No Spring for YOU!

      So the day after my last blog post, when we were expecting 12"-18", we got 20"! Time to clean off the cars again.

Fortunately, it was the lightest, fluffiest snow I have ever seen.
Not sure why I had the watering can out! Hope springs eternal.

Here is a "Stonehenge" before and after-- that biggest rock is about 4" high.

     Then, I got cheated out of my Easter-- I woke up just not feeling well and spent the day on the couch! My family could tell I wasn't faking it-- I couldn't even sew.  We have rescheduled the festivities to Tuesday. Hope yours was better than mine. xox.

     We'll get Easter dinner done just in time for 1'-2' more on Wednesday/Thursday-- yeah, you're reading it right-- " is for inches, ' is for feet. And while we're on about the weather, we are getting the full solar eclipse, but my once-in-a-lifetime event looks Partly Cloudy. I'm hanging on every weather report these days. We'll let you know what happens-- at least it will get dark-- that should be fun-- I'm thinking of doing a time-lapse with my phone and I will post it on YouTube if I do. Celestial events are written in stone-- time is on my side, and eventually it has to warm up!

     To soothe our souls, Caroline has started seedlings, and I made Gardening Bowl fillers. We both had fun with this collaborative photo. I didn't take me long to decide what type of flower I would feature on the seed packet-- but don't worry, I had so much fun designing that, I'm planning another set of six, and maybe even a cute machine embroidered basket to store your "seed packs" in.

    Last week was a machine embroidery intensive week-- I really wanted to push this out before Easter.

    This is the 8" size-- someone on Facebook said they wished we offered a 10"-- I don't have a hoop that big and I don't sell what I can't test! We had a really nice chat about embroidery-- she said the trend has been to larger hoops. I don't see it, for what I'm digitizing. At 10", this is going to be a seriously long stitch out-- 3 or 4 hours? I poked around, and most of what is available in a large size like that is quick, one color designs with quilting around them-- the dreaded cute sayings, huge appliques and the like. I prefer my embroidery in as many colors as possible, with tons of tiny shapes, in short, as laborious as possible. I guess I should pause to thank all of you reading along here, who I know love that, too. :-) 

    

    So no chance I will start designing for the popular trends, although as one customer pointed out, I did give in to red trucks! I countered--my son has a truck, and I haven't done gnomes. If I'm not designing what I love, I'm out. But I am seriously thinking of getting a new embroidery machine with a really large hoop. The Janome CM17 has an incredible 11" x 18." Eventually I will get back to my show quilts, and the idea of being able to make a quilt block that big is extremely appealing. I do find that I prefer smaller stitch outs, though-- 7x7 is my sweet spot-- they are so precious! Is a Cloud Club bird really meant to be stitched life size? This is a question I'd love to have answered before spending $20,000. Your thoughts?

    

    I didn't think I got much sewing done this week, but when I checked my phone for pix, it was just because I was all over the place! I highly recommend taking pictures as you work along-- it is very gratifying to see progress over weeks and months.

     I finished Block #12 of Pressed Flowers.

This is the first time I've ever made the blocks that are included each month in the Sew Sampler boxes. I really LOVE the flowers-- they are very unique and I was able to stitch them up in just about and hour and a half each month. I even took a chance and bought the kit after just seeing the first flower. Here is the finished quilt, which I hope to get done fairly quickly at this point-- I just love it.

Fat Quarter Shop has revealed the first block of the next series--
they run from April to March. It's a basket theme.

  Thank goodness I do not find this first block compelling-- or the fabric, which is Camille Roskelley's Shoreline. It's a meh blue, with a meh green, done in meh roses-- but trust me when I tell you I am the only person on the planet who feels that way. Everyone is going crazy over it-- it's a follow up to her first meh "Nantucket Summer" collection, and don't worry if you miss out-- there is bound to be a meh third collection now. So nothing to add to the bucket list with this quilt-- PHEW! My opinion on this colorway reminds me of the old days with TV shows I liked-- whatever I enjoyed, was bound to fail-- maybe one, two seasons at most. I guess I just have really weird taste and I deeply apologize for my review of Shoreline!

     I got ONE block done on the leaves this week. I have the sixteen large leaves, but I wanted some smaller ones sprinkled in.

   Here it is-- I'm appliqueing all the stems. I like my stems thin. I added a little square of "pollen," too!

I need nine of them for my 5x5 layout. I did some sketching on how this is all going to fit together.

I love this Lori Holt Graph Paper notebook-- the squares are small enough for cross stitch sketching, too. A creative quilter really needs graph paper-- I'm giving a link-- and I'm not getting a commission for saying this!

https://www.fatquartershop.com/mercantile-grid-paper-notebook-lori-holt

I'm finally getting around to sewing some backings together for finished tops. I have three that just need backs to be sent to the longarmer!

And I also started my first "original" applique block using Lori Holt's Sew Simple Shapes. This is for my king size Prairie Meadow quilt. I thought this would be harder than it was, but I gave myself the theme "Winter" and really enjoyed it! I wonder how I got that theme in my head...  

     I actually finished an entire spool of 220 yds. of thread on hand stitching! I'm not exactly sure how long it took-- probably a year and a half, but color 376 of Superior Threads silk is the one you want for applique with light fabrics, and binding, too! Pretty good accomplishment, huh?

Now I'm really starting to think I killed it last week. And since so many projects are underway, why not cut one more? This is the Cupid Box-- I unwrapped the fabric-- it's Sandy Gervais, and I really liked it better than I thought it would. 

Sandy Gervais was one of the first fat quarter collections I ever bought-- she's crushing it lately. I'm really tempted by FEED MY SOUL. Now that folks, is a fabric collection I can get behind!

But let's hope I don't-- I'm already spreading myself thin again-- Moonbeams quilt and cross stitch Release 2 is today-- and the Kona stars are still waiting.

Better go... have yourself a great Spring week-- I'm still waiting on it!

xox
Carol