April 2013 Progress Report

April is gone and I have made a little bit of progress. The Barn Chicks top is done! I can't show it to you, though--it's a surprise gift for a friend and I want to give it to her on her birthday, which is several months away. I may find a reason to give it to her sooner! Here's a portion of it:

This is not a part of the Barn Chicks pattern; the border was wide and empty...it needed something besides the words "Barn Chicks". You'll see the rest when it's time for the reveal.

The practice Trick or Treat basket blocks have been hand quilted and are awaiting assembly into a pillow, but it kept me from making headway with the other Trick or Treat quilt baskets; I've only completed 2 (yes, 2) blocks this month, bringing the total 13.

(I need to quit being lazy; I've been using my iPhone camera and should be using my real camera to get better photos.)

The flannel Crazy Cats are now 3 Blind Cats and are headed to the longarm this weekend; it started out to be a pillow for a bench several years ago, but now I want it to be a bed runner:

3 Blind Cats

Since it's for the queen cat (Cleo) and princess cat (Emmy), I'm not going to invest a lot of energy in quilting this one, but may have a little bit of fun with it. You should have heard the discussion with DH about what to do with it:

Me: "It will be a bed runner instead of a pillow for the bench." 

DH: "Why not a pillow for the bench?" 

Me: "Because the bench isn't where it used to be when I started the project and now the queen and princess sleep on our bed." 

DH: "Ok, why not make it into a pillow for the girls?" 

Me: "Ok; it's roughly the size, right now, of a king-sized pillow case; I can do that, and that will save me the energy of quilting it..." 

DH: "But won't it look nicer and hold up better if it's quilted?" 

Me: "We're talking about quilting a pillowcase for the cats, are you kidding me?" 

DH: "I think they'd like it." 

Me: "All they care about is something soft to lay down on! They don't care about the quilting! I'm already not putting buttons on for the eyes for their sakes!" 

DH: "Well, maybe the pillow would be too tall for them..." 

Me: "I'm turning it into a bed runner." 

DH: "Ok, sounds good." 

Oy...and this was the Reader's Digest condensed version of the conversation.

So nothing actually finished, but 3 tops completed from BIN 1 and moving onward. Spending time organizing and rearranging to make some additional room in the studio has kept me from more quilting, but I'm feeling good about things--progress isn't always measured by the number of projects you make. Sunday before last following the 3 Blind Cats quilt discussion, I told DH that I had some goals for completing a certain number of quilts this year, and that I wanted to spend the month of May quilting one particular quilt that's been waiting in the wings for ELEVEN YEARS. I haven't done much on my longarm for awhile until recently. Last year I purchased a set of Red Snappers from Renae Haddadin and let everything get in the way of me getting them on my machine. (Red Snappers allow you to "snap" a quilt onto your longarm using Clip 'n Seal rods and clamps and saves a lot of time in the loading process.) So DH said let's get them on there! We spent the rest of the day installing the Red Snappers and stitching measuring tapes onto the leaders, so now I'm pumped! Next month I hope to show you at least 1, if not 2 completed quilts (waiting on the thread to arrive). As the weather gets warmer, I like to hide out in the longarm room of the studio because it's the coolest room in the house!

And Spring cannot make up it's mind if it's here in central Arkansas; it's MAY and our heater is on. I cannot remember a May in all the years I've lived here that we've experienced this type of weather--Minnesota, yes; here, no. Just last week we had these outside our office building:

I hope you're able to get some quilting done during the merry month of May!

Happy quilting!