Daylight saved

I completely enjoyed the extra hour of daylight yesterday. That's not to say I enjoyed the "lost" hour that made the day seem so short, but it was nice to have sunset at a time when it seemed reasonable.

Dave and I spent part of the day picking out fabric for him so I can make a laptop cover. It was fun! I also, despite my pseudo-resolution, took the chance to pick up some fat quarters of a few Art Gallery prints I've been coveting from Lilly Belle and Floressence.

Despite the shorter day I managed to get my March bee blocks for do. Good stitches done before it came to a close. The assignment this month was a combination of half-square triangles and log cabins in blue, turquoise, and red-orange. What a bold color combo! Natalie of Greenleaf Goods wrote a nice, clear tutorial on how to make these blocks which start out with constructing log cabins.

I'm still taking advantage of the end-of-bolt bits that our circle received in January for our Rocky Road to Kansas blocks - 3 of the 6 fabrics shown here are from that bundle. It is interesting that sometimes I start out wondering how I'm ever going to find the requested colors given my limited stash (and frankly, gravitation to certain colors and multi-colored prints) but in the end I always come up with something. I definitely need more deep blue in my collection this is the third month now that I've wanted a nice navy!

The log cabins get chopped in half and sewn up as HSTs along with some other plain squares. I ended up using a couple of solids, a Flea Market Fancy print, and a tone-on-tone white for the additional HSTs. I played around with some layouts and here's what I ended up with (the tone-on-tone looks much more like a "print" in person than a "solid"): 

I also found out within the last couple days that I was ok'd for two new bees that start in April, which will be really fun. I've enjoyed the low-key commitment of just two blocks of a certain pattern and the way it has helped me learn more about constructing quilts. The added bonus of the new bees also is that I'll get to host a month! I have until September to come up with a general idea for one bee and January to think up a hexagon block for the second. I think I am going to follow Natalie's fantastic example and post instructions here when the time comes.

In addition to the new bees, I'm also looking forward to interviews being over so I can start tackling some of the bigger projects I have planned for this year. Y'know, instead of writing my thesis.