It has suddenly been an eventful week!  I went to lunch with two of my favorite girlfriends who I haven't seen since I retired in February.  It was great and went on for several hours.  Lots of catching up.  I had promised one that I would be on the lookout for a lap quilt to make her and took some fabric samples to see if we were on the same page:

These are from a Moda Charm pack called Persimmon.  She did like it and I'll be making the charms into a 4-Patch Slice something like this one with a warm mocha lattice and a persimmon border.

However, it will be a while before I start it as I still have to quilt the first one I promised so many years ago.  My walking foot came in earlier this week or late last week - I lose track - so I'll be starting that process next week.

These sawtooth stars and tutorial looked like the perfect next blocks for my blue and white, etc. scrappy quilt --

but on the way to making them, I ran across Island Life Quilts and the "Minis and More" Summer Star Mini.  Something about it just clicked and I immediately stopped everything to sew up the half square triangles and lay one out using another Moda charm pack, Lakeside Gatherings. 

I'm not quite happy with it and may seek out some scrappy red to add a little sparkle before I sew it together.  It should finish out about 12" or so.  It may need a border.  

As you know if you have cats, they add luxury to every place they go and that includes your latest quilt projects.  In future, I'll try to capture some of that luxury (prior to shooing it away) but for now we are grieving the loss of our sweet Purrl who passed away last week with a brain tumor.  She was very self-contained and could even seem aloof until she'd come in the night to rest on your hip while you were sleeping.  Such a precious girl.  We miss her very much.

Well, it's been about a month since I shared my projects and some progress has been made!  I settled on a churn dash block (6") for the next blocks for my multi, mini, sampler quilt. And here they are:

I experimented with a couple of "new to me" techniques on a couple of these.  The first was an attempt at Quilt As You Go. 

The finished one is on the right. I did it by hand and found that the center stripes were fine for the QAYG process but the side panels with the Half Square Triangles had to be pieced prior to being quilted onto the batting and backing.  Hmmm...not quite what I was hoping for but I probably chose a difficult block for that process.  I didn't think much of the look on the back either:

Uneven stitches and difficult to see pattern.  Then the walking foot for my machine came in and I was able to try it out. And that went pretty well:

Obviously, well definded lines as the thread used was black!  But still a more satisfactory look for me.  Learning to use the walking foot is getting me ready to finally, finally finish my friend's long promised quilt (See first blog above).  Here is the completed back ready to be basted and quilted.

Big thanks to Lance for holding everything up!  There is a new project in the offing and a baby blanket to finish up and I'll be reporting on those pretty soon.  Bye for now.