In My Neighborhood

I've been sewing along with the row by row monthly quilt along at Quilter Chic.  I did complete rows one and four, which you can see here.  Row 5 is a fence with quilts hung on it...lots of little pieces! It's been very slow progress but I have just two half blocks to go on it.  Row 6 is another fence which I haven't even started yet.  Finishing those two rows is my to do list for this week!

 Row 7 came out this past Saturday...houses at the seaside...fun to do and a very nice break from little bitty fence pieces!

Each row is 48" long and won't fit into a single camera shot...this is the best I could get.

Rows 2 and 3 haven't been started yet and I've decided not to do them.  Very nice rows but they just didn't fit into what I wanted.  I finally decided  that it's called In MY Neighborhood so I'm replacing them with my own rows.  This is my cat, Licorice, chasing birds.  She doesn't catch them...just likes to scatter them!

I got out my graph paper and started in.  The birds were fairly easy.  I based them on a free foundation pieced design...seen here, that I bookmarked several years ago.  I drew the cat, carefully counted all the squares to make sure that the size was right, added seam allowances to all pieces and double checked to make sure that the design was sewable without Y seams and made a list of all the pieces needed.  Halfway through the sewing, I realized that the cat was coming out way to large!  I made some adjustments such as changing the bow to a collar and taking a curve out of the tail and hind leg and the final version does fit the size I needed.  I've gone over my pattern several times since and I still can't find where I went wrong.  I now have a whole new respect for pattern designers!

Linking with Moving Forward Monday and Monday Making

Alien Children Finished

These are my finished children.  Each row is 48" and I can't get it all into one photo...at least indoors but it's been raining like mad for the past several days.  I'm happier with them now that they are finished but they do still remind me of aliens!  I'm still undecided about the faces but I haven't been able to get pleasant expressions in the past, so I'm OK with leaving them as is.

For the first row of this Quilt Along, I followed the directions exactly.  The trees and houses went together rapisily and came out well.  For the children's row, I made some changes.  Since I'm using a solid background, not scrappy, I decided to put the children together and eliminate all the seams.  Once I'd finished the school and put it together with the kids, I realized that my scale was off!  I traced the pattern from my computer screen and didn't realize that it was larger than intended.  I'm just telling myself that the kids are marching off to the school in the distance!

I'm still working on the second row....pinwheels and flowers  and am looking forward to seeing what next month's row will be!

Linking with Em's Scrapbag for Moving it Forward Monday (Emily designed this row!) and Oh Scrap at Quilting is more fun than Housework

Little Alien Heads???

This is the beginning of my third row for the In My Neighborhood  row quilt.  This is actually the fourth row to be released, but I've decided not to do the basket one...at least for now.

I was planning on leaving the faces blank, like Amish dolls. but now I'm wondering if that would look too weird.  I was hoping for charming but now all I can see is an ad from one of those TV channels with all the shows about Roswell.  There is a school house that goes between the two panels and I want the children to be holding hands, if my embroidery skills hold up.

Any suggestions???  Hair with no face/ no hair, no face/ complete hair and face  or ????

Linking with Busy Hands quilt for Finished or not Friday