A Little of This and That

So I'm still working away on my Twisted quilt. I don't think I mentioned this in my last post about this fabulous pattern that it does require an awful lot of cutting! The pattern calls for layer cakes, so not having my fabric already cut down to 42 10" squares I had that to do, then I had to cut 32 2" strips, and then cut those strips into 2x14 1/2 strips and 2x6 1/2 strips. I was pretty satisfied (that is, ready to sew) at that point, but there was still more cutting to do! At that point I had to cut the 10" squares into four pieces--essentially 2 triangles and 2 pentagons. You do this by cutting an "X" through the center of the 10" square. After doing that 42 times, I had this:

Only after doing all that was I FINALLY able to begin sewing. Phew! Now, did I mention there's also a lot of pressing in this too?! The (very clearly written and most excellent) directions tell you to sew the shorter white strip to the top left peak of the pentagon (see picture below:

and then to sew the small triangle to that white strip. It does not come out as a neat triangle, however, and has to be trimmed down. 

These pieces are then sewn together to create one block, which when put next to another block creates this: 

Lining up the two pieces was a bit tricky at first, but once Sue showed me the trick of how to line up the two sides, my assembly time sped up considerably! All well worth it, mind you, but definitely labor intensive!!

12 down, 30 to go!!

On other fronts, I realize that I haven't ever really reported on my Christmas gifts. Part of that is that I was so intently focused on sending out holiday gifts in a timely way that I forgot to take pictures. Oh no!! I was hoping that folks might send me pictures of their gifts, but their lives are as busy as mine, so I'm giving up on that hope! Fortunately, some of the gifts never left the house, so I realized that I could report on at least those gifties!

Karen has been known to fling her iPad off the bed in the middle of the night, so at her request I came up with a solution: an iPad bed cozy! I had read a number of tutorials on iPad cases, and I bases my cozy roughly on those, but I added a long, reinforced strip of duck cotton that attached two cases to each other, so that a case could hang from either side of the bed for each of our iPads. I found this totally fabulous Julia Rothman fabric from Windham that I thought was just perfect for the project!

I also used Julia Rothman's fabric for the interior as well--typewriter keys! I had to go back and make the first case a bit bigger, because I realized that you really want to be able to get an iPad in and out of the case without struggling against the fabric--especially when it's late at night! You want it a bit snugger when it's a carrying case.

Now, for the cute shot of the day, a pic of my girl Sophie waiting for me to come home from Emily's fabulous retreat a few weeks ago!