How Jess got her groove back

At the end of last year, I had signed up to be part of the charity quilting bee, do.Good Stitches.  I got placed in the Imagine Circle, hosted by Amanda of My Sewcial Hour and our quilts are being donated to Threading Hope, an organization that donates the quilts to children/families in underpriveleged countries.  I'm so excited about this cause and about the very talented group of ladies that I'll be working with, in fact I was quite intimidated when I started looking at everyone's flickr pools and what kinds of stuff they can do! Happily, everyone is very friendly and supportive and I'm looking forward to making some new friends.  For our first block, Amanda chose the Sawtooth Star, which I was happy with since I have done these before and it would let me kind of get my feet wet without getting too crazy.  We were asked to make the blocks in pinks, whites, reds and accents of greys, and we could do whatever variation of the block we felt like.  Here are the two I came up with:

Like most things I make, my ideas for these started out much different, but I do love how they turned out.  I had gone to my LQS to pick up a few fat quarters to make these as my stash is lacking in these colors, and those little birds immediately caught my eye! Aren't they so cute? I wish I knew what line they were from.  The sashing in the middle of that one was improv'd as my small squares turned out slightly too small to make a full 12.5" block, but I think it actually looks better with the sashing anyway.  I'm not really sure why my points got cut off and I'm a little disappointed about that, but oh well, such is life.  The second one was totally not what I'd planned.  I didn't even know I had these reds in my stash until I was looking for some white to use, and I found a small scrap of that center fabric that I had gotten in a stash bag a while back, and luckily I found that solid red which I don't even remember buying.  Anway, not as creative a block as I had originally planned, but I love the pop of color in the middle. 

After I finished my blocks I felt like I was starting to get my groove back, so I decided to whip up this cute little stuffie for my good friend's little girl. 

Is this not the cutest thing ever?? It's going to be very hard to part with when I mail it off with my friend's gift this week (yeah, we're still not done with Christmas!).  I was able to use leftovers from the FQ's I bought for my blocks, some yellow felt I already had, the white for the eyes was in my stash, and I actually got the black from some random scrap of "cow print" that I somehow wound up with a while back.  Also, the filling is from a pillow I took apart a few months ago. Woo, all scraps!! 

This little guy was really quick to put together with this tutorial, only taking about 2 hours including the time it took to cut out the pattern and gather fabrics.  I'm not completely convinced I did the tail right, and will probably alter it next time (yes, there will be a next time as I plan to make a whole parliament of these little guys! And yes, I had to google what a group of owls is called...) I did skip the step about adding felt inside the wings, but I will try it that way next or add a little stuffing to them. 

After this weekend of finishing this stuff up, I feel totally ready to get back in the swing of things and complete some bigger projects that are still in wait!  Now the trick will be focusing on those projects that need finishing BEFORE starting new ones...I've already had to fight myself from buying this pattern from Tickle and Hide for her drawstring quilts, they are super cute and I'm excited she is now selling the pattern for them! She's also having a give away at her blog to win a copy of the pattern along with a jelly roll to make it with, go check it out!

So, what kind of projects do you find help get you out of a rutt?