January Happenings

January has found me busily sewing away every chance I can sneak in a few minutes.  My most recent finish...umm new start...is the first block for Janeen's  Ocean BOM 2015 over at Quilt Art Designs.  Janeen is a crazy talented pattern designer.  I simply am not capable of resisting her patterns.  I recently downloaded Quilt Assistant and gave designing a beehive block a try and trust me it was not only, not that easy, but a total flop. While it looked ok, it did not print out alright and I will have to go back to the drawing board with that one.  I think I can learn this but it is going to take some time.

Thankfully, Janeen has mastered this skill and I enjoy tackling her blocks and look forward to the next one each month.  They take a few days, a couple hours at a stretch each time, but the outcome is always worth it.  This month's turtle block had me searching my stash for a while and I think some of my fabric picks were winners...some not so much.

While I love his head and front legs and love the batik with the purple plus signs on the edge of his shell, I wish I  had chosen different fabrics for the rest of his shell. The back leg would have been better maybe matching his front legs but then again if the fabrics had been better on his shell maybe I would like it the darker value.  I think the med green with the lines on the shell just don't work.  Maybe if it had been everywhere on his back it wouldn't be too confusing but for me his shell is just too jumbled with the fabric choices I made.  It sure would be nice if there was a way to audition the fabrics before sewing it all together.  I lay them out on the table in the general order of their construction, but in the case of the print with the lines, you just can't see the way it will play out when you cut it up and jumble it back together.

Overall, I think he will grow on me and I will be very happy with him.  While in Hawaii honeymooning, my brother and his new wife, saw lots of turtles on the beaches.  I loved all his pictures and they were all on black beaches.  I think I would like his head and front flippers if they were crawling up on a black sandy beach so there would be the needed contrast between his head and beach.  I do love the little turtles crawling on the beach in front of him in my beach fabric though.
I have this fabric in black but it has purple turtles on it...umm not sure. 

Unfortunately, I have a few too many other January things to create so I will have to put remaking this block off for a while but wouldn't be surprised if I give it another go in the near future.

I put together this block in the Sew Simplicity Series of Jacquelynne Steve's BOM.  It is block three in her series and I still need to make block two.

Lastly, I have been working on Mary's quilt top for the round robin that Bea Lee from Beaquilter has put together for us.  I get to make 10 -- 6 1/2 inch blocks to add to her top this month and have three completed and know the plan for the other seven. I will share a sneak peek of it when I get it done.
I love Mary's Bug Hut theme and it is going to be a lot of fun to add to this month.

Hope you are having fun in all your endeavors too!!!