Guest Blogging

Today I'm a guest blogger at Stash Manicure.  Come on over and say hi!

Happy Birthday

Somebunny is having a birthday!  Be sure to stop by The Raspberry Rabbits and wish Shell a happy birthday tomorrow.

Happy National Quilting Day!

Tomorrow is National Quilting Day - how are you going to celebrate?  My guild is having a sew-in all day. I'm going to start a new quilt - Town Square, out of the new Scrap Basket Sensations book. 

The pieces are all cut out.  This is the Lovely line of fabric by Sandy Gervais - isn't it pretty?  It just says "spring" to me, so I thought this would be the perfect thing to make on a March day.  If the sewing goes as quickly as the cutting did, I should be able to get the top pieced in a day.

Our snow piles are almost melted, so maybe spring is on its way.  We had robins in our back yard today, so that has to be a good sign!

Whatever you're doing tomorrow, enjoy National Quilting Day!

A Finishing Frenzy

Three finishes this week - woo hoo - although I may look a little season-challenged.

The snowman clothesline is finished and packed away until next winter...

Easter eggs that were started last year were finished and put on display.

And a watermelon table mat that was started two years ago was finished.


Do you ever feel overwhelmed by your UFOs?  That is the way I've been feeling, so it feels good to get these three done.  I really like to start new projects, but sometimes (lots of times) lack the discipline to finish them.

Looking at my blog, you might think I never do much quilting, and just work with wool applique.  I do sew quite a bit, but lately I've been doing more handwork projects with wool.  I've joined a new group that meets at a church and it's just easier to take wool projects to that, so I've been getting some things done there.  It's a very nice group of ladies who meet and everyone works on their own stuff, while chatting and eating snacks.  What's not to like about that?

Winter is still hanging on here, but we are supposed to get up to 50 degrees this week.  Can't wait for that!  I'm ready for all the snow to go away for good.  Hope it's nice where you are!

Happy March!

Time to post my February finishes!  I didn't get as much finished as I would like, but then February is a short month, right?

The Strawberry Trio Table Runner is the only thing I've finished since my last post.

This was a fun little project from the Summer Gatherings book from Primitive Gatherings.  So now I'm ready for spring! 

The Scrap Basket Sensations book was all over blog-land a couple weeks ago, and my book arrived.  What a lot of great quilts in one book!  I can't wait to start one, but I don't know which one to choose.   One of them definitely has to be my next project. 

My UFO Quilt for February was a pink and brown wall hanging called Peppermint Twist from a Jo Morton book a couple years ago.  I made a lot of progress on it this month, but, alas, it's not done, so no picture yet.  I think I'm just going to ignore the fact that it's a new month now and just keep working on it until it's finished.

This is the time of year for lots of music activities for DS#2.  We had a chamber concert last weekend, and this Saturday is regional music contests.  He is in several events, so that is my plan for this weekend.   Keep your fingers crossed for some *1 ratings that go to state!

Birthday Quilt

This week I finished a quilt for my son's 23rd birthday.  (How did I get old enough to have a 23-year old kid?)  I thought he needed a warm, fuzzy quilt for a cold Wisconsin winter! 

The quilt is made from the Woolies line of flannel from Maywood Studios.  I love their flannel - it's so thick and fuzzy.  This line of fabric really looks like wool, and I thought it had a nice masculine look to it.  There is a wool batting, too, so it's really warm.  I could hardly keep the cat off it while I was making it.  I bought this kit because it required feather stitching between all the blocks, and I love to feather stitch! 

I don't need to do it again for awhile, though.  The cutting and sewing part of this quilt went really fast - just bricks!

My Woolies group got together last week and I put the finishing touches on this wool flower table mat.

This pattern was in the Summer Gatherings book by Primitive Gatherings, but there's also a similar smaller version in this month's American Patchwork and Quilting magazine that is really cute.

So I have two finishes to add to my OPAM list!  Too bad neither one is the UFO I'm supposed to be working on.

We've had below-zero temperaatures all week, but it made it up to 32 today - woo hoo!  It's supposed to be even warmer tomorrow.  I can't wait.   We've still got well over a foot of snow on the ground, and it's hard to see around all the snow piles when you're out driving.  The snow can all go away now.  I'm ready to start thinking about the real flower garden.

Goodbye, January...

I don't know about you, but I'm always happy to turn the calendar over from January to February.  I'm not really a winter gal, so I'm happy to see January go.   We are supposed to get a real whopper of a snowstorm the next couple days, along with half the rest of the country!  We've been out shovelling the first inch of snow.  I think the snowblower will be coming out tomorrow morning.

Just under the wire, I finished UFO #3 in the 2011 UFO Challenge.

This was the 2010 Summer Freebie from Primitive Gatherings.  For the last couple years, they've had a deal where they give out a free kit for a small block each week if you make another purchase.  I also buy their Block a Week (more of my UFOs!), so I've gotten the freebie kits as well.  I finished mine differently than they did.  I had some neat Remembrance fabric I wanted to use for the border.  So one UFO can be crossed off the list!  I'm better at finishing the freebie blocks than the others - these are only about 4" each, so they went pretty fast.  Now I need to finish the other Block a Week (for the last two years!)

Do you think we will get a snow day tomorrow?  That would be OK!