I'm not sure what happened in March, but I didn't get to spend much time in my sewing room. Worse what time I spent wasn't the best use of my time. But I still did get a little done, and some is better than none. So lets see how I did against my list.
My first and main goal was to finish the blocks for Callie and Beau's signature wedding quilt. I had some done, but since the wedding is next month I wanted them finished. I am very happy to say that they are done. In fact I gave them to her at a shower last week. She was very happy, which made me very happy. I didn't get a picture of them finished, but here is a picture of her opening them.
My second goal was to finish my bee blocks. I finished my Compass Quilters blocks very early in the month, in fact I finished all my blocks pretty early but I didn't post about them because I didn't get them into the mail until yesterday. But here they are, first is the polaroid blocks for Tanyia, then wanta-fanta block for Kim and lastly linked squares for Maureen. Next month I will only have two bees, which will be good since I have Callie's wedding in the middle of the month.
Now here is where things go south for me I did get a little pieced on the second memory quilt top, but it isn't finished or near finished, I didn't do anything on Sharla's Box Trot. I did get some cross blocks done, but only 10 not the 20 I wanted.
I really wish I had gotten more done last month, but honestly it was just a crazy month and I'm surprised I got anything done. I am in the process of making my list for April, but it is going to have to be an easy one, because I know that I'm going to be spending lots of time outside of the sewing room. Today I'm linking up with Melissa of Sew BitterSweet Designs and Shanna of Fiber of All Sorts.
I am doing other things besides being thankful, but none really note worthy. Ok maybe it has just been a bad month for me, I have really struggled to get things done, but inside of crying about that I am going focus on being thankful. o here is my list for this week.
1. Family. I am lucky to have a family that loves me and appreciates me. This week I attended a wedding shower for my niece Callie and I was able to give her the blocks for her signature quilt. She is going to have their guests sign them at the wedding. Before she opened the box I told her I was giving her a gift, but I wanted it back. She said ok, but I could see she was unsure. She was thrilled when she saw what was inside the box. She readily agreed to give them back to me, and I promised to return them to her again. I know they aren't perfect and when I started to say that, she simply said, it was going to be wonderful.
2. Spring rains. I love watching everything bloom in the spring, even if it does cause my allergies to go wild. We've had a very wet winter and spring so far, which is good, most of the lakes are still needing more, but it is nice that they are up from last year and everything is starting to bloom. I know that we will get some spring storms and I don't look forward to them, but I do so much love what the rains bring. Here is a photo from a year or two ago, I'm anxiously awaiting irises blooming.
3. Squishy envelopes. I recently responded to a giveaway and was lucky enough to win. Ok I think she ended up giving something to everyone that responded, but I was still happy. And then this week I got a nice squishy envelope in the mail and it contained two charm packs of Simple Marks Summer by Malka Dubrawsky. I think I'm going to use them to make a cover for my sewing machine. I know I did one recently, but it wasn't quilted and more of a prototype. These colors are just happy and I think they will work well in my sewing room.
4. Tools for all occasions. I am lucky to have lots of quilty tools. I have several rotary cutters, so that I can have one in my sewing room, one on my desk, and one in the living room where I often cut for Sharla. It seems like this month I've not gotten much done, but because I have a small cutting mat, ruler and rotary cutter on my desk, I can slip in small cutting jobs while on conference calls. I know that probably doesn't sound like much, but my company is virtual, so all meetings are conference calls. I am able to cut for my cross quilt even if I can't find time to sew.
5. Sales. I love sales, especially when it is on something I want. Sharla and I are both collecting mini charm packs. Yes, I know they aren't the best value for the dollar, but we both want to do a postage stamp quilt in the future and these will give us lots of variety. And last week Fat Quarter Shop had a sale on mini charm packs, so we got several.
So these are my thankful items for this week. How about you? I will be linking up with Yvonne at Quilting Jetgirl. If you have one or more things to be thankful about, you can link up too.
Ok, I'm not sure who is trying to rock my boat but I'm tired of it. Things have been crazy for a couple of weeks and I'm just plain tired of it. So today I'm going to do a little positive thinking and look for thankful things in my life. These are in no particular order and not all quilt related, but hey that is just me.
1. Today is my niece's birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY CALLIE!! Callie is one of a kind...she gets that from me (hehehe). And I'm always thankful that she is a part of my life. She always makes me laugh. This will be her last birthday as a single girl, she gets married next month. Here she is on day 1 and at Christmas this year.
2. Next I'm thankful that we got both the van and the stove I talked about last week. I'm still getting used to the van, it has many more bells and whistle then the old one. I will say I'm loving being able to change the volume or radio channel from the steering wheel. And as much as I love it, Hollywood isn't as happy. He has to ride in the back seat on the way to daycare, and he wants to be up front. He did like that I can roll the windows down back there and he can ride with his face in the wind. And as far as the stove goes, I got both brownies and mac-n-cheese this weekend, so I was very happy. Here is the car before this weeks rains, it still looks all shiny and clean.
