Goin' Round in Circles .....

Who knew that goin' round in circles could be such great fun?

I've just laid these out for the photo - none of them are stitched down to the backgrounds yet, and they won't be sewn next to each other in this order.  But I this might work as a Design Wall Monday overview of most of the ones I've chosen so far.

February 1 was my "official" Quilty 365 start date, but you may remember from this post that I had a cruise on my horizon?  Yep, I did!  And it came up much more quickly than I ever dreamed it would ... I just returned from my 7-days at sea last weekend!  I've already written up a post to share tomorrow with some of the fun details of that trip, so be sure to check back.

For today, let's keep it as Quilty as possible!!!

Obviously, I didn't spend time cutting circles on the ship, so I had quite a bit of catching up to do when I returned.  I'm sure you're not surprised that many of my choices reflect my adventures on the high seas!

Upper left of course represents the ship we sailed on, the Westerdam, and yes, I made sure I knew where the lifejackets and lifesavers were!  (Our lifeboat was just below our cabin - I could have jumped right in it if needed LOL!!!)  Upper right represents an amazingly talented singer who entertained us one evening (more about her tomorrow).  Lower right is a bathing beauty, which represents me, of course, sunning myself on those gorgeous Caribbean beaches ... well, okay, not so much LOL!!!  But a girl can dream, can't she?  Lower left is a beautiful Laurel Burch mermaid, which represents the gorgeous Mystery Quilt project we made in class.  Here's a quick peek at my finished top ----- you all know how much I LOVE Laurel Burch, don't you?  So you can imagine my squeal when I saw these fabrics!!!

I don't normally do mysteries, but it was part of the class package and we were told it would be a Memory Quilt project to commemorate our cruise experience, so I went along, hoping for the best.  I was so glad I had not passed on it when she revealed it our first night at sea!  I'll share much more about this and our other classes in a later post.

This next group of circles showcases some of my favorite sea creature prints .... granddaughter Sara was with me when I purchased that adorable octopus print ♥

And then a few circles chosen to represent those aforementioned Caribbean beaches....

The bottom is a tropical flower, although I have to admit, I didn't see many of these.  Even on our Rainforest drive, there were only a couple of flowers, and they weren't anything to ooh or aah about.  Top right is of course the incomparable Caribbean waters - yes, they really are absolutely clear and unbelievably beautiful ....

And upper left is the best I could do for the delicate white sand on their beaches - can you see the sparkles in this closeup photo?

I think it comes pretty close to the real thing.....

The next group of circles were for Valentine's Day week!

The first one is for the stunning vase of dusky-pink roses My Guy had waiting for me upon my return ... oh yes, have I told you he's a keeper? *wink*

And then the next grouping were chosen for the nonstop gloom in Tennessee for three days after our return....

We left beautiful 80 degree temps and sunshine only to see THIS on my roof the next morning .... followed by rain, rain and more rain - Ugh!!!

The bright colors and happy houses in the Bottom Right circle is about my JOY when the sun finally peeked out to brighten up my world!

I love, love, love that pink text print in the Upper Left ....

This was cut from a scrap left over from my granddaughter, Genevieve's, quilt a couple of years ago.  The words are about warming influences, illumination, brightness, "restore to freshness", rejuvenation - any wonder why I love it so?  It was pink, so a natural choice for the week of Valentine's, and it also makes me think of Spring - which I sincerely hope is right around the corner!!!

Last but not least are a few that represent daily life events ...

The first circle is about something fun which I haven't yet shared with you - I bought a new Pfaff Creative 4.5 sewing machine a few days after Christmas!!!  Yes, I love it!  She's quite a bit more noisy than I would like, but she sews like a dream, and I couldn't imagine giving her up.  I chose this circle last week when I went to my last class.

The middle circle is of course my beloved Carolina Panthers who sadly fell short of their Super Bowl quest this year.  There was a Super Bowl Party in the entertainment center of the Westerdam and we got to watch the game on a huge screen - it was awesome!  Well, except for the "losing to the Broncos" part LOL!!!  And of course, how could I resist a Downton Abbey circle there on the right?????  It's off center I know, but that was the only way to get the entire name on it.  When the 1/4" is turned under, the name will be just on the edges, so this will just have to do.

As I shared in a previous post, I'm using an array from white to black with various tone-on-tone light- to dark-grays in between for my backgrounds....

I managed to get all the 5" squares cut, starting out using a cutting die for my Sizzix machine.

It cut all the white squares beautifully...

But then, disaster struck on the silver squares!

That is the BLADE on the top, stuck in the cutting mat!!!  It was stuck so deeply that it broke off and then into pieces when I tried to lift the die.  My Guy had to use pliers to pull it out of the acrylic mat!

Look carefully and you can see the piece of blade still sticking up in the right-hand corner

This was a new die, just opened for the first time, so I'm not sure what happened.  Maybe it was defective, or maybe my acrylic mat was too scarred?  I'm hoping Sizzix will take care of making it right when I contact them - those dies are expensive!  Needless to say, I had to cut the rest of the squares the old fashioned way.

I'm happy to finally have this project well under way!  I love choosing a new fabric each day, and I'm finding that it's a bit of a challenge to keep it from becoming something of an I Spy project.  I'll catch up on stitching them down by doing several each evening until I'm caught up.

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

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