Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Cosmos Quilt Finished!

For my March "Lovely Year of Finishes" project, I decided that I would complete the Cosmos quilt that my daughter-in-law had started some years ago. The blocks were pretty much finished and she had sewn almost half the rows together. I finished the rows, combined them, and then added borders. Finally I loaded it onto the quilt frame where it sat for a couple of weeks. Meanwhile I ordered some King Tut variegated thread in primary colors because I thought that would go really well with this quilt.

On Monday I got busy and quilted the whole thing with just a large overall meander. It didn't take very long (WHY do I procrastinate on these things?!) and then I machine stitched the first part of the binding. Then last night and today I finished the hand sewing of the binding and now I have another completed project!


Laura and Charles are holding the quilt up for me inside because it was too messy (muddy) outside to risk taking a quilt out there. You can just barely see the quilting on it in the black parts.

This was originally being made for my older son and he will get it if he still wants it (he was single when he asked for it, but he's since married). Otherwise it will go to the daughter-in-law who started it and who is married to my other son. Ironically it fits on our bed, but it's definitely not our style! Charles and I will both be happy it's going to one of our kids!

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Just Spoolin' Around

You know how it is in Blogland--you'll be reading someone's blog post and they'll mention something going on at a blog they're reading, so you go and check it out and the next thing you know, you're involved in a whole new project! That seems to happen to me all the time and just last week, through someone else, I found a great new paper-piecing site. Kristy at Quiet Play is hosting a paper-piecing block-of-the-month called "And Sew On." Each month she offers a free paper-pieced pattern related to sewing. After the month is over, the patterns are only available as a purchase on Craftsy. I missed her January and February blocks, but I like the whole project so much, I went ahead and bought them.

Here's my March block, one of this week's finished projects:

This block is called, "Just Spoolin' Around." It's actually got the smallest pieces of paper-pieced sections I've ever done . But I think it turned out okay and I'm linking it to Kristy's Linky party.

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Stitch Me Up Blog Hop

It's FINALLY here! My very first time to actually participate in a blog hop and present something I have made! I've followed so many of the previous blog hops and figured it looked like so much fun that  it was time to start my own blog and join in with all the other talented ladies out there.

Before I begin, I want to thank Madame Samm who goes to so much behind-the-scenes effort to produce the blog hops for all of us. Many thanks and much appreciation, Madame Samm! I also want to extend a hand of thanks to Jane who has been encouraging us, giving us tips, hints and helping us to know just what we should be doing. Thanks, Jane! And finally, I want to thank Debbie and Cyndi (along with Madame Samm) for providing us with such a lovely array of embroidery projects to choose from--and that was quite the challenge!

Of course, a blog hop isn't complete without bloggers and bloggees (is there such a thing?!), so I invite you to take the time to visit each of the participating blogs with their projects today, along with all the others that were posted yesterday and those that will be posted for the remainder of the hop. I know I'll certainly be visiting them and seeing all the wonderful projects they'll be sharing. Today's bloggers are:


Janice@ That Other Blog
Angela@ That Other Blog
Get More Done Today  (You are here!)



So, without further ado...drum roll, please...

It was SO hard to choose a design and just as difficult to choose a project. I finally settled on a messenger bag, since I've been wanting to make one. And this particular embroidery design just seemed like the perfect fit. I should probably have taken pictures throughout the process, but I forgot in my enthusiasm to get this made.

We have a lovely little stone wall just outside my quilt studio and it's just the perfect place for taking outdoor pictures. But today was the first day of spring and when I looked out the window I saw FLOWERS--beautiful little blue Vincas!


So I had to go and take another picture among the pretty little flowers! Maybe spring is finally here!

Here's a closer view of the embroidery. I tried to capture the colors that were in the main body fabric of the bag and the floral embroidery design seemed to complement the paisley design in the fabric. I added a piped border to the embroidered flap to give it a more finished, professional look and I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

One of my daughters came by today and exclaimed so much over how pretty the bag is and how she REALLY needs a new bag--I think this may end up being her Easter present! I guess I'll just have to get busy and make myself another bag!

I've enjoyed sharing my project with you and hope you've enjoyed your visit! Have a wonderful day!

Saturday, March 16, 2013

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!"


Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Quilt Studio Evolution

Before I begin the story of our quilt studio transformation, I want to go back further in time, to the days when my children were small and I did all my sewing in a corner of our dining room. Back then, I sewed with my children all around me, not just during their nap times. I discovered that children get used to your sewing equipment and tools and are less likely to get into things they shouldn't when they see them being used all the time. I have six children, and I never had any significant issues or problems with my children playing with my stuff (not that you shouldn't take precautions with things that are dangerous, because you definitely should!)

In fact, what happened instead is that most of my children grew up with an interest and a love for sewing--my two oldest girls sew (and quilt) very well, Laura (whom you've met) loves to do whatever I'm doing, and even one of my sons learned how to sew his own boxers when those were the rage. And now my grandchildren are continuing the tradition--including two of my grandSONS who are sewing regularly!

So, if you don't have a separate room in which to sew, just sew wherever you can and whenever you can and I think you'll find that your children or grandchildren will become interested in what you're doing and want to start doing it too!

The photo above is the room where I first did my quilting in this house. It isn't very small (12x18 feet) but it's down in the basement area with an outside wall and it gets COLD in the winter. We've even used it as an extra refrigerator when we've had large family dinners and needed extra space to store food! On the right side of the picture is a window that's been covered with an old quilt--you could feel a draft if you got too near it!

Here's the other side of that room. It also has French doors (probably part of the reason it's so cold) and my son had built a closet that wrapped one of the corners. I put wire shelving in there and that's where I stored my fabric.

Then I got my long arm quilt frame. The room I was sewing in was too small for it, since it's 12 feet wide, so we set it up in part of the basement family room, just inside the house from my quilt room. Behind the fridge on the left, you can just barely see the door that led into my sewing room. The long arm frame is on the right. Because I got so cold, I slowly began moving all my sewing furniture into the family room. It was certainly big enough. I think it's about 50 feet long!

It actually worked very well when I had friends from church over to sew, because we had lots of room to spread out and work on our quilts. I'm sitting over on the left and the window you see looks right into my former sewing room--it was actually an addition on the back of our house, long before we ever moved here.

The family room has baseboard heat and it became more and more expensive to keep it warm. But there were other problems in using it for a quilt studio, such as:

(My daughter is on the far left and my son is on the far right, Laura is in red in the middle.)
...young people needing a place to hang out. My kids and their friends tend to gather here, playing games, baking, playing Guitar Hero, etc. since we've got so much space and the family room is where it all happens.

...And family gatherings happen here too! We celebrate Christmas, birthdays, other holidays and hold regular family dinners--right in the middle of all my quilting stuff! We even used my cutting table as a food buffet! So, as you can see, I REALLY needed a different space to sew!

My husband (whom I dearly love) has only one major fault--he's a pack rat! He's also an Amateur Radio Operator or "Ham" and at one time he had set up some equipment in the workshop. Eventually he moved to a different room in the house, but a LOT of his stuff stayed behind...and he brought in more stuff...and MORE stuff! This room was so bad at one time that you couldn't easily walk from the door on one side to the door on the other! I had gradually been decluttering this room, setting a timer for 15 minutes a couple of days a week. I just wanted it cleaned up and useable; I didn't have a specific plan for it. I had been doing this for a year or two before these pictures were taken.

Then one day it just HIT me--this room would work as a QUILT STUDIO!!! I immediately went and got the tape measure and started taking measurements. I found out that my long arm frame would fit, along with all my other sewing furniture! Boy, was I excited! BUT...and this was a HUGE "but," I knew I would somehow have to sell Charles on the idea and I knew that it wouldn't be easy.

However, before I talked to my husband, I did what all the goal-setting programs out there tell you to do--I stood in that workshop, looking like you see it here, and I VISUALIZED it as my quilt studio. I looked at the floors, walls, doors, ceilings and pictured them in my mind the way I wanted them to be. I IMAGINED how it would look with all my quilting furniture and equipment in there. (And I have to admit, I PRAYED a lot too!) And it all worked--Charles came around and we began working together on this project--it actually ended up being a great bonding experience for the two of us!

One of the biggest hurdles was doing something about all the junk in there. Somehow (I'm still not quite sure how I did it!) I was able to find other places to put things. A LOT of stuff went to the dump (Charles knows, but we don't talk about it!) There are still some things just sitting out back of the house, but the room was cleared, and that I did mostly by myself.

We did much of the work ourselves, with Charles being the one with the skills and me assisting as his helper. Our first task was to replace the old wooden window with a new one.

For some reason, this photo wouldn't come through upright, even after I edited it, so you'll have to look at it sideways! Charles is very knowledgeable about electrical work and he rewired every outlet in the room, moving those that I wanted moved and adding extras where I wanted them. All the old insulation made breathing really difficult for him, so he had to wear a mask whenever he was working in there.

