Friday! It's Friday! Whoo Hoo!

So I guess you've guessed it's Friday, and I'm happy about that. There's something to be said about reaching the end of another week and having a weekend to look forward to. I "returned" to work yesterday. By returning, I mean working a couple of hours from home. With my life being in fruit basket turnover mode, I won't be able to actually physically return to work until the Munchkins start school in August. So until then I'll try to work remotely a few hours a day. The rest of my time will be dealing with the Munchkins as their summer vacation winds down. That will entail, trips to the pool, going to the movies, loading and unloading the dishwasher endlessly, and some sewing squeezed in there.

Yesterday and today I started work on some more half square triangles and hourglasses. I'm doing them in batches so that I don't get too bored on any one step. The assembly process is:
1. Marking diagonals on 5" squares
2. Sewing first seam down one side of line. Chain piecing all the squares.
3. Sewing second seam down other side of line.
4. Snipping squares apart.
5. Cutting along line.
6. Pressing squares open.
For hourglasses, start at step one and repeat.
Today I completed 128 half square triangles, 128 hourglasses, and to step 6 the first pass on 64 more hourglasses. So for anyone keeping score:
- My dad's quilt - I've got all the half square triangles done. Now I just need to find the solid square fabric, borders fabric, and backing. I think I'm going to make my Mom a quilt like this too, so more half square triangles.
- My hourglass bed quilt - that's a total of 192 squares done, 358 left to go.

I've found that if I'm having trouble "shutting my mind off" when I'm going to go to sleep, I can imagine sewing half square triangles instead of counting sheep! It really works.

Of course I had to lay out the squares for my dad's quilt.

Sorry the picture is so bad. I was fighting a charging cat who apparently thought she was being paid to run through the squares and mess them up and the Boss Lady who was telling me how I should arrange the squares. For anyone who saw my earlier post about which square configuration worked best, I decided to use both! Ha ha! Cheers for me! The empty squares will be a solid dark turquoisy blue that will also be the inner border and then an outer border of a nice chocolately brown. It's name hasn't materizated yet....that's the next order of business.

When I made the Shrinky Dink button, that inspired the Munchkins. Rose naturally wanted to make Chinese characters and snakes (she was born the year of the snake).
And then Lily decided to make buttons of her own for her newest quilt project, "Big Cats, Wild Cats." Here's her fabric selection with the buttons.

This weekend will bring a visit to my Dad, tennis with Hubbie, pool with the kids, and I hope more sewing!