Well, we've survived March. I saw this meme the other day and had a laugh.
How is everyone holding up? For the most part, we are doing well here. My husband finally found some flour at the grocery store, so we can bake things now. The kids have finished a week of e-learning. It's not so bad. Truly, other than everyone being home all day, it's not that different than my usual life. I do miss being able to just run to Target or a quilting store, but I am coping. I miss going to quilt guild.
I cut it really close on finishing March's OMG, which was to quilt my Meadowland quilt.
I got it done over the weekend. And I missed the link-up party, which closed last night. 😞
Anyway, my quilt is still pretty even if I couldn't enter it in the contest. I used Threaded Quilting's Wishbone pantograph again. I've used that design so much lately. I did look for and consider a few other designs, but we felt that this one suited the fabrics the best. Several of the prints are rain or raindrops and I have kind of a watery theme going on--well, that's how I thought it would look in my mind, at least.
If I can get the quilt bound in the next few days, then I will have finished exactly ONE of my nine proposed Quarter 1 Finish Along projects. 😳 Yeah, that didn't go as planned. The theme of 2020, no? I've seen so many people finishing so many projects in the last few weeks. I am amazed at the productivity. I didn't get that memo!
My daughter helped me lay out my entire Frolic top with all the sashing pieces. For some reason I thought I could grab some pieces and sew them while the computer was quilting the Meadowland. I failed to recall that I should not walk behind the machine to access the design wall while the machine was running. Oops.
My alternate plan: making some 2015 Moda Sampler Shuffle blocks with my Fig Tree fabrics that I had been saving for the past five or six years (since finishing two BOM programs). It's much better to use something than leave it languishing in storage. Here's my progress so far. I do not have any real plan for how the finished product will look.
Then Bonnie Hunter announced her Unity quilt along. Yep, let's start another new project. I didn't think I'd be able to come up with anything cohesive from my stash to make this new one. Ha. Who was I fooling? I have fabrics pulled and ordered only a few pieces that I was a bit short on. Amazingly, I found the ones I was looking for, and I'm sure this stuff was well out of print. This is another instance of me thinking, why am I just hoarding all this fabric? It's not doing any good just sitting in a bin. Let's make something! I'll share my fabric pull next week, but here's a teaser.
I'll leave you with some images from my gardens.
And my baby pineapple.
Linking with For the love of geese and My Quilt Infatuation.
PS--if you don't get the meme at the top...that is Justin Timberlake. Back in the day, when he was in the band "NSYNC, when he sang "it's gonna be me," it sounded like he said "it's gonna be may." Ha ha ha.
We are adjusting to our new normal. To be honest, it's not that different than our usual, other than everyone is at home and we can't just go do something or buy something when we want. It could be so much worse.
School started back up today for the kids. My daughter seems to be able to do her day's work as she pleases. My son has specific times for each thing.
My husband is still teleworking.
I am probably having the hardest time adjusting, simply because I am used to being alone all day and now everyone is in my space. It's not that bad though. I'm happy to have us all home and safe. Indiana started our "stay home" directive this week. It's not especially strict though, and I fear too many people are still out and about and taking their kids with them. It frustrates me that people are not taking the risk seriously. Since I already addressed that last week, let's get to some quilting.
I quilted two quilts for others since last week. First is Marilyn's quilt. She wanted navy thread and we decided on Saffron Blossom for the quilting design. This quilt had several firsts for me: first time quilting with a dark thread on a light background, first time quilting a batik backing, and first time mailing a quilt. I was in a rush to get this back in the mail, so my pictures are not ideal. Sadly, most of the pictures I took came out blurry when I enlarged them. But you can get the idea.
Also, the post office was closed by the time I had it ready to ship, but the mail pickup hadn't come yet. The box did not fit in my mail box, so I waited until I heard the mail truck coming and put it out like this. And then hovered in the yard to make sure the carrier picked it up and treated it nicely. I'm happy to say that this quilt made its way back across the country to its owner, safe and sound.
Next was Keetah's quilt. This is the largest quilt I have ever done! It was 112" x 111". You can see it goes almost from one end of the frame to the other. She wanted a colored thread (we used So Fine #470 Big Sky) and loopy meander.
You might notice my Frolic quilt on my design wall in the background. I have started laying it out. I wasn't sure I'd like it, but it's definitely growing on me as I see it on the wall. Here is a better shot of it. Most of it still needs the sashing strips inserted, and it does not show any of the borders yet. I'm hoping to work on it this week.
I also need to quilt my Meadowland quilt within the next week since it is my March OMG. It's in the same state as it was last week--need to press and seam the background, press the top since I left it wadded up, and decide on a quilting design. And then quilt it!
We got an email from Bluprint the other day offering 60% off one item. My daughter got the Ouroboros pattern by No Hats in the House from Crimson Tate at the IHQS show and we decided batiks would be a good choice for paper piecing since they don't have a definite right or wrong side. She chose this fat quarter bundle. We'll still need to come up with some background fabrics somehow. It's hard when you can't physically go match fabrics.
Other than that, I've helped my husband move way too much drywall over the last few days as he prepares to drywall our basement living room. We are still trying to go for multiple walks per day as the weather allows. My daffodils are glorious. Enjoy some pictures of them.
I will need to get groceries soon. Wish me luck on finding some flour.
How are you keeping busy?
Linking with For the love of geese and My Quilt Infatuation.
