A few quilt blocks

Since making this house block last year for Cara's quilt, I wanted to try making another one with a little more to it. I had a few fat quarters from the Dress Up Days line from Riley Blake, which showcases some super cute little girls doing various activities. I used the piece from the blue colorway as my starting point for this block. I cut out three of the little girls, added an apple tree, a house on a hill, and then hand-stitched a sun, cloud, and chimney with smoke.

I also tried making an atomic ranch-style house block. The mister told me it looks like a rest stop. With that, I put this block away and will try adding to it later when I can see something other than a rest stop crossed with Stonehenge. =)

I'm only three blocks away from finishing my Gradated Color Mod Mosaic quilt top. Here's another blue block. I have one more blue and two yellow blocks to go.

While driving to Oregon for my friend's wedding back in June, I took some paper pieces and fabric scraps and tried my hand at English Paper Piecing (EPP). I wish I would have planned the project out a little better. Since I only had scraps, not all the fabrics went well together. So I improvised. I may sew these hexagons onto some zippered pouches, or maybe make some more random hexagons and just attach them all like this for a table topper or something.

On our roadtrip, I found myself really enjoying EPP so when Kati asked for paper pieced stars for her month in the Sew Beautiful Bee, I settled on a rose star EPP pattern. This shot shows the star in progress, but I've since finished it and need to get the photo off my camera.

I've been spending a lot of my sewing time lately on smaller projects like this. It's really satisfying to start and finish a sewing project in one setting. But, I did manage to finish another quilt that had been basted and patiently waiting for months for me to get around to it. I'll show some more of these projects soon.