WiP Wednesday ~ 15 August

The middle of August already - summer is nearly over!!  My holiday feels like it was forever-ago and it only ended five days ago!  I am so pleased that Mr Toyota had a tune-up while I was away - he is sewing very well and keeping up with me!  This means I can link up with Freshly Pieced WiP Wednesday because in the past five days I have managed to work on several works in progress:

• one Great Granny block for the Great Granny QAL which brings my total to three completed blocks (but I'm a little behind in the QAL so need to catch up!!) -- only 6 more to sew!

My first three Great Granny blocks

•  six baubles for my Vintage Holiday QAL quilt using 'my precious' fabrics (making me slightly ahead of schedule as we are only at Week 4)

• and two bee blocks for two Running with Scissors August bee mamas (right on schedule - will post tomorrow morning and they should arrive before the month ends)

"Spinning Star" pattern by Quilt Dad John Q Adams from Shape Workshop for Quilters book

"Chutes and Ladders" improv block

• I also picked the scraps for the Scrappy Bits swap and I know what I will be making my secret partner for that too [no picture, sorry!]

• and lastly I finally added the border to my Brit Quilt Swap mini quilt for my secret partner...

I added the triangular border to the left side of this block for my secret partner

These 60* triangles turned out to be quite a challenge for me.  This was the first time cutting this shape of triangle [I've only ever done half square triangles up to now] and this was the first time sewing this shape too... and I will not be doing them again anytime soon, let me tell you!!  They sewed up sort of crooked so I starched the strip as straight as I could and then it appeared to sew on well from the back but in fact I lost some points (and I didn't want to lose any triangular points).  Oh well - at least I tried something new!  Practice makes perfect I suppose!  I had planned an entire border on all four sides but I only managed one side.  Call it 'artistic'!!  Anyways, on to the next step now so I can get it to my secret partner! 

So in summary, I am behind in one QAL, ahead in another QAL, on track for Brit Quilt Swap and the Modern Scrappy Swap but a little panicked to complete a paper pieced block and an improv block for Miss August in the Kinky Bee and a word block for Miss August in the Bee Europa bee.  In addition to all of that, I am yet to re-design and sew my Texting while Sewing block and start my Sailor Mouth swap item -- all for the end of August!!  Yikes!!  But, you know me - I LOVE deadlines and lots of challenges so I'm feeling positive that everything will get done :)  I am strangely calm about it all actually and I'm enjoying the process... and having SO. MUCH. FUN!

~Linking up to Fabric Tuesday and TNT Thursday as well.

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And I couldn't forget that today is the 15th of the month so that means it is Quilty Embellishment Day!  I will be linking up my Zakka Sugar Cookies Sack as I did embroidery as the embellishment on that project.  Check out the linky party and perhaps link up something you've embellished as well!!  You could win fabric!  Woohoo!

See you at the Festival of Quilts - I'll be the one with lots of shopping bags :)