I Haven't Been Feeling My Best Hence my long silence. I have been hand quilting on my 7 Sisters quilt. I hemmed three pairs of pants for my ds last night as well. First time at the machine for close to two weeks. I was hit with sinus and eye (both) infections which really slowed me down and even kept me out of work for a couple days. I have just felt blah.

Getting to the machine last night energized me a bit so I plan to get caught up on some RR's that I owe tonight. I might even work on the Irish Chain a little more. I decided I needed to finish that in the 2nd quarter of the year for my UFO challenge. :D Yes I am playing the game. I only have borders left to do.

Quilty pics coming soon!

Mamacrafty is at it again! She sent me the latest pic of my feedsack round robin. She has been letting me have just a tad too much input on this but I am glad! She is doing maker's choice on the last row. I can't wait to see what she does with it. I am mailing off a little more of my background to her so she can get it done!

I spent the weekend handquilting my 7 Sisters quilt. It has become addicting. Even though my goal is to complete my Irish Chain by the end of month I can't seem to put this one down. The damage the dogs did isn't too bad but I do keep seeing a little more. I don't think this quilt will be usable when it is done. It is very fragile. I keep asking myself if I should abandon it for this reason. For now I will forge on. I am getting the hang of hand quilting!

*********** Update: There does appear to be damage to the quilt and they actually did a nice job of trimming the batting. One block has two pieces shredded, some pulled stitches and one part of the pink has some right angle tears. Not sure how I will fix the latter. I will repair the block and when I get to quilting the pink I will decide how to fix it then.

HORRORS!!!! My 13 yo dd just called me to let me know the dogs had pulled my 7 Sisters quilt down from it's perch. I am at work and cannot get home for several more hours to see what the damage is. She did inform me the hoop is chewed through. I told her to put it up out of reach and I would take care of it when I got home.

I asked her if the quilt was damaged and she said yes. She said they pulled the batting out. OK that is fixable. I just said don't worry and hung up. I called her back and asked if they had gotten all the sewing do-dads and she said she got that before they did. So then I asked the question I was most afraid to ask. Are there any holes in the quilt. She said yes but tiny ones. My head is swimming at this point. She changed her answer and tried to describe to me what sounds like a run in the fabric. I don't know. You think my boss would agree this is a family emergency and I need to go home??

More later tonight when I see what is what. Those dang dogs.....I know I should have put it in a better place. That is probably why I am so mad...my fault!

This and That

I finished this RR last month and am mailing it today. Jan don't peek if you want to be surprised!

Here is the link to the goodies I bought at the Dallas show.

Drawing winners from Sunday's draw. I had three good sports share their UFO goals with me so I select them all as winners! Eva, mamacrafty and danielle, please send me your address so I can send you a little something!

Enjoy!

Dallas Quilt Show I went to the show Friday and Saturday. Had loads of fun and got to meet up with my friends. Boy did I shop too! I will be posting a pic of my goodies tonight. There are batiks and backings and patterns and notions! I found a great thimble that makes my hand quilting go a little smoother too. It's a w'nder thimble. Pretty neat! I have all the receipts in a little bag but don't dare total it.....should I??

More exciting news! My feedsack round robin is on it's way to Michigan as we speak. Mamacrafty is a quick gal so I hope to see it before the month is out. I have a quilting plan already decided so can't wait to get to it. I think I even have a good backing to use as well.

Stay tuned. I will have my goodie drawing tonight!

Snow Angels I grew up in central New York and there was an abundance of snow every winter. I moved to Texas in 1985 and they do have snow here but nothing like NY. I do have pictures of my dd as a toddler making a snow angel. I called my folks tonight and they told me they sent me an email that I would love. I just couldn't imagine what it could be. Here is the picture they sent....





Do you see it? Are you ready to meet the maker? Here he is sitting in the chair with my daughter. Are you surprised?

