End of March Update

This was a pretty productive month!  I always feel like I didn't accomplish much, but when I list it out, it's more than I thought.

For my March UFO goals, I made some progress:

1.  Finish Times Three Quilt - done.  This quilt is going to Hands2Help.

2.  Get Winter Wonderland put together - done.  This top is finished, and will be put away until fall and I will quilt it then.  I wish the words at the bottom showed up better in the picture - it says "warm winter wishes" and is fine in real life!

3.  Hand quilt the wall hanging from my cruise - This is started, and I will continue working on it in April.  Speaking of hand quilting, did you know that you can't buy 1" masking tape any more?  It's all .94", at least around here.  I guess it's not a huge problem, but I was surprised by the change.  I use masking tape a lot to avoid drawing lines when hand quilting.

4.  Finish appliques on my Favorite Things wall hanging - under way.  I'm still blanket stitching some of the appliques, but I think everything is on here now.  That big blank area on the right side says "quilting" so there really will be something there!  I added the Easter basket, a watermelon, a pincushion, a dog and cat, and my initials and date since last month.  I think I'm done adding things.

I also got all caught up on my Bee in My Bonnet row quilt.  This was a lot of fun to make.

I'm not loving the basket handles - they are brown and kind of jump out at me, so I'm thinking I'll make some yo-yo flowers and try to cover up part of them.  We'll see how that goes.  My tulips got cut off in the picture - they are one of my favorite parts!  One of the giveaway fabrics I won was perfect for the inner border.  I'm excited about the fact that I didn't buy anything for this quilt - everything came from my stash, which doesn't look depleted at all even after all this.


So, what to do for April?  Here are my goals:

1.  Quilt this dinosaur quilt for my second Hands2Help quilt.

2.  Quilt this Bricks and Cornerstones quilt.  This was made for my guild scrap quilting day, and I need to have it done for our show in May 2014, so no giant rush on this one.  I'm trying to avoid a giant rush next April, though.

3.  Finish hand quilting the cruise wall hanging.
4.  Finish the appliques on my Favorite Things wall hanging.

5.  Finish this cross stitch pinkeep.  The cross stitching is done, and it just needs to be assembled.  See the little wool thing in the upper left corner?  That's a pinch coin purse that was our guild project one month - that got done in March, also.  It's the perfect size for carrying a spool of thread, thimble and little scissors.  Mine is wool lined with homespun.

That's all -  LOL.  I need to get these done in April, because when May gets here and our snow is finally gone, I'm going outside and staying there until September! The snow has been melting, but not fast enough to suit me.  I'm very envious of the flowers showing up on some of the blogs.

Thanks for stopping by!

Hands2Help

Have you heard of Hands2Help?  It's a charity project coordinated by Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict.  She has chosen two awesome charities this year - Happy Chemo and Quilts Beyond Borders.  With Hands2Help, you sign up now, make your quilt, and send it off to the charity by June 2.  Easy, peasy and a great way to help others.  Sarah has linky parties, tutorials for easy quilts and even prizes a couple times during the spring to keep us all on track!  The signup is going on this week here.   You can sign up after this week, but Sarah is offering a prize to someone who signs up now.

This is the third year I've participated, and I plan to make a quilt for each charity.  I'm happy to announce that one is already done:

This is Times Three, and it was one of my March UFOs, and it is done, quilted and bound and ready to go!  This is a fun quilt for a little boy - it even has Pokemon in it

Is Pokemon still popular?  He sure was when my kids were little, but that's been awhile now!  Probably time I use up this fabric.  This quilt is going to Happy Chemo.

For Quilts Beyond Borders, I'm making this quilt

This was a fun panel, and I added a row of blocks on the top and bottom to make it the right size.  It's going to be really cute once it's quilted.  This quilt is going onto my April UFO list, so I can get the quilting and binding done.

So, if you have time to make a charity quilt, this is a great chance to do it and a great group of people to do it with!  Signups are going on here.

What a Great Week!

This has been a great week at Troublesome Creek Quilts!  Last Saturday, I came home to find a wonderful package from Dee at Mike and Gabby.   She's been having a series of giveaways, and I was a lucky winner.   Look what was in my package - wonderful spring fabrics!

I just love these pretty Moda fabrics.  The red rickrack will make a wonderful binding.  These are some fabrics I didn't already have in my stash, so I will enjoy using them, and they brought a welcome spot of color to dreary Wisconsin.  I can't wait to start something with them.  Thanks for your generosity, Dee!

And then on Wednesday, I came home to find a package from Buttermilk Basin - I was a winner in her giveaway, too!  This box contained some fantastic goodies...

The pink stripe is a kitchen towel, with a pattern and wool and floss to put the rabbit on it, and some great green rickrack to finish it with.  And this yummy bundle of wools, an Easter pattern, and even a chocolate rabbit.  I was already a big fan of Buttermilk Basin; I love her wool and stitchery patterns and have made quite a few of them over the years.  Thanks, Staci - I'm looking forward to making some fun Easter things, but I'd better get going, hadn't I?  I think it's only about 3 weeks until Easter.

I've been working on my March UFOs, but don't have a lot of new progress to show yet.  Hopefully I'll have a mid-month update.

So that's my week - it was a good one!