A Work in Progress

I'm enjoying a leisurely morning.  I've finished a book (The Thread of Truth by Marie Bostwick) and gone to the gym (spin class--never gets easier no matter how many time I do it).  Everyone else in the house had a late night and all are sleeping in, allowing me a few more moments before I need to get ready to go to the mall with my daughter.  She's headed off to Scotland at the end of the week and doesn't think the winter coat she bought two weeks ago will be warm enough.  So we need to look again.  Today is our designated packing day.  Remember I'm a genius at packing so we will be sure to get the maximum amount into those suitcases for my little clotheshorse.  (She inherited that trait from my husband.  I'm a jeans and T-shirt person myself.  Buying clothes just doesn't compare to acquiring books and needlework stash.) Last week I endured four days of inservice at school.  It's great to be back and see everyone, but it r...

Move along, there's nothing (much) to see here.  Stitching went by the wayside this month as during the first half I was preparing to move my son and during the second half I was racing around getting ready to go back to work.  Some of that was fun as it included lunch with friends and a fabric shopping trip in Lancaster County.  And then there was the part that was actual work--interviewing for a new therapist in our department, attending a conference on billing and doing an evaluation.  My district has four days of teacher inservice this week and the kids start on Tuesday.  I'm already bringing work home in an effort to keep up!  Funny thing is, though, that I find I actually stitch more when I'm on a schedule.  Hopefully, I'll have more to show in September, but for now, this is all you get.  Some progress on Quaker Christmas I picked up Elizabeth Rush again on my birthday.  Those over-one letters have been stitched, frogged and re-s...

Here's Block #3 in the Fat Quarter Shop's 2009 Designer Mystery.  I tell you, I have totally amazed myself with being able to piece these blocks.  I think this is the most complicated block I have done to date.  Only some minor re-sewing was involved this time as I had to switch the "wings" on the top and bottom flying geese.  That's because I took this block to piece at my guild's UFO workshop on Saturday and didn't pay attention to the directions.  I did have lots of fun talking to friends on either side of me which is also why it took me nearly half the day to get this block done.  And speaking of those "amazing" piecing skills--well, not so much with my Thimbleberries block of the month.  The top went together like a dream.  So did the first strip of half square triangles for the border.  The second strip of triangles needed some adjustments in the seam to make it fit, but that was really no big deal.  I got the top and bottom...

I completed Block 2 in the Fat Quarter Shop 2009 Mystery BOM.  I love the colors!  I'm getting better at doing the layout correctly the first time, but there was still some re-sewing involved in this block.  Still, these are fun and I'm looking forward to the next one.  The last three weeks have been hectic here as my son got accepted into graduate school on his birthday (exactly three weeks ago) and started his graduate assistantship today.  My husband and I accompanied him on the 21 hour drive to his new home near the Mississippi last week.  His Honda Civic was stuffed with an amazing number of his things.  I reminded my son more than once that I am a genius at packing and got rewarded with an eye roll each time.  Seriously, if there was an Olympic medal for packing, I would win gold hands down. Of course, there wasn't too much room in the back seat and for awhile, I doubted that I would ever be able to walk normally agai...

Here's my BOM Rehab for this week, a day late.  This is from the Fat Quarter Shop's 2009 Designer Mystery Block of the Month.  I think I bought this in 2010 as I received all of the blocks at once.  I was pretty new to quilting in 2009-10 so I didn't tackle this one right away.  My piecing skills have improved and I felt ready for the challenge.  Just wish my layout skills had also improved so I wouldn't have had to rip out half-square triangles that were turned the wrong way  (not just one of them, either). I was definitely in a "Christmas in July" frame of mind last month as, at home,  I worked exclusively on Quaker Christmas, bought fabric for another Christmas quilt and pulled this out of my stash.  I also made a baby quilt for a little girl who will make her appearance in September and took that to the quilter.  The five-hour drive up to Newport, Rhode Island at the end of July turned into an eight-hour drive and ...

Heart in Hand 2004 Christmas Keepsake Ornament  Quaker Christmas  Sanibel canvas My plan this month was to work on Not For Us Alone, but early in the month, I picked up Quaker Christmas and kept going.  It's nice not having to change thread colors all the time and I feel I've accomplished something each time I finish a motif.  The Sanibel canvas may be finished this weekend as we are making a short trip and have a five hour drive to get to our destination.  That's the perfect time to do the basketweave for the background. Lots of things have been happening at my house, including my son's acceptance to graduate school and my daughter's preparations to study abroad for the entire year.  Somehow they seem to need my attention just when I'm ready to sit down to stitch.  I do have some quilting progress to show and will post that when I get back after the weekend.  Hope everyone is staying cool this summer!

Nancy, Piecemeal and Patchwork Penguin have all made recent posts about the state of their sewing rooms.  I was in a similar position earlier this week with a myriad of projects and wannabe projects covering my cutting table.  I wasn't able to focus on anything as far as quilting goes.  My solution?  I got a couple of shopping bags and put everything that is not related to my current project into them.  My cutting table is clear and I can move ahead with that Thimbleberries block-of-the-month quilt I'm determined to finish this summer.  And yes, I know that I've only put a band-aid on the whole issue of reorganizing the sewing room as I now have a number of bags and boxes sitting around the room.  But with my hisband and two of my kids around most of the time, I don't want to do a full clean-out .  That would be scary!!  So the cleaning process will happen one quilt at a time.