Stars for Sophie

This seems like an appropriate name for this baby quilt, don't you think? Four large stars being formed by many smaller stars. The first block went together nicely without much thought, but I struggled with the next two, doing some ripping since I'm spatially challenged. I figured the quilt would take forever judging by the length of time it took to do blocks two and three - two of the blocks that are split into light and dark diagonally. I knew I had to figure out a system. So I kept looking at the blocks and finally realized all I need to is make the half light-half dark centers and work from there. All the split blocks are the same - it's just their orientation that makes them look different. This allowed me to piece more blocks quickly, but also made me realize that I don't have nearly enough "parts" constructed. So once I did these I went back to constructing parts. I tried once again to count what I need by looking at the picture, but it's just too easy to loose track of what I've counted and what I haven't counted. So I guess if I end up with extra parts or extra blocks they'll just go into the orphan block drawer or the half square triangle squares box. I think I'm starting to see purple triangles in my sleep these days!

My back is better tonight I'm happy to report, but I'm not going to chance aggravating it again by working with the longarm. The last army quilt will just have to wait until next weekend. I want to give my body plenty of time to heal. Sitting at the sewing machine doesn't seem to bother it at all, and standing to press or cut is OK as long as I take lots of breaks and do some stretching. I can sure tell the body isn't as young as it used to be.

I watched the movie The DaVinci Code while sewing today, then watched all the extras on the second disk including the interviews with Ron Howard, Tom Hanks and the others. I enjoyed reading the book - I know it's caused a great deal of controversy since it's publication, but I look at it as just a thriller of a fiction book and don't take anything in it seriously. I like most everything Ron Howard has done, and I wasn't disappointed in this. He did a great job of turning a challenging story into an engrossing film. The extra disk mentioned many little details in the movie that weren't at all evident in the first viewing, so I turned around and watched it again out of curiosity. It made the stitching of hundreds of purple triangles a bit less boring!

Just in case any of you stashbusters are reading this, I should mention that all the purples are from my stash with the exception of the darkest purple used as a background. The white and green (still to come) are also purchased fabrics. My son and daughter-in-law gave me paint swatches to match and I had nothing in the stash that would work. I am putting a serious dent in the other purple fabrics however!

If the back is still feeling OK in the morning I'll finish packing away the Christmas stuff. I want to do more sewing on Sophie's stars, but the packing away needs to come first. I'm not sure what time we are heading over to the kids house - I know I need to figure out some munchies to take along. At least I don't have to be creative like I do for Tangled Threads - the kids think vegetables and ranch dip and chips just suit the purpose. I didn't raise any gourmets - but then I didn't develop an adventuresome appetite until I was older than they are now.