I finished the pinwheel in this and thought – well, this is about as good as anything I’ve sewn; I think I’ll just post a picture of this and call it a day!

I was trying to find  3 fabrics that pretty equally contrasted with each other while still sticking with some of the darker fabrics.  I wish I had switched the rose and lighter tan; the tan would have done a better job than the rose to contrast with the outer star points.

But I’m pretty sure that one day when this quilt is done, no one other than me will be thinking about that one block – hopefully!

This block called for some pretty specific sized squares.  For the most part, I used the dies I had on hand and cut to the next largest 1/4″ if I didn’t have the size the instructions called for, then trimmed down.

That was the case with the half square triangle that matched up against the cream/rose half square triangle.  I sewed those two pieces together first and had the right size, but not for the larger tan half square triangle.  I just made sure to make sure the points were in the same place before I sewed to make it easier for trimming later.

I was happy to see the used what I think is the most efficient way to make flying geese, particularly if you’re making them in groups of four.  I always have to make sure I’m following the picture when I sew these, because at face value it seems illogical the way they’re sewn together.  You start with a large square then put two smaller squares, each 1/4 the size of the large square, in corners diagonal from each other and sew 1/4″ from the middle across both squares.  Then cut those apart.

In this picture, I’m about to finish sewing two of the flying geese but they sure don’t look anything like that until they’re finally cut apart and pressed open.

There are 28 pieces in this six inch block which meant plenty of opportunity for me to make a muck of this on the final pieces when I was sewing them together.

I dabbed some glue on each seam and stuck a pin through them to hold them together. There’s one that I just barely cut the tip off but overall, I give this block a solid B+.  I still need to trim it down like all the others but that won’t be until the end.

I was afraid the light grey background fabric didn’t flow well with the rest of this block, but it’s not noticeable as it turns out.

I basted the back of the Christmas quilt and started to quilt it, getting one line sewn top to bottom.  Then I decided I wasn’t happy with the basting on the top. I don’t know if it’s because I folded it last night after basting the top or what, but I’m going to pull it apart and baste it again tomorrow.  What to work on?  Well, why not a pillow case?

I’m throwing around the idea of making a dozen pairs or so of these so that our daughter will have presents handy to give her college friends that she’s met this semester.  The jury is still out as to whether or not I’m going to do that but I thought I’d test out the size by making one.  The cuff works well with about 10-12″ x WOF (width of fabric) and then for a standard pillow, 24″ x WOF is plenty.  If you’re making them to fit a pillow sham that’s longer, then I would cut the red fabric in this photo to 30″ x WOF.  I think it took maybe 15 minutes to knock that out, even finishing the 3 sides with French seams which I figured was a good idea since pillow cases generally get washed a lot so that helps with fraying.