Back to Reality

Paducah was wonderful (as always) and I actually managed to make it through the week without going too far overboard with purchases!  I picked up a few patterns (they are easy to find a home for in the sewing room), a little bit of fabric (we won't count the bolt of black batik - at only $5 per yard I would have been a fool to leavie it behind!) and one kit. I was trying to avoid kits but the colors in this quilt were absolutely gorgeous, and since I already had the pattern, how could I resist?  I am so tempted to start on it but I know I need to focus if I am going to get anything ready in time for the 2013 show.

Speaking of getting things ready for a show, I finished (okay, almost finished) my rug late Friday night, just in time to get it into the show on Saturday.  Hook-in St. Louis was outstanding!  Donna, Nina and Maria did a fabulous job! 

I still need to sew down the binding tape.  I made it about half way around before I left for the show - but it was close enough!  I will be glad to mark that one off of my list.  It's been around for a while!

My next rug project is the Sauder Village rug.  I started it last night.  It seems like it will go quickly, but I'm sure that won't be the case.  I am aiming to finish before my next workshop...that gives me just shy of two months to work on it.   I think I'm up for the challenge!

One More Week!

I am SO ready for vacation!  I always get really pumped about Paducah.  Something about being able to totally immerse myself in quilts and quilters for a full four days makes my heart happy. I can't wait!

Last week was a very busy work week and I really didn't have any time to work on anything.  I'm really getting down to the wire on my rug.  I registered it for the show so I have to get it finished (or at least hooked and steamed) before I leave for Paducah. I have made progress:

The border is very tedious.  Doing "hit or miss" is much more difficult than it looks! The colors are so close to one another and require more planning than I would have hoped.  I'm also thinking that I will need to hook the outer-most border.  There's a half-inch or slightly larger border drawn outside the piano keys that I was hoping to be able to ignore, but I think it is needed in order to make the border proportional.

I managed to finish my second Grandmother's Garden block over the weekend.

I had so much fun with the embroidery!  I started prepping the next block. I have to figure out how I want to do it.  There are four of them in the quilt. The original Nancy Page pattern has a flat "blobby" rose. I like the Eleanor Burns dimensional version looks much better, but since I am going with the non-dimensional approach I don't want the roses to look like they don't belong.  I may try to find a middle ground between the two - separate petals instead of blobs, but still flat.

Hopefully I can wrap up work at a reasonable time this afternoon and get back to my rose. I will get back to the rug this evening - hopefully I can get around the next corner and make decent progress up the next side.  I've got a lot of hooking to do between now and next Tuesday!

Only Two More Days!

I am so excited about April!  Only two days until baseball season opens and only three weeks until Paducah!  I have a horribly tough work schedule the next couple of weeks so it really helps to have something to look forward to.

I haven't been able to work on much of anything since Kinderhook.  I did manage to get quite a bit of work done while I was there - not nearly as much as I hoped or planned for, of course.  I completed 25 of the 45 stars for Stars & Sprigs:

I also put together 8 or so baskets for my Grandmother's Garden quilt.  I prepped the applique for my second block yesterday.  I love the colors I am working with and am really excited about this project.  Hopefully I will have a finished block to show by the end of the week  My goal is to have this one finished in time for next year's quilt show.

We had a great TAS meeting this weekend, working on embroidery stitches.  We were having so much fun that we ran out of time and really didn't get to spend the time we wanted to on some of the techniques!  We may have to have a "part two" at the next meeting.  Getting back to emboridery meant that I had a chance to finish my sheep from Jan Vaine's class:

I absolutely love him although I have no idea what I am going to do with him!  I wish I would have kept track of the number of colonial knots - it took two complete skeins of wool embroidery thread to fill in his little body (he's less than 3" tall)!  His legs, face and ear are ultrasuede.  He was so much fun to make!