A Brag, a Block and a Blush...

I didn't get any quilting done today...well, not unless you count the quick stitching I did when I realized I had missed one of the leaves on my block for Sunni in the Stash Bee - oops! But that's okay, I had something much better to do today. I got to attend the Northwest Georgia 4-H District Project Achievement with my youngest daughter, Trinity where she was speaking about Poultry and Egg Science. It was a crowded category, with about 14 kids giving 4-5 minute speeches on the topic. And it was actually really enjoyable and interesting. We've raised chickens for a couple of years now but I learned something new from almost every participant. And look what happened...

Winner, Winner, Poultry-and-Egg-Science Dinner!! Isn't she pretty? And a chicken "eggs-pert", too ;) So yeah, I know I'm bragging but I'm super proud of her.

I did finish that Stash Bee block last night, though. This was my inspiration...it's called a peace tree

And here is my finished block.

The colors still aren't right in that photo, though. The greens especially come out yellower than they are in real life. But you can get an idea.

Well, that's my "Brag" and my "Block". Which just leaves my "Blush" to cover everything mentioned in the title of this post.

What am I blushing about? Well, as I was just saying, I had a hard time coming up with a tree for Sunni's 'Tree of Life' bee choice. I looked and looked for ideas, and since it took a while for my Kona White to arrive, several of the inspirations I found turned out to have inspired others too, before me. So when I found this in a Google image search I was really excited.

It's so pretty!!! I liked everything about it right down to the color placements! But when I clicked to go to the source, it kept coming up unavailable. But that wouldn't stop me, oh no. I eyeballed those pretty swirly swirls and drew them out freehand on Wonder-Under, found similar-but-just-different-enough-to-be-different fabric choices, cut them all out, and ironed them onto the Kona White.

Right about then my mom came by and asked what I was doing. So I explained, and to give her a better idea I pulled up the bee blog on my iPad and scrolled though to show her the blocks people had already made. And that's when I saw this.

Look familiar? Uh huh. That's because it's the SAME BLOCK that I just posted above!!! It turns out the mystery maker of my beautiful block was none other than Danny from Mommy For Reals, one of the other hive members. Arrrggghhhhhhh!!!! Oh my sweet goodness. I don't think we stopped laughing for 15 minutes. I may or may not have threatened to cry a little. I mean, what an idiot. So now I have a really pretty knock-off block of Danny's block. No idea what I'll do with it, but I guess that's another story for another day. And hey, let's just keep this between us, 'kay? No need for Sunni or Danny to every hear about this, right? Right. I'm just going to show it to you ... shhhhhhhh ...

It's actually a mirror image of the real one, for what that's worth, lol. Oh, and here is another pic of my rainbow baby quilt, with the binding done. It's in the laundry as I type, getting that nice crinkly cotton-batting look. So I might not be able to resist one last picture later, if its as cute as I think it's going to be ;)

Here is a close-up of the swirly quilting my mom's friend did on her long-arm.

I also have a pic of that table runner I made for Randi's Fresh Squeezed Fabrics monthly project, but I still am having trouble putting pics on my blog. For some reason, no matter where I put the cursor, they go to the top as I add them....and in the reverse order as I add them. So confusing. And it makes it really hard to just add something spontaneously. Here is a link to the photo in my Flickr folder, though. Call it a field trip.

Okay, I'm off to my machine, to start on my last January Bee block (I'm not THAT far behind, lol...it just came this week). See you next time!