3. Lots of pretty fabric. I haven't gotten to sew much in the last week and that makes me sad. But then I need something from my sewing room and I go in and see lots of pretty fabric, and I know that I will get to sew something fun soon. I bought the bundle below from my LQS several months ago. They had the same fabrics made into a quilt. I loved the colors but not the pattern, so I thought I would use them in my cross quilt. But I just can't cut them yet. I love looking at them. And when I am too swamped to sew I will pick some pretties like these and just set on my desk so I can dream of sewing again.
4. Music. I love to sing, the world however doesn't love to hear me. So I often sing in the car, at my desk or while sewing. I like just about any song with a good beat. I love when a song has a line in that I will use over and over. Now I have two songs recently that have been that way for me. The first is Uptown Funk by Mark Ronson with Bruno Mars. Love that song, but really love the line "Smoother than a fresh jar of skippy".
The second is Biscuits by Kasey Musgraves. I will admit I love all the words to this one, but the chorus is simply great. I just can't help myself I just have to sing along!!
Just hoe your own row, yeah, and raise your own babies
Smoke your own smoke and grow your own daisies
Mend your own fences and own your own crazy
Mind your own biscuits and life will be gravy
Mind your own biscuits and life will be gravy
5. Lastly for today, I'm very thankful for Amazon Prime. I hate shopping, and today alone I have 5 or 6 things that I needed to get. I would have had to go to at least 3 if not 4 stores to get them all. But I went to Amazon, they had everything I needed and with Prime everything will be her Saturday or Monday at the latest. Plus I could comparison shop while on line to make sure I was getting a good deal and I didn't have to deal with crowds, lines or cranky checkout people. Now if I could just grocery shop on line I would be set, but I just don't trust someone else to pick out my bananas. I'm just happy that I didn't have to make 4 stops today when I go to pick up Sharla.
Well that wraps up my thankful list for this week. I hope each of you has lots to be thankful about as well. And if you want to share, check out Quilting Jetgirl's Quilty Thankful Thursday. I will be posting there today.
Lucky number 13, did you know that tomorrow was Friday the 13th too. Well the way my week has run, it feels like it. I have wanted to beat my head against a wall more than once, but each time, I try and think about the positives. And so today I'm going to give you five reason I have to be thankful.
1. A vehicle. I know this isn't quilty, but thankful is thankful. Sunday Sharla and I went to run an errand and before getting out of our neighborhood the van wouldn't change gears. We were able to get back to the house. Now the van is 17 years old, and we knew it was time to get something else. So we first looked at our budget, which didn't have much room in it for a car payment, then our savings. We determined how much money we could spend without going into debt and started looking for a car. I had to request shares be sold, so we knew it would take a week or so to get the funds, but we wanted to see what was available. In the mean time we're sharing Sharla's old car with my nephew. I really sat down on Tuesday and started printing out prospective vehicles and found one that was really promising, but it was further away. I called my brother and asked if he could go look at it, since it was fairly close to his work. He went over at lunch time and thought it looked good, but they had just reduced it and he wasn't sure if it would last until our money arrived. I called the salesman and asked if I put a deposit down would they keep it for us. He said yes. so Sharla and I head over after work on Tuesday. We liked it, so we put a deposit down on it. It is used, but much newer than what we were driving. Hopefully my money will arrive soon and we will be driving this baby.
2. Bee Blocks. With all the car issues, and just general busyness, it seems like I don't have any time to sew. But lucky for me I have bee blocks to do. They require much less time, so I can work on them in short burst and still feel like I'm getting something accomplished. I've finished my blocks for the Compass Quilters and Stash Bee for March and have the block for The Bee Hive ready to sew. I hope to have them all ready to show you on Friday.
3. My Stash. On Monday I was bummed about the van, it was rainy and cold and I really just didn't feel like doing anything. As I was searching around the internet I came across a sewing machine cover. I've been wanting to do one for my machine. It has a hard cover, but that just gets in the way when it isn't on the machine. So I went to my stash and pulled a couple of fabrics and very quickly I had a cover. It is far from perfect and I want to do another on that is actually quilted, but this was a great test cover. Also on Sunday we pulled fabric from the stash for Sharla to do a cover (and it will be quilted). Now I realize I could probably buy a newer car if I didn't have a stash, but I'm happy to drive an older car and have fabric ready for whatever I need.
4. Sunshine. They talked about on the news here that we had rain or snow 15 out of the last 17 days. Now this is great for the low lake levels, but it is depressing for us humans. But yesterday the sun came out and it was so nice. It felt good on my skins and I was happy.
