Well, it's a start, anyway...

Yippie - I'm back from my vacation and ready to get moving on some of my projects. Yesterday I actually got to spend a number of hours on my design for the Riley Blake Challenge, which was inspired by - yes - something I saw on my trip in Italy. I'm pretty excited about it, but as usual, I have literally no idea how I'm actually going to construct it.  The challenge is to try something you've never done before, so I'm trying paper piecing, but the design is pretty elaborate and I don't know if I can actually paper piece the entire thing.  So I think it's going to be both paper pieced and turned under applique, which is another thing I've never before tried.  I have one more drawing to complete and then I have to wait for more fabrics to arrive before I can begin.  
Am I cutting it close since the deadline is the end of this month?  Yes, absolutely.  But what's a girl to do?  I was so busy for several months before I left that I didn't have time to work on it , and then I was gone for a month ( in which a fabulous time was had; however it is a really long time to be away from home).  Anyway, I am determined to make my best effort to get it done in time...as long as the fabric arrives soon I might just be able to pull it off.  I feel like I made a commitment and they sent me the free fabric and I need to do my absolute best to participate like I said I would.  Fingers and toes are crossed as I hopefully wait for it to arrive.
I also had a little down time while I was recovering from jet lag to work on a scrap quilt inspired by Amanda Jean's (Crazy Mom Quilts) Scrap Vortex quilt.  I'm just at the beginning stages, and I hope it will look as good in reality as it looks in my mind.   With a project like this, one can't be sure...

Here are the scraps, sorted by color and waiting to be used - it's already quite a vortex, isn't it?

The only problem is, I gave a lot of my scraps away and now I don't have as many as I thought I did, sooo it may end up being rather small...or I'll actually have to go begging to my sister (who graciously received many of said scraps) to please throw me a bone and give some of them back.  The irony of the situation is not lost on me - at the time, I thought I was dumping them on her, you see.  Ha - it seems karma is, indeed, karma.

Anyway, here is what I've gotten done so far:

Not much, but it's a start. But I have the entire afternoon to work on it, so I'm totally psyched. And also, it's fun, just a-sewin' and a-cuttin'.  

So happy to be linking up once again with Freshly Pieced and Sew Fresh Quilts once again, because I'm so (finally) back to the quilting party!