All of the electrical and phone panels are on the wall in this room and I had wondered how we would cover them up. Charles came up with the great idea to build a closet around that section of wall. At first I wasn't too thrilled about it, but now I'm so glad we did--it's wonderful to have a closet to store stuff, like rolls of batting and extra supplies! (Now I just need to get it organized!) He and a friend were able to quickly frame the closet one morning.

We hired the son of a friend who does great drywall work, to do the walls and ceiling. We used "green board" on the bottom of the room because we've occasionally had water on the floor in there during very heavy rains (but we think/hope we've fixed that problem!)


After the drywall work was done, I got busy doing all the painting in the room--two coats of primer on walls and ceiling, followed by two coats of regular paint. We thought it might be a while before we got the flooring, so I started moving in--I was anxious to start using my new space! But I wasn't there for long before I had to move everything back out again.

For lighting, we looked at fluorescent light fixtures at Home Depot and Lowes and the quality we wanted just wasn't there. So we ended up going to an electrical supply business where we bought six commercial grade fluorescent light fixtures. We have a set of three on each side of the room and Charles wired them so that I can switch on the ones on the long arm side of the room separately from the ones on the sewing side of the room. He also suggested adding a ceiling fan/light fixture for the center of the room and we did that too. It's been wonderful having such a handy husband!

We paid our two sons to come and lay the flooring for us--we're both getting a bit too old to do all that heavy knee-work and getting up and down is really tough. We kept supplying the planks while the boys put them in place. We used a kind of wood laminate flooring that's resistant to moisture. It wasn't difficult to install and they had it done in an evening, even with taking time out to eat some pizza!

After the flooring, all that was left was to finish trimming around the floor and the doors. Then I was able to move in and start sewing!
That brings us to where we are today--sewing and quilting in a lovely finished studio!
In another post I'll give you a tour of

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Weekly Review

Another busy week comes to a close! I've been enjoying reading all the comments and answers to my questions from those who have been Beating the Winter Blues Blog Hopping! Once I'm done here, I'm going to sit down and respond to all those who left comments.

Now to report on how I did this week on my goals:


Civil War Doll Quilt--DONE!

This WAS the Apple Core Block, but it's turned into a bit of a disaster! Charles told me it was a good thing I didn't make a whole quilt with these blocks! I traced the edges of the block to try and get pieces that would fit for borders. It just occurred to me that what I SHOULD have traced were the seam lines--then the curves would have been smooth (or at least, smoother!) I cut out some little flower appliques to try and hide some of my mistakes, but I think this little piece is either going in the trash or maybe I'll just give it to Laura to "embroider!"

3rd Row of Winter Wonderland Round Robin--DONE!

Orphans and Scraps Mini Table Runner--DONE!

March Mini Wall Hanging--DONE!

March Lucky Stars Paper-Pieced Block--DONE!

Cosmos Quilt--top is FINISHED and ready for quilting!

Overall, I haven't done too bad this week. One major project that did NOT get done was the quilting and finishing of the Martinsville Rose quilt. You can see it peeking out from behind the Cosmos quilt on the quilt frame! They'll both be on next week's list for quilting.

Here's Laura, right outside the quilt studio (it has an exterior door) with one of the grandkids. They live right next door and had her over to spend the night last night. She was having lots of fun playing with them today while I was busy sewing. It was beautiful outside today--warm and sunny. In fact, Laura ended up with her arms and face sunburned! We never got any of her 4-patches done this week, but I'm planning to do more with her next week.

Today is the birthday of one of my grandsons and he loves music and the colors gold and orange. So today I made him this triple-zip pouch, which I'll be filling with money and some goodies and giving to him tomorrow.

For next week, I hope to accomplish the following:
  • Quilt, bind and finish the Martinsville Rose Quilt
  • Quilt, bind and finish the Cosmos Quilt
  • Finish my embroidery piece for the Blog Hop and make it into a finished project
  • Cut out and start sewing the March Small Ugly Quilt
  • Make Superman pillow or pillowcase for son-in-law
  • Make pillow from hand applique piece
  • Help Laura sew more 4-patches
  • Write blog post about the evolution of my quilt studio and some tutorial-type pieces
  • Decide on Easter/Spring wall hanging and table topper and get started on those
That should be enough to keep me busy for another week! Meanwhile, my sewing machine is cleaned, oiled, and threaded and ready to jump into action first thing on Monday. Until then, have a wonderful weekend--we'll Get More Done--next week!

