Soldiering on

It's been a pleasant weekend.  Warm and sunny.  Yesterday we were busy with a birthday dinner for Mom so no sewing.  Today, among other things, I caught up with the last four days of the 365 Challenge blocks.  I'm trying to work mostly from my stash and it's been a struggle.  I added some Kaffe fabrics and I'm not sure I like the effect in these small blocks.  I put them up on the design wall to see if I was at all on track.  These are part of the "inner dark stripe" and supposed to be made of mediums, medium dark, and dark dark fabrics with a bright spark here and there.  Not knowing how it will all go together makes choices hard so these are a really motley assortment!  I may redo a couple, but I figure if I just soldier on the final effect will be a possibly happy and attractive surprise.  I can hope anyway!  The variety of fabrics and colors shown on the Facebook group is quite amazing.  It's going to be very interesting come December.  :-)

January

Some winter days you just have to take it easy.  A warm perch doesn't hurt.  

I took The Viking out to get him a pair of "renoculars" as he says it.  Now we can watch out the front window together.

His imagination runs wild these days.  He declared the wastebasket lid a "police car hat" and ran around yelling, "Emergency!  Emergency!"  I'm not sure he really knows what constitutes an emergency, but he certainly relates it to firetrucks and police cars.

When we go on our bee retreat in April, Cathy is going to help us put together the Chain Reaction quilt pattern she developed from an antique quilt.  I've cut out all the pieces and am ready to go!

As part of the "Glitterati Army" I also participated in another pattern test for Molli Sparkles.  His Diva Alphabet is fun and now I have a "sign" for My Sandbox!  :-)

 There is no excuse not to go out walking when you have a three year old around with energy to burn.
This day was pretty chilly.

And he was a train for the whole walk, sound effects and all.  He also insisted on bringing Yertle the Turtle.  It just happened Yertle fit in his hood perfectly.

On another day he gave me quite a workout trying to keep his trike moving along in a relatively straight line!

Cut to the next weekend and it was so warm out we did some yard work and I ended up stripping down to a tank top.  Weird weather.

And this poor forsythia is very confused.  It is definitely not spring!

I finished the hard part of my Texas Tumbleweeds quilt top.  It still needs borders.

The Viking has had a bad cold so I pulled out some hand sewing to do while I keep him quiet watching TV for a while in the afternoons.

I also decided to play along with the 365 Challenge quilt.   A block a day for a year.  I don't know what possessed me to start this, but I have managed to keep up so far.  We shall see.

While we were iced in by winter storm Jordan I continued to work on my Omigosh quilt which was put aside over the holidays.  Also something I was probably crazy to start.  Half of the blocks are done though and now I'm working on the churn dash blocks.  888 pairs there.

Made into 444 four-patches.  Now I'm in the process of trimming them.

We were lucky I suppose, not to get feet of snow, but what you see here is solid ice.  So we were iced in for several days anyway.

It was a great opportunity to watch the birds flocking to the feeders though.

Stardust didn't mind the feet of snow she got to play in!

The Viking is feeling a bit better though I'm still spending all day wiping his nose and washing my hands.  It was nice enough today to go for a walk on the greenway with Maisy.   As we came over the bridge and onto the greenway he declared it to be "very river-y today!"  He also said he was walking with a tractor.  Not being the tractor or riding on a tractor, just walking with it.  Hmmmmm.  This was before he grabbed onto the leash to help me walk Maisy.  He decided she was a bus pulling us along.  An empty bus.  "Take us home, Maisy!"  I wonder what we will be next time?  :-)

I got bored pretty quickly trimming little bitty four-patches.  So I've cut some of the triangles and added them on to a few.  I still have over 400 to go.  Insanity!  My brother is wondering what institution they are going to put me in.  Tee hee.

Sewing

I did some sewing during the weeks leading up to Christmas.  I bought some of Jodie's patterns and had lots of fun.  The patterns are nicely done.

I made the rocket ship with Starman for The Viking.  They were so cute I wanted to keep them for myself!

Disco Bots for Five and Batman.

And Guinea Pigs for Stardust and the other piggy lovers in the family.  I made five of them and there is some clamoring for more!

I had the best time making this cute wall hanging for The Tramp.  The pattern is a design from the talented Sandy Fitzpatrick.  Lucky for us she is a member of our guild!  :-)

Then I went on another hat kick.  The patterns are from this book.

The one-eyed monster and puppy dog for the older boys.

The fish for Stardust.

 The owl for The Viking.

I have a few more to make since The Viking wants a blue fish hat and the older boys want panda hats.  Stardust was very clear on the fact that the fish hat was very silly.  :-)  I'll make her something more girly and send it off for Valentines Day.  

I made hats for ED and MD from a pattern in a library book.  I have one cut out for myself and now it's cold out I think I should finish it!

The season

The Christmas season has come and gone so now I get to play catch-up!  :-)  The weather was oddly warm and wet.  It got a bit depressing.

Rain and more rain.  Record rainfall and record temperatures.

Though nothing is more cheery than Christmas lights.  Most of the houses around the pond joined in and I could enjoy the view from my chair.  It's like a double light show with the reflections in the pond.

And the rain stopped just in time for the luminaries to put out on Christmas Eve.

On Boxing Day I joined The Sailor Son, and ED's extended family at a Carolina Hurricanes vs NJ Devils hockey game.  The grands and the diehard hockey fans enjoyed it thoroughly.  Some of us were just there to watch the others enjoy it.  ;-)

They loved wearing the jerseys.

 The sun came out.....

And we got to enjoy the park too.  Crazy warm weather.

Santa came.

I had joined the Secret Santa Christmas Swap again this year.  This is the giftie I made up for Shez.  It's an Abbey Bag.  It's a cute pattern and I enjoy making them.  I added in a matching box of pins and Shez says she's thrilled with it.

 And I am thrilled with the gift I received from the lovely Fiona.  An Etui!  Look at the stitching and the wonderful goodies inside!

Lucky me!!!  :-)