Itching to be Cured

I've been under the weather the past few days fighting a systemic invasion by poison ivy.  The area where there was a rash was relatively small - almost entirely on my forearms.  However, at this point, I have hives moving all over and today and yesterday it attacked my face and ears - my face looks like it has diaper rash and is swollen and tender.  My head is killing me.  So I am utterly miserable with not many ways to get any relief.  Yesterday, I tried dosing myself with an antihistimine, which knocked me out and turned my days and nights around.  Today, I am just trying to distract myself by not thinking about it and running errands (I got estimates and samples for the  new kitchen counter tops and bought a bluebird house).  I feel absolutely horrible and really, quite mean.

But enough whining.

I have been working on a challenge regarding a paper pieced round robin.   The rules of the challenge are that you can start with any paper pieced block you like.  No size or color requirement, just has to be paper pieced.  I'd seen these done, before, and decided that since they tend to end up being very busy, I'd start with a fairly straightforward block.  I had already made this one and had a lot of matching fabric in different colors I wanted to use on a single project:

For a paperpieced block, it is really simple and could easily have been done with traditional piecing. 

After getting the center block, we periodically get instructions for the next round (a round is just like adding a border).  Since we don't know what directions are coming for the next round, these sorts of things are always a little dicey to design.  But that is also part of the fun to try to make the next round blend with what you already have.

In this case, the next round called for paper pieced blocks in the corners.  This is what I came up with:

The next round just required that there be paper pieced diamonds on the sides.  Again, I went super simple:

At this point, I put away the challenge because we were packing.  I went back to it, this week, to add the third round.  The third round called for paperpieced blocks with "points."  This is what I did:

Here are some close-ups:

I am relatively happy with it.  The colors are not different enough to pop the way I'd like but there are still several rounds to go to try  to work on that. 

So the next round called for using only two colors.  I chose white and the blue color I have in the points on the last round, and the main border color on the first round.  I want to give a shout out to my all time favorite book for borders:

I can't tell you how much I love that book.

After leafing through it, this is the pattern I decided to go with:

I am in the process of working on it but it isn't done, yet.

So while I am in the mood for shouting out, let me tell you that I ordered fabric from Today's Quilting on the evening of February 2, 2010.  It arrived this morning.  It was a great price, great selection and clearly fast service.  They had fat quarter bundles that they got to choose at $1.25 a piece.  I figured, what the heck, you had to order a minimum of ten but I was itching and in great need of a distraction.  This is what they selected:

They did a GREAT job - I'd ordered some batiks and they must have recognized I was in a batiky mood.  The ones they selected go beautifully together.  And they did a terrific job of packing the whole thing.  To say I am impressed does not do them justice.  Here are some photos of what arrrived:

Because of the size of my order, I was allowed to choose a free fat quarter.  This is what I selected:

The fabric is topknotch - of course, you can't go wrong with Kaufmann but still...

My fabric dye and book on fabric dying also arrived but I caved on my insistence that I was not going to take another antihistimine and am starting to fall over.  I am going to go sleep, now.  Perhaps I will wake up and be miraculously cured.  If the &^%$#@ insurance company would just get their ^%$(*& together (it's the drugs talking) and send us our high deductable debit health card, I'd go to the *&^#$% doctor.  In the meantime, I shall just soldier on with a swollen face, ears and pounding head in addition to feeling like I am going to scratch off my outer layers.  Sadly, I can't even drink since I am full of antihistimines. 

Happy Quilting,

Penny, Evelyn and Pearl