Mystery Monday Link-Up! Part 2!

Have you been busy bees, even with the holiday hoopla gaining force in our lives?

Someone made a comment on our Quiltvillechat email list that even though November and December ARE extremely busy months, that taking this small bit of time out for herself to keep up with the mystery steps each week added a feeling of peace to her other wise busy chaotic Holiday season.

I mean, think about it --- if you don’t take time to fill yourself up, you’ll be running on empty! And the only one who can recharge you is YOU! Even if you are only able to get half the number of units made during the week that the pattern requires – it was time you took for yourself. And doubtless while you were cutting and sewing, your mind was busy thinking through all the other things you had to do in your busy life, putting those things in order, figuring out ways to get them done in the most streamlined way possible.

I know if I sit and ponder things out a while, an outline and a plan forms in my mind --- and then when I put myself in action I’m not going 100 different ways all at once, I’m better prepared mentally to tackle what needs to be done. And because I took some time for myself, I feel recharged, less stressed and happier with what else needs to be accomplished in the upcoming busy week.

See those lovely string blocks at the top of this post?! Those belong to Blog-less Becky! She is using lime greens where I used blues for my Step 2! Aren't these little string units FUN!?

Yesterday I took a trip up to Forest, VA – about a 2.5 hour drive from my house – for a fun sew day with a group of great quilters! We met at Quilt & Sew Studio – a great shop with lovely bright fabrics! Lots of batiks and Kaffe fabrics for us to drool over. Shown here is the trio of fun! Becky on the left, Kevin in the middle, and Susie on the right! '

Susie is busy working on her Glacier Star while Becky came dressed to match her project---her lime green string blocks for step 2 of the Orca Bay Mystery! Her shirt is a Kevin Womack Original – he does wonderful dying!

Kevin also teaches classes at Quilt & Sew Studio and travels a bit doing lectures and trunk shows. Here he is working on a lecture sample showing a color theory equation.

We had a bit of impromptu show and tell! This is Susie’s Scrappy Bargello, all in Kaffe Fasset fabrics. She says it’s only a Queen..but come on…doesn’t it look BIGGER than that?! I love that I am not the only one who makes giant quilts as if it is a normal every day thing. :cD Great quilt Susie!

This is Kevin’s String Spider Web in progress! This is a great quilt to save all those small Kaffe fabrics that he can’t bear to toss out either! The orange centers are gorgeous…..I think they said it was a print called “line dancing”?? But I could be wrong.

We ordered in pizza for lunch! YUMMY!! And I’ve come to the conclusion, that no matter the fact that I love pizza, and I’ll eat it from ANYWHERE at ANY TIME ---I have to say that I like Pizza Hut’s Pan Pizza crust the BEST over any other. Hands down. This was a win win! Which is why I’m dragging my overloaded carcass off to the gym this morning! HA!

What did *I* work on?! A border for a quilt! And these pics come with a disclaimer! These are NOT --- I repeat --- NOT for the mystery! Yes, they are red strings, but they are going for something else.

I was piecing a string border for a project, and needed 3.5” sections of border. Do I really want to piece small eensy teensy strips for a border? Hope! How about we cover a WHOLE phone book page…and then sub-cut THAT into 3.5” sections? It’s slick this way. I can get 3 3.5” sections across that page with nearly nothing left over…

And if you look closely, you'll see that I even joined short strings end to end to make lengths long enough to cover the page -- so even small stuff was getting used up!

So how much border got done yesterday?

Hopefully ENOUGH to get the job done! I figured I needed about 350”, and I think I’ve got just about that here..if not more! What a fun day with terrific friends that I don’t get to see often! 2.5 hours drive is just far enough to make it not easy to get together as often as I’d like to.

Did YOU work on your Unit 2 string blocks? This is the post where you can link your own blog post and share with us what you’ve gotten up to this week! Those of you still plugging on unit 1? No problem --- these Mystery Monday Link Up post are for ANY progress on ANY Mystery step!

Feel free to link your blog post below! Remember that we need the url of the specific POST, not the address for your whole blog. To get the correct address in the linky –right click on the title/subject line of your post you wrote about your first quilt. Chose “copy link address” and paste this url in the form when you link.

For instance, my blog address is http://quiltville.blogspot.com but that isn't enough. I can't link to the WHOLE blog, I need the address of the post. The address of THIS post is http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2011/11/mystery-monday-link-up-part-2.html See the difference?

If you link to your whole blog, I’ll have to remove your link and have you try again because I can’t fix it FOR you.

We'll leave this open for a week to give you time to write your posts! I LOVED seeing what links came in last week! If you missed those, you can find them linked in the Orca Bay Mystery tab at the top of the blog ---just look at the bottom of that page below the step links for the Mystery Monday Link up Links --

There are also a lot of GREAT links still coming in for your first quilts HERE! Please note that you can not link to your facebook page in these links, even if you wrote a note about your first quilt there. It doesn't work. It's got to be a blog page :c)

Have a terrific Monday, everyone!