I’ve been a busy little bee these past two days!  I’m usually not this productive, at all.  I figured since I already had all the little fabric pieces cut out and displayed on my cutting table, I might as well take a jab at sewing them!  Honestly, it was having to cut something out on said cutting table, not having the room to do so, and too afraid to move all those little pieces motivated.  They came together rather quickly, but again it took me about 4 hours.  I started to set up a nice working flow, the cut pieces on one side of my sewing machine for the RQ I was working on, and mini ironing board on the other.  That way I could grab what I needed, sew, press and then start over.  I have two more arcs to finish for RQ4!  I really can’t believe it; I never, ever thought I would attempt this pattern.  Thanks to the quilt along and flickr group I got up the nerve to give it a try.  One thing I am nervous about though is that some of my arcs in the same ring quarter are longer than others.  I’m really happy with my color choices, but still undecided about the background fabric.  Originally I wanted it green, now I’m playing with light pink, yellow, or white. 

When I joined the Single Girl Quilt Along, I had envisioned keeping up week to week, quilting along. Well, things didn’t turn out exactly as I had planned!  My first batch of fabrics didn’t arrive until late in the 2^nd week, and then I needed to purchase a few more fabrics to complete my rings.  Then I ran out of template plastic, lost some templates (you would think I would just re-trace them, but no, I spent forever trying to find those little suckers.  And then I re-traced them.), changed my mind on my colors a dozen times, and couldn’t find the time to hand cut the ring parts out.  Better late than never! 

I finally traced out all my templates, and set aside some time to get to work!  It took about 3 hours (thank you abnormally long nap) to cut my strips and trace the templates on.  And I’m only making a baby quilt!  I admire all you hard workers out there making the bigger sizes!  After Little Mister went to sleep I started to cut out each ring piece, which took…4 hours.  Thank you American Idol, Top Chef, and Being Human (now if only BBC UK would let me watch season 3, I could finish a queen size! Hah!).  I’m only using 16 fabrics so after P I had to get a little creative and try and play around with the fabrics to make sure nothing was going to be out of place….which took another hour.  Man, I am slow.  I wanted to make another baby quilt for soon to arrive Little Mademoiselle, since I figure once she arrives my quilting and sewing time is going to be nonexistent  for a bit! But I can’t wait!  I chose Riley Blake’s’ Quite Contrary and Summer Song for the rings, and I’m still waiting to see what Kona green I should use for the background.  Spring?  Sour Apple?

These orange fabrics are for both Lily’s Quilt Along and A Blockwork Orange.  I completely messed up cutting out the 9 ½” blocks needed for Blockwork Orange, and I still can’t find where I went wrong.  Selvedge to selvedge, trim the sides, and cut 9 ½”.  Turn, and cut again….but now it is 8 or 8 ½” on one side!  Sooooo I had to order more fabric, but that’s fine by me since I have more fabric to play with!  I have always wanted to try the crazy nine patch, and I’m super excited to assemble a quilt using other quilter’s blocks!  I’m going to try for 18 blocks on this one. The fabrics are a combination of Kate Spain Central Park, Heather Ross Mendocino, Jenean Morrison Picnic Parade, and Chrysalis by Sanae for Moda.