Friday, March 8, 2013

Goals and a Giveaway

I'm fairly new at blogging, just having started this blog in January and you may guess by the name of my blog (and my personal info) that goals are important to me. And they are! If you take a look at this picture...

you may wonder just what you're seeing! This room, one we called "the workshop" was photographed during the summer of 2012. I looked at this room and envisioned it as my future quilt studio, much to my husband's chagrin! But six months later, it had evolved into this...


my current Quilt Studio! Quite a difference, huh?! (I'll be sharing more about the transition in a future post.) So, along those lines, I intend to have a focus in this blog on quilting goals--what our goals are, (and if we don't have any, how to set some), and how to go about achieving them, whether large or small.

I have a few particular goals for myself this year that I hope to be able to share with you:

  • RULERS--learning more about how to use the ones I have, weeding out those I don't need, organizing the rest
  • BOOKS and MAGAZINES--organizing them to be able to find what I'm looking for and actually making projects from the ones I already have
  • BORDERS and BINDINGS--learning and applying new techniques (I've already made a scalloped border this year and tried making prairie points)
  • PAPER PIECING--doing lots of projects on increasing difficulty levels to improve my skills
  • FREE-MOTION-QUILTING--practice, practice, practice on both my sewing machine and longarm machine
  • CIRCLES and CURVES--trying different blocks and techniques to be able to make smooth curves
  • APPLIQUE--continue working on adding applique to projects and using various methods of attaching applique pieces to a foundation
If you might be interested in following along with some of what I'll be doing, feel free to become a follower and I'll do my best to make your visits to my blog worth your time.

I'm participating in the Beat the Winter Blues Quilters Blog Hop Party and the big attraction of this blog hop are all the giveaways. Be sure to visit their web page over the next 7 days (until March 14th) and go to all the blogs that will be sponsoring giveaways!

For my giveaway, I'll be giving away 4 Fat Quarters in the fabric color and style choice of the winner. I'll be selecting 3 winners and it should be fairly easy for you to enter and have a chance of winning. I'll be keeping the giveaway open until Saturday, March 16th at noon. To enter, you just need to do the following:

Leave a comment (only one), and in your comment I would like you to tell me two things:

1) Of the blogs that you have chosen to follow (not the ones you started following to enter a giveaway), what were your reasons to decide to follow them?

2) How often do you read the blogs that you are following?

That's it! So please give your answers in your comment and I'll be choosing 3 of you to be winners!

Meanwhile, the day is still young, so there's plenty of time for me to Get More Done...Today!

Have a great day and enjoy the Hop!

Finished Projects!

Earlier in the week, I showed my little mini block table runner (blocks are 4-inches). I decided that I wanted to try making prairie points to go around it, since I've never made prairie points before. I found a couple of places with fairly general instructions and figured on using 2.5-inch fabric squares to make the points, since this is such a small project. None of the instructions that I read gave clear directions on how to do the corners, so my corners are a bit off and now I have learned how NOT to do corners. This little piece will help me avoid the same mistake in the future!


For the quilting, I figured a simple stitch-in-the-ditch around all the blue strips would be good and then I thought I would stitch a straight line from corner to corner through the middle of each block. In my typical, impatient fashion, I decided to do it without marking first, and fortunately, as you can see in the picture, it came out okay. For around the points, I just used my walking foot as a guide and sewed 1/4-inch around each point. So the quilting was simple, easy and got done fairly quickly.

This seems to be the week for minis! This is the block I made for my March mini wall hanging. I decided to use washable Crayola markers to mark the quilting design. But when I was finished and went to try and remove the markings, they weren't coming off very easily! I had never used them with batiks before and I suspected that something in the fabric treatment might have affected how it reacted to the markers. So I quickly added the binding and threw it in the wash with some laundry. I was so relieved when it came out without the markings!

And now it makes such a lovely addition to my quilt studio!

Be sure to come back later today for my post about the giveaway I'll be having and to see what I have planned for the future of my blog. Until then, it's time to Get More Done...Today!

I'm linking to Thank Goodness it's Finished Friday and Can I Get a Whoop Whoop? 

Monday, March 4, 2013

Quiet Quilting Day

Today the sun was shining and even though it wasn't warm, it wasn't too terribly cold. And the next few days are supposed to be cold and wet! So Laura and I went for a 2-mile walk, something we try to do several times a week. We go at her pace, so it takes us about 45 minutes, a fairly big chunk out of the day, but worth it.