5. A Working Oven. Now this is something I don't have at the moment, but hopefully on Saturday I will have an oven again. We ordered a new stove several weeks ago, that was supposed to arrive that week. But the day of delivery came and no call to schedule the time, so I called and found out the stove was back-ordered...we were bummed. We were told it would not ship until April 3rd. We had got a very good deal on it, and didn't really want to change to a different model, so we decided to wait. Then this week they called and said it would be delivered on Saturday. Ever since the oven stopped working, I've wanted dishes that were oven baked. If it arrives on Saturday as planned Sharla is going to make me homemade mac-n-cheese. Yummo!!!!
That is my list for this week. I will admit I was a little down at the first of the week, but looking for the positives really does help. I'm linking up with Yvonne at Quilting Jetgirl.
I know two blog posts in one day, what am I thinking. Well I started the ALYOF post yesterday and never finished it and today is Thankful Thursday (which has been renamed to Quilty Thankful Thursday), so you get to hear from me twice today....I know you're all thankful for that...hehehe.
I like to make lists, it is that left brain part of me, and I do it for everything including thankful things. It is a good way to focus on the positive. So here is my list for this week.
1. I'm thankful for bee mates. I've received two more sets of cross blocks and I love them both. Tanyia and Sharon both sent great blocks and there are a couple of super cute ones. I love the giraffe print Tanyia used and the kangaroo print Sharon used, they both just made me smile.
2. I'm thankful for blog giveaways. I visited a lot of blogs during the Grow Your Blog Hop and even won a cute pouch stuffed with great goodies from Super Mom No Cape. I love the pouch and everything in it. Now have to figure out what I'm going to do with that super cute candy bar of fabric.
3. Today I'm very thankful I work from home. We got sleet, ice and snow last night, and it is great that I got to stumble out of bed, put on my house shoes and walk to my desk. Even nicer I didn't have to take Sharla to work, so I got to sleep a little later.
4. I am also very thankful for all of the wonderful colorful fabrics that are in my stash and available to me. I sometimes cut at my desk during conference calls and I will put the tiny bits and pieces into a jar. This morning I saw the jar and was reminded of all the great fabrics I've played with over the last month or so. I will eventually dump this and fill it again, but for now I'm just happy that I have had the opportunity to use these.
5. And lastly today I'm thankful for small packages, especially one filled with goodies like Alison Glass Sun Prints. Recently Massdrop had a drop for a bundle of Bike Path prints, which are probably one of my most favorite prints. Who doesn't love dots on a wavy path? So of course I joined in and purchased some and they arrived late yesterday. I know it is silly, but I am so happy when I get fabric. I have no plans for these yet, but I'm sure they will make their way into the cross quilt.
Well that is my list for the week, and it is only a small part of my big list of reasons to be thankful. I am linking up with Yvonne at Quilting Jetgirl for Quilty Thankful Thursday.
It is time to set my goals for March and I have lots to do, but then I always have lots to do. March is one of my favorite months, maybe because some of my favorite people were born in this month. My dad was born on the 10th, Callie was born on the 19th and Mecca was born on the 28th. I think I like this month, because here in Texas it normally means winter is winding down, but since this is view from my front door, it isn't over yet.
I can't set just one goal, because I need a list to work from, but I will pick one main goal and the other are just my to do list. So the most important goal this month is to finish the blocks for Callie and Beau's signature quilt. I need to have them sewn, trimmed and taped...taped so they don't sign into the seam allowance. I am almost done with the sewing, but still need to trim the coral and pomegranate blocks and I still have to tape all of them. The wedding is on the 18th of April and I don't want to be running late.
My second goal is to finish all of my bee blocks. It is the last month of the Compass Quilters, and I'm doing polaroid blocks for Tanyia, and I have those done. The photo isn't great, because I took it at night, and they need to be trimmed more, but she asked that we send them to her this way. I'm doing a wanta-fanta block for Kim in the Bee Hive. I sent her a photo of the my fabric options and she picked what she wanted. It is a mix of paper piecing and snowballed squares. And lastly for Stash Bee I have to do linked squares for Maureen. I think I have the fabrics picked for this one too. So I'm in good shape on these.
My third goal is to finish piecing the second memory top. I've started it but need to cut more sashing strips. If I could get it quilted that would be great, but I will be happy with getting the top done. I'm ready to get these done, so I can move onto other things. Plus I'm sure they would appreciate getting the quilts. No pictures, because I want them to be surprised. :)
My fourth goal is to do 20 more blocks for my cross quilt. I cut a bunch of fabric at the end of last week, and so I have plenty prepped and ready to go. I had a lot of fun last month really focusing on the cross blocks, but it is now time to focus on other things, so I'm only aiming for 20.
My fifth and final goal...well my last goal I'm putting here, is to quilt Sharla's Box Trot quilt. I miss quilting, and as much as I love piecing, there is something very satisfying about quilting. I think because it means the quilt is almost finished. I have a nice pile of quilts to get done, but I'm changing the batting I use on this one, and trying a wool batting, so I want to do it first.
