Change of pace

Oh my goodness!  I have so much going on right now, I don't know if I'm coming or going.  I showed up to karate an hour early yesterday.  How frustrating!  So instead of spending an hour there, we were there for 2 hours, and then still had to come home and do the whole Valentine's Day sweatshop routine!  Here's Jason with the 40 Lollypop flowers we made to give out in his and his brother's classes.

Lollypop flowers for Valentine's Day 2012

Plus, I had a full 4 hours of cub scouts on Sunday, first a trip to the fire station with my Tigers (super fun!  Firemen, like quilters, have all kinds of gadgets and gizmos to make their jobs easier.), then a den meeting, and then off to a handy old cubmaster's house to use his power tools to cut our pinewood derby cars.  By the end of the day, I was exhausted!  Isn't Sunday supposed to be a day of rest?

So I've decided that I need a change of pace.  It is cold and gray, perfect weather to sit and stitch by hand.  I pulled out this lap/baby Charm Quilt that I finished piecing back in October 2010,

pieced a backing, pieced a batting (I used my Heat Press Batting Together tape for the first time, and it worked like a dream! Quick, easy, and I couldn't even tell where it was when I was hand quilting through it!), and plopped myself in front of the TV to quilt.

I wanted to do a big meander stitch, but I know myself too well - if I tried doing that on the front of the quilt, I'd be paying attention to seams and how much stitching was in one particular block - you know, overthinking it.  So I turned the quilt over, and I am quilting it upside down.  I purposefully chose this big polka dot so I could use those as a basic guide - my only rule is to only quilt in the white.  So here's what I'm quilting

Back of Charm Quilt

and here's what it looks like on the other side.

Front of Charm Quilt

It's kind of fun quilting upside down, because I can't tell as I stitch how it will look on the other side.

OK, enough computer time.  All I've been doing at work lately is computer work, and I'm determined to not spend time on the computer at home these days, even though it means I am missing out on everyone's blogs.  Once basketball season is over and my job slows down a bit, I promise I'll come visit, OK?