Scrappy Irish Chain - a last minute UFO. CHECK!
Chunky Churndash. Well, not QUITE a CHECK! Afterall, I'm AM human. Three finishes in one day would be just a wee bit insane. Besides, I'm all out of batting, so I wouldn't have been able to finish this off today anyway ;0) 
Next.....I started pulling fabrics for my student's Design a Quilt pattern that was chosen by the kids. Holy buckets! There are a LOT of colors and I had a dickens of a time narrowing them down. I needed to stop at the good ol' Walmart Wednesday after vball to pick up some greens, because my stash just didn't mesh well.
Right when I was about to start cutting (yesterday), I realized I hadn't thought about the FQ drawer! I exchanged one of the purples to this FUN one (2nd from right), and it just seems to "click" so much nicer! Yesterday morning, I then spent cutting and strip-piecing to make the 24 "blue/green" blocks. It went really fast! and FUN! 
I dug into the yellow by the afternoon (before heading out to the school's play The Wizard of Oz with Cassie). Sadly, I didn't have enough of the yellow I really liked, so I decided to split the yellow 50/50 with another solid yellow, and will symmetrically alternate them through the quilt. 
Our company (BIL and family) headed home early this morning; around 10:30 am. I headed out the door to town after a quick shower to pick up a few items, and was back home around 11:30. After some quick lunch, I headed downstairs. I needed to clear up some carpet space to make room for the Perkiomen DayDream layout since I completed a few more blocks during some downtime yesterday afternoon. I started by basting up my smaller sample for my quilting class coming up next week. This is called Paddington's Class Act and will be quilted with some simple diagonals along the length of the quilt.
Next came the Lake -n- Lodge wall-hanging. I already had the backing set aside, so after a quick pressing, that got basted up as well and added to the "to-quilt" stack.
My Scrappy Irish Chain blocks were still laying along the edge of the carpet area, and rather than shooshing them further off into some other location, I decided to just get them pieced into the top and set it aside. By dinner time, the final stitch on the top's borders was put in. After dinner, rather than just adding it to a "flimsy" stack, I decided to gather up some fabrics to use as the backing. One thing lead to another, and this quilt found itself basted as well (after searching high-n-low for some more safety pins!!) 
Finally, what I had been waiting ALL DAY to do was to layout my PK Daydreams blocks. Rather than going with Bonnie's layout this time, I played around for half-an-hour and ended the night with this. There are now 100 blocks (10x10 layout), which equates to 2,500 squares.
DARE I share my sinful side with my blogging buddies?!?? *naughty giggle!*
I started by piecing the Oklahoma Backroads blocks together, followed by some borders, solid and pieced.....BUT I'm NOT counting this top done YET! I'm actually thinking of whipping out some more blocks and finish this off with a final "larger" border of blocks!! :0) Yup, yup----a bit bigger quilt for a nice FULL lap quilt! I'm too tired right now to estimate the size, but each block is 8" finished. 
Then....I moved to the Scrappy Irish Chain. When I finally wrapped up last night at MIDNIGHT *GASP*, all the 9" scrappy block squares were completed. TONIGHT, I've added the "white connector" blocks to the layout. I'm thinking this one will be finished with a simple border---no piecing, but maybe a double-border. 
Oh yes----and here is one of the newly organized, nicely ironed and folded fabric shelves that I "put together" Saturday and Sunday. It is SO nice seeing the fabric on the shelf nice and neat INSTEAD of heaped and hiding in a basket on the floor :0)
And finally-----it is the sixth day of the new year, and....*sheepish grin*....I have YET to get my butt on the treadmill! Then, it didn't help my "guilt" when my Runner's World magazine came today, with an AMAZINGLY fit, athletic beauty! (giggle)..*sigh* Okay, Okay......I guess I need to focus on getting back into training shape now! It'll start tomorrow night when DH and I head to season opening indoor volleyball. I have shared our perfect "pair setup" before, but for my "newcomers".....DH is a 6'6" spiker, while I'm a 5'4" setter. We met playing volleyball back in 1994. It was one of those rediculous "friend of a brother of a friend" deals. He was the friend of MY friend's friend's brother (follow that one??) All of us ended up playing on the same summer sand vball team (me , my friend, her friend, her friend's brother, and her friend's brother's friend---that'd be my DH!) Anyway---we flirted the summer away, were engaged after 9 months, married 3 years later, and the rest.....well....we're still writing the rest :0)
I pulled out the Oklahoma Backroads blocks and plugged away at sewing up a bunch more blocks. It is now at a 6x8 setting, and with each block measuring 8" finished, that's already a minimum of 48x64", which I think will be just a perfect size for a snuggly lap quilt. I'll throw on a 2" inner border, a 2" pieced border using the bazillion 2.5" squares I still have, and then finish with another 2" (of 3"?) outer border and call it done. THat would be .... *doing some quick mental math*....60x76 (or 62x78 if I use a 3" outer border) as the final dimensions. The quilt pattern I found for Julie in the magazine measures 44x56", so....I'll make up that one and then let her choose between this one and that.... I might also "adjust" the magazine pattern to make it a bit larger.
