks were updated later in the morning, then I played with these Happy Blocks. While pulling the charm squares out I also gathered a couple of future projects and put fabric and patterns together in project bags.  And then I rearranged the One Block Wonder blocks on the floor so that I'm a little closer to deciding on a final layout.