same old...........

Happy February First

I'm working on the same old stuff.............the blue quilt and

stitching on CaHRH and knitting on the pink scarf.

The reason none of these projects have advanced very far is because I have a LOT of other activities that occupy my time:

1. I read a lot - books and magazines.

2. I'm currently watching The West Wing DVDs again for the 3rd time.

3. I attend a lot of church activities.

4. I spend way too much time reading blogs.

5. I do an inordinate amount of Sudoku puzzles.

6. I sleep a good 8 hours every night.

7. I eat three meals a day and take time for 142 snacks.

8. I write lots of emails to family and friends.

9. I sit around and think up excuses for not getting things done.

Quick gift

A Lazy Girl Bag makes a great quick gift especially if you fill it.

I was invited to a friend's house for dinner tonight and knew that there would be another guest, so I sewed up these Lazy Girl bags to bring instead of flowers or candy. What woman doesn't need lots of bags to organize all her stuff? I'd make hundreds more to get such a good home-cooked dinner as I enjoyed tonight - and an evening of great conversation.

And at noon today I had a yummy lunch with my good friend, Brenda. What a great day!

It never ends...........

The amount of unfinished projects hidden in this house never ends.

I needed to get something out of the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet housed in my office closet and in order to get to that drawer I had to take out tote bags, brief cases and shopping bags that were in the way. What on earth are in all these containers? I wondered. In the tote bags and shopping bag were almost finished forgotten knitting projects - better known as AFFKPs.
One of the AFFKPs was the blue monstrosity in the picture below. It started out as a quick scarf - something to keep my fingers busy, made with cheap yarn on big needles. As I knitted along I realized that it was too wide to be a scarf, so I started calling it a shawl. Then it got too long to be a shawl and would have drowned a little old lady had I put it around her shoulders. So then I began calling it an afghan. When I pulled it out of the tote bag (beautiful bag that my friend Lindsay made for me), I realized that it was truly almost finished and it was time to bind it off and say in my perfect French accent, "finis". Ooh la la.

As I went to empty the tote bag, I found another knitting project buried at the bottom of the bag - a pink scarf. Yes, another almost finished forgotten knitting project. It never ends...........

Finished, but not done

Halloween may not be around the corner yet, but this is a project I started last August and finished stitching today. Eventually I will make it into a pillow. The fabric on the right will border the stitching on the front, and the leaf fabric on the left will be on the back of the pillow.

Witchy Witchy Winifrid

The Trilogy

stitched 6/1 on 7 count Klostern "Sand"

using DMC

Although the original pattern called for 28 count and Weeks Dye Works threads, at the time I wanted something BIG that I could do on vacation without having to drag along my special light and magnifying equipment. It undoubtedly would look better in the smaller version, but a pillow is more practical than getting it framed.

The original pattern also calls for a trinket to hang around her neck. I think I will go through my buttons and find something appropriate to add as a neck decoration.

To those looking to see my progress on the blue quilt - it is slow going. I have about a third of the pieces cut out and am sewing them in groups of ten to keep from getting too bored. Doing things assembly-line style becomes too tedious for me, so I have to break it down into smaller sections. And I take lots of breaks - to read, to stitch, to eat, and to look at blogs.

Yes, I read a lot of blogs. I don't often leave comments because they all sound alike - "oh how pretty", "that sure is beautiful", "nice job", etc., etc. However, I do enjoy reading quilting and stitching blogs, I do think what others are doing is pretty & beautiful, and I probably should leave more comments. Not leaving comments is another aspect of my basic laziness.

Today I am grateful for - getting the last three skeins of #310Black DMC floss at my local JoAnns.

Slow progress....

Here are the long rectangle components of the blocks for Judy's Peaches & Dreams quilt (see her sidebar for free pattern) which I am doing in blues. There are 35 blocks to make that contain one long rectangle and three smaller squares. That means that I have 105 small squares to make. Well, actually 102 because I made a sample block. It's still a long way to go and at my slow pace, I'll be feeling blue for quite a while.
(Note - you may notice that I put a new picture of myself on this blog. Yes, that is a crown I am wearing. My cousin made the crown for me - long story - and I think it deserves an audience.)

What happened to fun?

Years and years ago when I first started quilting, my friend Moe made the quilt Wear Warm Clothes by Country Threads. I fell in love with the quilt and decided to make it even though I was a novice quilter. This is my version.

It is not the best applique in the world, nor the straightest quilt in the world, but I still enjoy it's whimsy and remember fondly the fun I had making it - and all the mistakes I worked around. Obvious mistake - the cup at the bottom right that is turned the wrong direction.

The extra star on the side of the cap below is because I accidently cut a hole in the quilt when I was cutting threads, so I appliqued a star over the hole.

When hanging this quilt today I was reminded that quilting, for me, should be about fun. It is too easy for me to get caught up in the "what will other people think" road of perfectionism. When I was a novice, I had a lot more fun with quilting. Now that I know what is excellent and what is not, I find myself having less fun and feeling like quilting is another hard test of my abilities.

Where do you draw the line between improving and going down that less-than-fun road to perfectionism? Is it still fun if you are critical of your own work to the point of avoiding it?

Those are my deep thoughts for the day. What do you think?

Quiltathon - kinda......

Yes, it is an official Quiltathon weekend for fans of Judy's blog. Although I certainly did not sew all day, I did spend time getting started on Judy's Peaches & Cream quilt which I am doing in blues. This is my test block.After the test block I started to cut the individual pieces needed, but stopped when I got tired of standing. There is a lot more cutting to do.
However, I started sewing the larger rectangles together. If I hadn't had trouble with the bobbin I might have gotten 24 of them done. Instead, I got 24 partially done. I won't be able to get back to this project until late tomorrow afternoon.
For those interested in my stitching, this is the progress of Christmas at Hawk Run Hollow, block one.
Happy quilting to all of you that are hard at work for the Quiltathon.