Catching up and finding free time

I don't know about others, but whenever I finally start to think I am on top of things, I take on something new and get into a tangle again.  I do find that it helps to allocate a certain amount of time each day to a particular project if you have a deadline in mind.

I started making the "4 card trick" about two weeks ago, wanting to have the whole thing completed by the end of November.  There are 20 blocks in the quilt, and I figured I would use each fabric twice, so that is......hmmmm ......40 different fabrics, plus the background.  Somewhere along the line I miscalculated, and ended up with too many small triangles.

and I thought I was going to run out of the background fabric as well.  And now, I am short 2 blocks, so have to find another couple of fabrics.

I don;t usually cut out a whole quilt all at once, but it was that background fabric that was the problem, and I wanted to make sure I had enough.   I do, but I made so many cutting mistakes.  One lot of triangles is
5 1/4" cut into 4, and one lot is 5" cut into 2.....so you know what I did?  I cut out too many of the smaller ones and not enough of the larger.  Eek! 

Each day I picked out groups of 4 different cut fabrics, and laid them on a little design board, and sewed them up.  Once they are all cut it only takes about 20 minutes to sew and press one block.  So far I have managed to get 14 of them done.  I have enough to make another 4, but will have to cut more fabrics for the colours.

I will have left over triangles, so I am thinking of making a boarder using them.  I will see how many left over "mistakes" I have at the end.

 Something different.  I went to the market and found "blood oranges" at one of the stands.  I usually get Seville oranges for marmalade, but thought these would make a great change.  The colour is spectacular.

I had a vision of scarlet coloured marmalade, but they have to be cut down with water and sugar, so it is not nearly so bright.

I got 2 large and 4 small jars from one kilo of fruit.  It tastes beautiful!  I had it on my toast this morning.  It set really well too.  I was a bit worried that as the fruit were so ripe, they would not set, so squeezed a lemon in.  Don't know if that did the trick or not, but they set beautifully as well.

Back to the "ticks"!