Classes, Snow, & More

Well, it's been a week. I feel like I say that a lot lately! On the plus side, my daughter's pre-calc class has finished and we survived and did ok. Now we get a 12-week break before the next round. Also a plus, I shared my 365 Challenge quilt at the larger, more impersonal guild I belong to and it went over really well. One of the ladies in the guild also made one, and she's trying to convince me to enter mine in the IHQS show in the spring. I didn't complete it with the thought of public viewing and I'm very aware of its flaws, so criticism won't hurt my feelings on this one. Maybe I will enter it. I still haven't shared a picture of the final quilt here. Hopefully soon. I just need to actually take a photo of it.

However, we are currently looking at this sort of weather. Yuck, and too early.

Another positive is that I spend last Wednesday taking a quilt class with Coleen Merte. It was really nice and relaxing to spend an entire day just sewing outside of my home. I really needed that mental break. Here is a picture of her quilt, Pink Grapefruit. Mine is in progress and it is my OMG for the month. I haven't worked on it since last Wednesday.

Coleen Merte's Pink Grapefruit quilt

My not Pink Grapefruit WIP

My son, who has managed to have perfect attendance pretty much K-5, has missed four days of school in the past few weeks. I don't really mind and am enjoying some extra time with him, but I wish two of those days weren't because of illness, and weren't the week of FLL competition.

Ah, the source of all my stress. Our FLL competition is this coming Saturday. This year the team is split between elementary and middle school and it's been supremely difficult to get everyone in one place at one time on a regular basis to practice. Two of the seven are sick this week. I'm trying to remind myself to just breathe, it will be ok. I just feel a lot of pressure to have a very positive outcome. We'll just try our best and roll with it. It's all we can do. And this is my last year as a coach, so there's that.

Next week should just be sunshine and roses! Much less stress and lots more free time, regardless of the outcome.

What with all the appointments and the sickness and whatnot, I had a quilt partially loaded onto the frame for over a week. Yesterday I finished loading it and got it quilted. This project dates back to 2005! It was a cover quilt for McCall's and I made it in a different color way. The quilting pattern I chose had a lot of backtracking, which I generally avoid, but the pattern seemed to fit the quilt and it seemed like a good time to try it out. This quilt is 51" square and it took over four hours to complete the stitching! Yikes! Now I just have to sew down the binding. This one is one of my goals for the FALQ4.

Quilting in progress

OOPS! LOL This is why you shouldn't sew when you're really tired.

I've also been working on a secret project that has a fast-approaching deadline. The sewing is done, but the photography is not going especially well. I seem to lack the stage-setting, clear, well-lit photo gene. And I am terrible at photo editing and don't have the skills or tools for it.

Oh, and I thought it would be a great idea to try to complete Bonnie Hunter's Frolic mystery this year. I pulled a lot of fabrics from my stash, decided I didn't have quite enough, and tried to order matching fabrics online. Fail! About a third worked. LOL. I'm not sure I'll be up to the challenge, but I will try. Any tips from anyone out there who's completed one of her challenges?

Here are my initial fabric pulls, minus the whites. I've changed some of them and added a few more to others. The greens are the only thing that hasn't changed. I'm struggling with the pale aqua and the lighter blue color. The lousy pictures were all taken in my fabric closet.

I'll try to remember to take updated pictures of my fabric selections once I finalize them more.

Oh, I forgot to share this apron I helped my daughter make last week. The fabric is actually Pokemon, though from a distance it looks a bit floral. She's taking a cooking class, which is what she needed the apron for, and a sewing class this trimester.

And finally, if you've been following along over the years with my iron saga, I thought my iron was dying. So I brought the nice clothes iron downstairs to try. It didn't heat either. So then I tried running them on a heavy-duty extension cord. It was a little better, so I thought maybe my small, household cord was bad. Right now the best thing seems to be just plugging the iron directly into the wall, though I wish the cord was longer. Who knows??

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