WIP Wednesday: Guest-hosted by Cindy

Hi! I'm Cindy from Live a Colorful Life and I'm so excited to be guest hosting for Lee this week. I have an almost-weekly series called The Name Game where bloggers share how they chose the name for their blog, and just recently started Really Random Thursday where you can link up with anything random that you come across during the week, sewing or non-sewing. I hope you will stop by and say hi!I live in Central California, where the temp has been hovering around 109 degrees for way too many days. I'm self-employed as a medical transcriber, working out of my home. I have been quilting for over fifteen years, so my stash is a little, um, overwhelming at times. And I'm obsessively drawn to selvages.This is what I've been up to the last week.I participated in the "Picture Perfect" Polaroid Block Swap and made 22 really cute little blocks. And then forgot to take a picture of the group before mailing them off. Considering it is a swap that consists of blocks made to look like photos, that's kind of funny, right? I saved one little block for me. Isn't he cute?

This block is for Amy's "Texting While Sewing" contest. I may have taken the theme a little too literally...

Last week I was working on the backing for a quilt, and sewing together strips of leftover solids. I tried to be really careful when sewing, but when I put them on the design wall, there was a really awful curve. I took them apart, made sure everything was nice and straight, sewed them together again, and it didn't make a bit of difference. So I started from scratch and the second time everything was nice and straight. But what to do with this strip?

I chopped it off where it started curving and added black on each side. Since we were in the midst of track and field events during the Olympics, it kind of reminded me of the lanes on the track with hurdles. So I'm calling it Hurdle Jump.

I was considering a short tutorial because it is a great idea for leftover jelly roll strips of all different lengths so here it is: you just sew some strips together and add some "hurdles" here and there. Sew two long strips together side to side, from top to bottom, then add the next strip by sewing bottom to top, and keep alternating, sewing the next strip from top to bottom, the next bottom to top, until you have sewed as many strips together as you like. I think that is what helped the second set to come out nice and straight.And finally, when I'm in avoidance/procrastination mode from other projects, I continue working on these Crown of Thorn blocks, each with Kaffe Fassett fabric. And just because I sometimes amuse myself with naming quilts, this one is called Kaffe'-O-Lait.