WINNERS! and Weekly Review

Today Laura and I drew the names of our 3 winners for the giveaway of the Beat the Winter Blues Blog Hop Party--Linda, Erin and Mary Ann were the winners. All three have been notified and all three have responded and their fat quarters will be going out to them next week. Congratulations to each of you!

This has been an unusually crazy week--first of all, because of the blog hop and all the comments I needed to respond to--quite a time-consuming task, but lots of fun meeting so many new people and getting their great comments!

The other out-of-the-ordinary activity for this week was our pig butchering. We didn't raise the pig, a friend did and we didn't butcher the pig, a meat processing place did that. But we got 31 pounds of pork cubes one day that I had to figure out what to do with (I packaged and froze it, but put some in the crock pot for dinner-YUM!) Then yesterday we got all the frozen meat to put in the freezer and probably 15-20 pounds of lard. I ended up with 3 crock pots full of bubbling lard and when I was done I had rendered 9 quarts of the stuff. They say it's actually supposed to be good for you, so I hope they're right!

But let's get away from all that and get on to quilting!

I finally, FINALLY after about 3 years have this Martinsville Rose quilt completely finished! It's always such a relief to have a bed-size quilt done and ready to actually put ON the bed!

Since this week was busier than I had planned, the Cosmos quilt isn't finished, but I did piece the backing (probably my least favorite quilting activity!) and then got the whole thing loaded on the frame. I decided it would look good quilted with a multi-color thread, but I didn't have any. I ordered some from Superior Threads (a GREAT company!) probably on Monday and the package was here by Thursday or Friday--and that's without paying extra for expedited shipping! This is the project I promised to do this month for A Lovely Year of Finishes. Today is their mid-month check-in. I think I should be good to go on this one!

My embroidery project for the Stitch Me Up Embroidery Blog Hop is completely finished--such a relief! Be sure to visit all the blogs that will be presenting their projects those days--March 20th-26th. My day will be March 21st. This will be my very first "project" blog hop!

These are the pieces and the pattern for the March Small Ugly Quilt. See how ugly those pieces are! Supposedly once they're all put together in this small quilt, they won't look so ugly anymore! We'll see...

This is the front and back of the Superman pillow I made for my son-in-law. I decided that in the interest of time, I wasn't going to make anything fancy. I just used one fat quarter for the front of the pillow and two for the back with an envelope-type opening. I pinned it closed for the photo, but my daughter (his wife) has a snap press and I'm going to ask her to add some snaps to it. I DID make the pillow form--18" square and then made the cover of the Superman fabric so they can take it off and wash it when necessary.

I did NOT get the hand applique pillow made. I really need to get that done...

These are Laura's 4-patches, waiting to be sewn. I cut them out today and pinned them together until I ran out of her pins. She's very anxious for Monday to come so she can get busy! I'm sure she'll have them finished in no time and be ready for more!

My previous post was the one that I had planned about the evolution of my quilt studio. Writing that was rather time-consuming too, since I had to go back through all my files and find pictures from the past. But I'm so glad I did it--it's fun to see where I've been in comparison to where I am now.

This front piece is the only Easter fabric I own and I found those other pieces to coordinate with it. Now I need to figure out how I'm going to put them together for a mini wall hanging and a table runner!

So...all that was this last week's accomplishments. For next week, I hope to do the following:

• Quilt, bind and finish the Cosmos quilt
• Put together the top of the Small Ugly quilt
• Make the pillow with that hand applique piece
• Work with Laura in getting her 4-patches made
• Come up with something Easter-y for a mini and table topper
• Present my embroidery project in the blog hop on Thursday
• Put together these two blocks from January and February from the Quilt Studio shop (and see about going and getting the March block)
• Mary Ann (one of our winners) mentioned a monthly paper piecing project by Quiet Play: And Sew On that's super cute. I downloaded the project, found some fabrics that might work with it and hope to get it put together this week.

This was for the March block. After the month is over, the designer puts each block pattern up for sale on Craftsy. I like the project so much, I went ahead and bought the January and February blocks too. But I'm only going to try and get the March block done this week.

I think that will be enough to keep me busy this next week! Actually, most of these are fairly small projects, so I really hope to make progress on all of them, if I can't get them finished.

Another thing I've been trying to do is kind of "close up shop" in my quilt studio Saturday night. I usually don't sew on Sunday, except some hand projects (need that day of rest, you know!), so I want to get everything cleaned up and ready to go for first thing Monday. I clean and oil the machines we're using, rinse out and empty my iron, wipe down the cutting mats, dust, sweep, empty the trash, etc. It just makes it so nice to come in here on Monday morning and be able to go straight to work. Oh, and I also try to put all the fabrics, tools and projects away, but I usually do that at the end of EVERY day (at least, I TRY!)

So...how about YOU? What have you accomplished this week? And what do you hope to get done next week? Maybe next week, we can "Get More Done...Together!"