I finished A-12, Framed Fancy, and A-13, Starlight Starbright, to complete Dear Jane Row A!!

I finished Framed Fancy and Starlight Starbright, this week.  Framed Fancy was a nice exercise in straight-forward paper-piecing. 

The block is rather muted to my taste, but I want my Dear Jane to have a nice variety of values to add interest to the trip around the world format.  At least, that's what I keep telling myself! 

The next block, Starlight, Starbright, is much more to my taste color-wise.  I first paper-pieced the inner 9-patch and the four outer edge units.  I then hand-pieced (not appliqued) the outer edges to the 9-patch center.  

I'm not an experienced hand-piecer.  You can easily see some of my white hand-stitches, but it will have to do.  I'm MUCH LESS PLEASED that I forgot to add the extra 1/4 inch to the outer edges and it finished small!  Wouldn't you know?  The last block in the row and it's the first one that finished small. grrrr

As I said in the previous post, I've really gotten hooked on Bonnie Hunter's quilt cam!  It's such an enjoyable, productive way to sew.  I love sewing in company, but it's not usually my most productive time, plus I'm not using my favorite machine in its most comfortable setup.  Quilt cam will never take the place of my real-world sewing buddies, but it sure is good company for, say, endless paper-piecing. 

Bonnie kept referring to "Leaders & Enders" projects during Quilt Cam.  After I figured out what she was talking about, I realized I already had the perfect project to replace my "thread bunnies".  I'm trying to use up a bunch of awful, dark fabrics donated to the Blanketeers years ago, which everyone else passed on, that I inherited.  Last year, I cut them into usable squares per Bonnie's system.  I matched each dark with a coordinating bright and made up many HSTs.  Now I'm keeping them beside my machine, waiting to take their turn after every paper-pieced chain.

I have many HSTs done, but I need lots more; this is the perfect Leaders & Enders project.  So far, it's working like a charm.  I need over 600 HSTs for this quilt; if I waited until I had the chance to work on just this project, it would never happen!