A little machine quilting and a little Jane Stickle quilt progress

What a busy time of year! With house guests, classes and all I've hardly had time to quilt, visit blogs and except for Tuesday Tomes I haven't posted in weeks!

I did get one day to mark the Drunkard's Path quilt and because of the discussion here on using the Hera Marker I decided to try marking a cable using it...it worked. I've usually just used it for straight lines but you can see in this pix the Hera marks and the one line already quilted. Its actually quite easy to see under the light of the sewing machine...and it must have been at least 10 days between when I marked the quilt and actually quilted!
Here's the cable completely quilted...

and here I added the free motion design right up to the edge of the cable...I've always wanted to do this on a quilt. And this is how the quilt sits...I now want to continue the "flowers" on the other side of the cable and between the yellow squares-I'm hoping to get to it soon. I've often taken months to finish a hand quilted quilt but this is the first time I've been so busy that a machine quilted quilt is languishing!
I have been sewing Jane blocks...well I sort of have to if I want to be ready for class! I am enjoying hand appliquing these blocks...
I always baste up an entire block of whatever I'm working on and then I can just sit and applique when I have time (usually sitting on the sofa next to DH in the evenings). The block on the upper right was curved pieced and then the little diamonds appliqued...
the bottom left was reverse appliqued-I haven't done much of that and totally enjoyed it! On the bottom right is a whole pile of basted blocks just waiting to be finished.

I'm now paper piecing some blocks...not my favorite technique but useful for those blocks with teeny tiny pieces-pix will follow.

Hope you all are having a wonderful holiday season! (and those on the East Coast are enjoying the snow!)