                                  
I was finally able to get down to the quilt studio in the afternoon and surprisingly, Laura didn't follow me, so I was able to get some things done. I finished the 3rd row in the Winter Wonderland Round Robin. This row is a Mock Crazy Patch. You cut 8 squares and stack them, then cut, shuffle and sew. The challenging part for me was that I was using flannel, so it became difficult to cut through the seams. I ended up pressing them in opposite directions and that helped a lot. Overall, it was a very quick and easy row to make. And now I'm caught up on this project!

I have a quilting calendar on the wall in my quilt studio (but I'm upstairs right now and can't tell which one it is) and when I saw the calendar quilt for March I immediately fell in love! I decided that a block from that quilt would be my March mini wall hanging. It's a paper-pieced block and I cut the pieces out on Saturday and then sewed them together this afternoon.

The paper-piecing was fairly straightforward, but the directions for putting the sections together was not very clear. I think eventually I might make a small quilt using this pattern, so I made some notes to help me do a little better next time. (Those center points are supposed to meet, but you have to figure that part out on your own!) I still need to quilt and bind the block so I can hang it, but at least I've gotten this far.

So... this has been a quiet quilting day, but I'm planning to Get More Done...Tomorrow!

I'm linking to Fabric Tuesday and Freemotion by the River's Linky Tuesday and Sew Cute Tuesday

Saturday, March 2, 2013

Weekly Review

Each Saturday I try to write up a review of what I've accomplished that week and then I make plans for what I want to get done the next week. I figured since I'm blogging about quilting anyway, I'll just keep a review of my quilting successes and my plans here on the blog. With that in mind, this is what got done this week:
  • All the blocks for the Orphans and Scraps project are completed, sewn together and bordered
  • The first two rows of the Winter Wonderland Round Robin are done and pieces are cut out for the 3rd row
  • The Civil War Doll Quilt is quilted, trimmed and ready for binding
  • All of Laura's 2.5-inch strips are sewn together and 5 pairs of strips have been sewn into 4-patches (these are in addition to some she had previously done)
  • The leader/ender Dresden Plate pieces have all been pressed
  • The Apple Core block is bordered and embellished and ready to be quilted
  • Cosmos quilt rows are laid out and ready to start sewing together
  • A new ironing board cover has been made
  • The pieces are cut out and ready to sew for a paper-pieced block for March's mini-quilt

Yesterday I made the last block of my little Orphans and Scraps project. It's so tiny, but I was still able to fussy-cut a little flower for the center piece.



I woke up with a headache this morning and I did NOT need the stress of helping Laura sew more 4-patches. She was quite disappointed and kept signing, "Later!" hoping that sometime today I would let her sew. Then she spread some earlier pieces she had sewn all over the cutting table and told me she wanted to sew them together! Fortunately, she gave up after a while and went up to her room to watch t.v. But I think we'll be working on more 4-patches, come Monday!

This looks a little strange, but this is the 2nd row in the Winter Wonderland Round Robin, that I finished today.

The center section was supposed to have an embroidered snowman, but I just didn't want to take the time to embroider it, so instead I appliqued some fabric to it that had snowmen on it. It actually looks rather cute when you can see what it is! I think later I might add some embroidered snowflakes in all that white background, but this will do for now.

Here's my little Orphans and Scraps table runner. I think the blue really works well with it. I've got an idea for a different border I want to do, but I'll have to try it first.

Now that I've reported on this week's accomplishments, this is what I plan/hope to accomplish next week:

  • Add binding to Civil War Doll Quilt
  • Quilt and finish Apple Core block as a mug rug
  • Make 3rd row of Winter Wonderland quilt
  • Quilt, bind and finish Martinsville Rose quilt
  • Quilt and bind little Orphans and Scraps table runner
  • Make March mini-wall hanging
  • Help Laura sew all strip sets into 4-patches
  • Sew March Lucky Stars block
  • Start putting Cosmos quilt together
As usual, I have a rather ambitious list! Chances are, I won't get everything done on my list, but I like to have lots of ideas to choose from, in case I get bored! And frankly, most of the projects on this list are quite small, so who knows what will happen?

Now it's Saturday night--time to give my sewing machine and quilt studio a rest, along with me and Laura. Then we'll be all ready first thing Monday morning to start Getting More Done!