Making Progress...

May was a crazy month - four trips in four weeks!  I am looking forward to a much more quiet June. All of the travel and work has definitely limited my sewing and hooking time!  The girls are home for the summer now, too, so cooking and general chaos has also been cutting into my "me" time....

I did manage to make a quick stop in Harriet Hargrave's quilt shop when I was in Denver. It was a nice shop with good variety. She had a nice selection of Japanese and Australian magazines and patterns - I resisted the urge to bring any home, but they were tempting! 

I had hoped to get to another shop while visiting Denver but between the insane traffic and crazy weather (daily hail and tornadoes) I decided the best place for my rental car was the hotel garage. I use the term "car" loosely - Avis couldn't come up with anything smaller than an Expedition for me....the perfect car for attending an environmental sustainability conference in a city with horrible traffic, right?!?

I have been making progress on a couple of projects. I decided to stop waiting for a retreat (I need one!!) to get back to working on my Orion's Star blocks from a couple of summers ago.  I have half of the quilt assembled and all of the strips put together for the other half.  Ann is absolutely in love with this one and is pushing me to finish it so she can have it for her room.

I've also made a little progress on my rug from Anita's class last winter.  I actually have more completed now than when I took this picture (I had high hopes of finding time to update the blog last week).

I have hooked the leaves on the left and am close to having the background filled in...then I can move to the other half of the rug not shown in the picture.... Did I mention that I need a retreat?

I had to break away from Orion's Star (much to my daughter's dismay) to work on a new BOM for our quilt guild this past weekend. We will be launching the BOM at our next guild meeting and I needed to get my sample completed. The pattern is an old Kansas City Star series designed by Eveline Folind. I did this one in Japanese taupes and hope to put together a second one in wool. Our guild president has done a version in William Morris fabrics and is working on a blue-work version....we are hoping to inspire lots of members to play along.

I am considering outlining the applique with embroidery a la Suzanne Marshall since I have always wanted to do that on a quilt, but I will focus on getting the wool version finished first.  Of course, that means I will have to resist the temptation to start my summer BOW when it arrives...first one should be here this week and I can't wait!