I also decide to lay out the Scrappy Irish Chain blocks that I've been piecing as Leaders-n-Enders. I can't BELIEVE how quickly quilts seem to come together when you're not really "working" on it. :0) The layout doesn't match the pattern exactly; it's a bit smaller, but even at this size, it'll be a nice large lapquilt; maybe even a twin size.....let's see: 5 blocks wide with 1/2 blocks on each side, so that's really 6 blocks wide, and 7 blocks tall. Each block measures 9" finished, so 54x63" is current size. Yup---perfect lap size :0) Hey--maybe I'll get all three lap sizes done and let her pick her favorite of the three :0)
And yes...Candace celebrated her birthday rather "uneventfully" tonight. No cake, no fancy wrapping paper, and sadly, no grins from her either! She was grumpy from being awakened from her nap (LATE afternoon nap). We didn't want her sleeping away ONLY to be awake all night! 
Finishing up Andre's quilt came to be quite easy. It was a fun, controlled BRIGHT scrappy quilt---twin size. The top will be added to my brother's OTR and Masha's Wonky Nines pile, awaiting when I need to get into a "quiltying frenzy" to finish all of them up. I finished up Andre's early in the evening (well, if 8:30 is considered early----it is when you don't begin until 8:00). And OF COURSE, Derek's Storm at Sea is FOREVER calling at me from its location on the carpet---still awaiting to have all the rows sewn together. *shudder* There is just SOMETHING about it that has become a nagging child pulling on my pants leg and I keep putting it off until I "feel like working on it." I KNOW that time WILL come----I will be patient.
So, I figured I'd take a little time to piece together some of my leader-ender square-strips that had been collecting and growing in the basket on my table. I was AMAZED to see I already had enough to complete 6 entire 6x6 blocks for my Scrappy Irish Chain. Slowly but surely I think this baby will get completed so it can be donated to my mother's church for Christmas.
Finally, since those blocks didn't take too long to piece, I figured I might as well jump right in to the next quilt on my C'mas list. I'd been searching and searching for the "right" pattern, and I STILL don't know if it's the right one, but....it'll have to do! Isaac's My Blue Heaven was begun tonight, having completed 3 (of 20) blocks. These blocks go together rather quickly, and the quilt will too since these babies are 12 inches!!! I have been setting aside my blues, knowing I was going to use them for Isaac, and I was finally able to find a PERFECT opportunity to use up the basketball and baseball "starry" remnants I had from making Zach's quilt last C'mas.
Last weekend, while I was moping about the house and refusing to find any energy to get my butt outside to run, I at least managed to fussy-cut 82 diamonds for Derek's Storm at Sea quilt for C'mas. 40 of them needed to be horizontally cut, while 42 of them needed to be vertically cut. 
When I made my way downstairs this morning at 8:00, I started tackling the white "corners" of the diamonds to complete the sashing rectangles. (Another small world---after reading the Cathedral Stars, I was reminded to add the "Tri-Recs" ruler to my C'mas list!!!! I think it would've come in handy for this quilt!)
So.........being married to a construction worker who always jimmies up concoctions to make his job easier, I attempted this myself to tackle these corner pieces. You see that curled-up corner piece in the top pic? Well.....I rotated it this way and that way on my 6.5" square before I figured out a way to lay it so I could cut the pieces from a 4" strip of white. I grabbed a red-sharpie, marked the square, and then started cutting away. Pretty slick!!! *patting self on back* And right on target----4"x7.5" unfinished.
Then, I set those aside for a moment while I pulled out some of my pieced 2" brights that I had cut from fabric that was donated to me from my mom's church. I hope to have this Scrappy Irish Chain completed to donate to the church by Christmas also.
HOLY BUCKETS!!!!!!! I wasn't expecting to see a whole flippin' ROLL of nice, THIN batting!!!!!!!!! 60" wide.......gosh! There must be .......I don't even KNOW how many yards on this thing!!! I ended up rolling out 6 yards to use on the OTR today (see earlier post). I assumed it was donated by the church, but after calling her to THANK HER FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART, she informed me it was from Grandma's stash. 
It's almost 8:30 pm right now, and I think DH wants the computer. Gosh---I don't know why because he's watching the Packers play the Cowboys (football). Anyway....I thought I'd end with the signs of Fall in Wisconsin. The pic on the left was taken last Saturday, and the pic on the right was taken today. Within a week, we've gone from a spotty tree here-n-there, to about 25% of the woods full of "Fall-bloom." :0)