Today is Wednesday Do you know I haven't been to my machine at all since Sunday. I am sort of stuck on my Irish Chain. I have some ideas for the border but still trying to decide. I think I will quilt what I have already decided upon and then move on to the next UFO. To continue I have to re-baste or mark the quilt. This requires me to use a table that I can only setup outside. Which of course requires nice weather. Am I making excuses? I do have my 7 Sisters quilt that I am hand quilting to work on.

Of course this nagging little voice pops into my head when I think about moving on to another quilt and warns me about finishing things and why I have UFOs. HUSH little voice! I think I have been really good about finishing lately.

I have the Dallas quilt show to attend this weekend. I am going to make it a 2 day event and meet up with folks on both days. The plan is noon at the raffle quilt. Just call out swooze! I will answer :D. I have my shopping list all drawn up. It is sort of funny...I am not on the "No Buy" challenge but my desire to buy fabrics is rather tame at the moment. I do have two specific lines I am interested in plus I need a backing for an RR. Other than that...I feel like I have plenty.

How are you doing on your UFO goals? Tell me how many you have this year, how many you have completed this year and what your goal is for completing them. I will have to see if I can find a little something for a giveaway. Answer my question before Sunday 3/16 ends!

March Progress Here is a full picture of my Simple Simon that I finished, finished last weekend.



Here is my Floral Irish Chain. I have the center machine quilted. Yes that is a 1" grid and the quilt is a Queen size. I will be spending a few days deciding what to do with those borders. I usually stitch

in the ditch but will be a tad more original than that....but not much!

What I woke up to this a.m. This is minor compared to what people got just to the north of us. This is pretty good snow for the Dallas area but it didn't stay long. Nothing accumulated on the ground here. This is our 2nd snowfall this month already. They were predicting more tonight but I think that has moved out of the forecast.

Quilting Report.....2 bobbins down. I am now over a quarter of the way through the center portion of the top. I quilted for about 1.5 hours. I hope that I can have the center quilted by Sunday. I need to decide what to do on the borders. Normally I just stitch in the ditch. On my Peacock quilt I actually stitched down the middle of the wide border to echo the inner borders. I liked that look and may repeat it here. I will post a picture of the quilt later this week and see what you all think.

I decided to fill up 6 more bobbins since that is what I thought it would take to get the center quilted. I ran out of thread on the 5th one. Will have to head to the store to get another spool. I will also have to rebaste the borders as the quilting is smoothing things out and I have a little wave. Good to catch that now.

How are you doing on your UFO goals this year?

One Bobbin Down and 7 to go Ok I am maniacal about getting my UFOs done. I decided to quilt for about an hour on my Irish Chain last night. I ended up getting through one bobbin worth of thread. At this rate it looks like I have about 8 hours of work to get this quilted. One hour per bobbin. I am quilting on the diagonal about every 1 inch across. This is a queen size top and I was really questioning my quilting plan after that hour but will forge ahead. In the end I will be really pleased I know.

This is UFO number 4 for the year. I have another queen size to quilt by machine, another queen size that I am hand quilting and then 3 throw size that I plan to machine quilt. The order here is my current plan for finishing. I didn't plan to end with the smaller pieces but I think it will make me happy to get the big pieces out of the way first.

Meet Simon This is another antique top I bought back in the late 80's early 90's. I just finished quilting and binding it. It was sleeting out so will take a full size pic when it is nicer.

Reflection on February. Goals for March

My February goals were

• bind ninepatch on point
• bind baby FMQ practice piece
• finish next two RRBlogger rounds
• quilt and bind Simple Simon
• baste Floral Irish Chain
• baste 7 Sisters

I just finished Simple Simon. I am counting it as done per my goals. I completed everything. Yeah!!

March Goals:

• Quilt and bind Floral Irish Chain - bobbins are wound! Bobbin area is cleaned out. Needle is changed. I am ready to go!
• Continue hand quilting 7 Sisters

Wish me luck!