Update on my quilt

Hello all!

How's is your Memorial Day Weekend? We have been blessed with excellent weather! We were able to go to the beach yesterday and it was so much fun.

 (Before I start I just had to share how tickled I was that Jennifer Paganelli and Madeline, her assistant, were on Fox and Friends in NY over Mother's Day Weekend. They showed off some great projects and her new book Happy Home! Way to go beautiful ladies!!!!!!!)

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I also got in some sewing and I want to share with you how far I have come on my Happy Fish Quilt. After cutting and cutting and cutting, I had piles of large and small squares----------------->

I also cut all of the background squares and triangles out of a pretty small dot on white fabric. I made piles to keep everything organized.

Next, I had to sew the large squares to the background squares and cut them into triangles. Joan Ford in Cut the Scraps had a great way of doing this! You stitch diagonally and across and cut and whalaaaa....... four triangles/squares already stitched to the background fabric! You can see to the left and above of the little cutting board, I had completed stacks of small triangles/squares. When you press the triangles open and they became 2" squares.

 Below are my completed piles of squares and triangle/squares. I matched each larger square to 5 smaller triangles/squares:

So in the next step, I had to assemble a "fish block". I switched to my 1/4" seam allowance foot. It has a guide along the edge so that you get a straight 1/4" seam (hopefully)!

 Can you see the black metal piece on the side...that is the guide! Love this foot for quilting when accuracy is of extreme importance.

 Here I stitched two squares together. Can you see the straight seam on the left....that is due to the foot!

 After stitching two squares and three squares together, I was to attach them to the large square. It was to make a 5" fish block! And here's what happened... can you spot my mistake?

Yep, I reversed the blocks somehow. So I seam ripped it out and started again. I developed a little system so I could lay out my small squares and orient them to the larger block. Here is my fixed fish...

 I used my 6" ruler square to orient the blocks. This worked great.

 Soon I had a system going. Good thing since I had to assemble 59 fish!

I took pictures of each set of colored fish as I assembled them. It took me about 2 weeks to do this because I only had limited sewing time until after softball and dance recitals were over. The girls often came in and played with their American Girls while I stitched away!

 

So here are my completed fish groups....the orange fish...

 ...the yellow fish....

 ...the green fish...

 ...the purple fish....

 ...the blue fish....

 ...the aqua fish...

 ...and the pink fish!

And there you go! Lots of fish to organize into a quilt top! I will keep you posted on how it all works out!

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I am also excited about my fabric that I have purchased for summer projects. I will end this short update with some of it. To me fabric is like artwork! I had to organize my fabric shelves to fit it all in!

 Sis Boom loveliness!!!

 Ok I managed to squeeze everything in!

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So I am off to make breakfast for everyone. I also just wanted to take a moment to pray for our veterans and active duty and thank them for all of their sacrifice and service for our country.

(Pretend this says Memorial Day ;) )

God Bless,

Cathy