WIP to UFO: time to piddle

My latest WIP has been taken down from the design wall (new iron, see? My old one was dropped one time too often and was leaking. I make it a habit not to use electrical appliances that leak)...

...and transferred to the "Ready to Quilt" rack:

The purpose of this was to use up the Indian/Native American print used in the border, and to make a dent in my box of non-100% cotton strips and fabrics. I feel there was string- and stash-busting progress made. The border fabric has been an "ugh" fabric for a LONG time, so I'm glad to finally be getting rid of it in this donation quilt! What I couldn't use up in the 11" borders, I'll piece into the backing.

When I finish a project to the point where it's ready to quilt, I tend to find little projects with which to wind down before gearing up for the next Big Idea. This time, I tackled triangles. I was noticing that a bunch of wee little ones were ending up in my triangle box as a result of my scrap trimming a la Bonnie Hunter's Scrap Users system. I was also noticing that I was dreading the thought of using them. So, those are what I attacked!

From the Box o' Triangles,

I pulled anything smaller than 3" on the straight side, then divided them first by hue (dark/bright vs light), then by size within hue (2.5" or above, 2"-2.5", smaller than 2"). Hey, it amused me. Then, I started matching for best fit/least amount of wastage, and chain pieced those little suckers until everything was used up! (I was mentally singing "Loathing" from the Broadway play "Wicked", and "I Don't Know Why [I Love Loathe You Like I Do]" the whole time.)

Good, mindless fun, and now I have (or will have as soon as I've squared them up) the basis for a Stacked Block quilt using Jean MaDan's free tutorial, wherein a block is built by placing any sized HST square in the corner and strips are added, a la Log Cabin, to build it out to the desired size. Also thrown into the Box o' Triangles was a sketch of a 9-patch with HST squares making up one diagonal line of the block (edit: which, I finally realize 11 days later by dint of simply being awake, is a Split 9-Patch). So many possibilities now!

I still have scads of triangles left, but these are big enough to hold their own in some future project.

I hoard my time on weekends, and there's very little that can pry me out of the house. Singing is a sure-fire way to get me showered, dressed (with makeup!) and out the door. This afternoon we assisted in a "Friends and Family" performance for/with a fellow quartet ("Mental Notes") to help them prepare for Region 10's competition at the end of March. My quartet, AH!HA, isn't competing this year. (We'd be thrilled if we could meet more than once a month to rehearse!) But we were happy to join in the fun and share the "spotlight". This is what a quartet meltdown looks like when the Lead (melody) comes in at the wrong place and everyone else, like a doomed line of dominoes, forgets their parts as well:

This is what a quartet looks like when they (we) know what they're (we're) doing:

We were singing "Consider Yourself" from the Broadway play "Oliver!". Thanks for hosting us, Jessica!