It's been at least a year since I was able to actually sew. My piecing machine has been languishing, waiting for replacement parts. I got them in two weeks ago, but was held up by the fact that the power cable and the presser foot were AWOL. Really, I only needed the power cable, since the Brother has that awesome Start/Stop button that I love. But I digress.... Hubby found the foot and cable, and I was able to reseat the bobbin case correctly. Viola! My sewing machine is up!

Prior to having a functioning machine, I ordered acrylic templates for a 12" Grandmother's Fan block on eBay. I've had them for two weeks. I spent a little bit of each day cutting one blade out of each fabric that I was willing to. I say willing to, because I have some longer lengths that are waiting for coordinating fabrics to make gift quilts out of. I must be sick, because I reached 375 fan blades before I hit the end. Including all the fabrics I skipped over, that's 400 individual fabrics in my stash. (I am sick, but I don't want to be cured!!)

Anyway pictures follow of the sewing. I decided I want to keep a record of each quilt as I make them.



A partial stack of the fan blades. Cutting them was tedium. I need 384 total fan blades (64 blocks with six blades a piece), and I cut somewhere in the range of 375. The sick part is, I might not need to buy any more fabric to keep to my goal of having each fan blade be unique. I think I have more fabric in our storage, left there after the move.



A couple of completed fan blade sets. I basically threw all of my patches into a box, and dove in blind. I only threw back selections that matched too closely to what I already had sewn together.



This past week, while on lunch break, I ran over to Jo-Ann's and selected the white-on-white print for the corners and the blue-on-navy print for the quarter circles and binding. After cutting, I still need to return to Jo-Ann's and purchase 2 more yards of the white. I bought what was left on the bolt, but they have an additional bolt of it. So, I spent fifteen minutes and cut these. 64 quarter circles, and 128 corner pieces.



I finished 6(!!!) of these this weekend! Woohoo! Only 58 more to go! Thanks to the acrylic quilt templates, they're trueing up rather nicely, though I am taking an extra quarter inch of the white to ensure that the blocks go together in a mostly flat fashion. There was some distortion of the white during pressing, despite my pre-washing and my attempts to not drag the iron across the fabric.

Now, once this quilt top is done, I can start back on piecing the teal and orange Double Wedding Ring top I had started. After that, I want to start a gift quilt for two friends for their wedding gift. The wedding's not for a year, but I know better than to leave it, else they WON'T be getting a quilt.