I was going to set together an old project, but when I got the blocks out I discovered there were only nine finished. I was convinced there were twelve of them, and now I have to decide whether to make a square quilt, which I'm never happy about, or piece three more. After a lot of searching I've found a bit of the background homespun I used, and now I have to hunt up some vintage scraps. This design is quite intricate to piece, but I think cutting all those pieces will be more time consuming. I suppose I keep hoping that I'll open the Drawer of Requirement, (sometimes  known as the Drawer of Abandonment) and there will be the three missing blocks....Problem solved.  Or I might just choose another old project.....

While I'm working on that little problem I thought I'd play with these blocks that I made a while ago. I decided to sew them into a Barn Raising setting, but I forgot that I'd sewn 24 of them into six of these blocks before I put them away.

I used what was left to make a start, and suddenly I'm faced with that question again- do I make this square to continue the pattern, or keep it rectangular. For some reason I'd rather not make square quilts, but sometimes you have to if you want the full effect of the design. Too many decisions, so I just sewed another pile of them and decided to decide later. Problem postponed.

By the way, the top row is only placed roughly on the design wall, but not sewn together, so don't think my piecing's gone all wonky. I was very happy that I'd posted my cutting method on the blog, because I'd forgotten the finer points and would have had to work it out all over again. Old blog post to the resue! These are seriously fast to make, I made ten last night in about an hour.

We've made a rule that the dogs aren't allowed in the new workshop, but a sudden shower of rain yesterday meant they were pressed against the door shivering and begging to come in. We relented (just this once....) and then barricaded them away from the machine and the customer quilts.

Pippi hopped over the arm of the chair staight away and was put back and told to "Stay!", which she did, with many beseeching looks.

  Dolly chose to stand pathetically behind the bars of this divider and beg constantly to be allowed in. She could have laid on her blanket and got warm and gone to sleep, but she does have  a knack for looking woe-be-gone and hard done by; sometimes the guilt factor works, but not in this case, sorry!

Banished!