This Two Jobs Thing...

... is cramping my style.

Don't get me wrong. I am absolutely agog that I can, for the first time in forever, pay rent and have money left over. Admittedly, I'm still doing the oh-so-adult thing and paying off credit cards and utilities with that 'extra', but I'm not stressing finances the way I used to.

Still, working fifty plus hours a week seriously digs into my 'free' time. Not to mention, my mother-in-law is still in the nursing home undergoing therapy for her knee replacement. So, that one, precious evening 'off' that I used to have each week has been missing for about six weeks. And Zeb is in a serious 'attached at the knees to mommy' phase. Thankfully, my mother-in-law will be home on Thursday, but no word yet if she'll be cleared for driving or baby-sitting any time soon.

I'm sewing when I should be sleeping, but to make the most of that time, I'm pre-cutting at odd, free moments. I'd hand-sew something on the way to and from work, but I need to prep more fabric for hexagons and I just haven't felt like doing that.

My general lack of time means that I'm practicing project monogamy, which is frustrating in the extreme. I want to get something big done, like my DWR top. I want to quilt my baskets top. I really, really want to get caught up on the Test Your Skills Sampler. I'm seriously jonesing to see how that one comes out. I'm only able to post this because I promised my son some quality time with the PlayLand in our local McDonald's.

I'm sure you all have figured out what project is currently reaping the benefits of my enforced project monogamy: the Farmer's Wife Sampler. Six inch blocks are super easy to prep and zip through my sewing machine quickly. I am, however, getting to a point in which the remainder of my blocks will be paper-pieced. I've already decided that I'm going to switch out some of the blocks, because I really don't want to make all of the 5-grid blocks that require me to cut at 1/5th of an inch, when, really, they're basic shapes and shouldn't require paper-piecing. But, dang it!, I haven't found a quilting ruler that marks inches out in fifths.

So, anyway, enough whining. The whole point of this ramble was to point out that I have more Farmer's Wife blocks made.

#007 Birds in the Air

I ended up giving in and paper-piecing the 1" HSTs. I had actually successfully strip pieced these, but then I made a mistake and actually sewed on a half square triangle to the bottoms of the strips, which mean that I was piecing on a bias edge... I ended up throwing those attempts away. I'm glad I did though, as I'm much happier with my fabric selections this time around.

#025 Cups and Saucers

More of that grey fabric combined with a lovely poppy print from my stash. I actually cut off a couple of points in this block, but I'm not really seeing them from afar, so I'm ignoring them.

#038 Four Winds

I actually had a really hard time distinguishing the pattern in this block when I looked at the illustration and photo in the book. I deliberately tried to pick out fabrics with more contrast as a result.

#041 Friendship Star

Very simple, very quick block. I picked out a charcoal gray background fabric that's been in my stash for at least four years. I'd made one cut into it previously, and that was it, for my Grandmother's Fan top.

#081 Snowball

Another couple of fabrics that haven't been used in forever. I'm pretty sure I bought these fabrics back when I first started seriously stashing, which was seven or either years ago. This one is actually my second attempt at this block. I felt the first try came out too dark.

#084 Homeward Bound

I love these three fabric separately. I love them even more combined. I think I could argue that this is the most 'modern' looking of all the blocks I've done for this QAL.

#109 Windows

Okay, I am STUPIDLY proud of how nicely the points in my that QST match. I think I finally figured out my methodology for making them all so nice and perfect, which basically amounts to trimming, and then trimming again. And, I totally love the black and white dot fabric here. I seriously need to buy a bolt of this stuff.

Another seven blocks down. I'm up to 30! That's a whopping 27% of the blocks for this sampler done.