Thursday, January 28, 2010

It's Me, Again!


I know, it's been a long time. The last post was in November. "So, what happened," you may ask? Well, not that I am using it as my excuse, that time of the year is always busy. Added to the holidays, both my boys have December birthdays. So things got pretty hectic here. And, it's not that I didn't do any quilting, I did. It's just didn't feel motivated to post anything when my to-do list was so long.

Things are now leveling out. My older son is in his last year of Cub Scouts (WEBELOS II, for those who are familiar with Scouting) and as his Scout Leader, I am trying to get our boys prepared for their "Crossing Over Ceremony" (where they "graduate" from Cub Scouting and "cross over" into Boy Scouts). Also, his basketball season is almost over. His tournament will be this Saturday. After both of those are completed, I will have about a month before baseball will start!! Here we go again!!

You might recognize the block in the photo above. I have been trying to complete the rest of these blocks, I'm planning to combine them with some sampler block. Initially, the block seem fairly easy. Then I designed the quilt with 13 of these applique blocks. I realized just how many flowers I was going to have to applique. There are 13 blocks with 4 flowers...each flower has 9 petals...that's 468 hand-appliqued petals. Get the idea? The fairly easy block turn in to a tedious block with all the petals and petals and petals...

The top is going well. I was thinking that I could get it finished by the week's end. But I realized that I will have to purchase more of the black fabric in the sashing. I may have to make I visit to that quilt shop sometime next week.

My New Year's challenge will be to conquer machine quilting and feel confident about it. I don't know if this quilt will be the first one I'll try, but I know that I have to find a faster way, than my usual hand-quilting, to finish my quilts.

I will try to be better in my posting. I will be back soon to show some new projects I have going (as if I really needed more!). : )

Til next time,

Jane