A bit of this and a bit of that

Besides figuring out how to make flying geese, I have been playing with these St. Louis 16 Patch blocks, they finish at 14" and are fast and fun to make - the tutorial is here at Sew with Sass. 

I wanted it to be calm so used the Kona snow in each block instead of two prints like most folks are making and now it is too boring. So I am adding orange. The fabrics are Lucy's Crab Shack from Sweetwater, which I had left behind last summer. I can't really do scrappy while on holidays as the scrap mountain is at home - maybe I can add something to it with the quilting too. 

I always enjoy the Random Thursday posts so I thought I would do one and share a couple of other things.

My friend Anne at play crafts has added features to her palette builder tool. It will now give you Kona cotton colours that match or are close to your palette. So if you put fabric pictures in, you can pick solids that work with its colours. Anne cautions that this is not always going to be perfect, but still, can you see the possibilities - instead of trying to match from the tiny sample card in the terrible light of winter?

The Action kivu fundraiser has begun, you can read about it and participate over at Alissa's blog here. This group helps women and children who are victim of the conflict in Eastern Congo. If you have not chosen all your charities for the year, consider this one, and Alissa has some wonderful prizes that quilters love as an incentive.

I played with the HST Bloc Loc ruler last night. It is as fantastic as I though. I have always trimmed each hst as I made them, this ruler speeds up the process and makes it so accurate, even when your light is not great. I am totally sold on it and am now planning on making something with hsts. And I have been making more flying geese too (my flying geese experiments are here), the hsts are from the leftovers from the geese. 

I am going to link to Really Random Thursday and go out to play in my garden. 

Best,

Leanne