Back in the saddle

Remember me?  I know, I've been a bad blogger.  I think about blogging often, but just never sit down to do it.  That changes today!  And I have Gail the Cozy Quilter to thank for that.  We've been blogging friends for years now, but since I live in Virginia and she lives in Canada, we'd never met.  Then, last week, she and her husband were staying in my town on vacation, and she wandered past my shop one night and put two and two together and realized she knew the shop owner.  She came in the next day to introduce herself, and I was just so tickled!  Her timing was perfect, as I was feeling a bit tired and overwhelmed, having recently returned from a trip to Spain with my mom and sisters and trying to prepare for back to back birthday parties at my shop last weekend.  Anyway, THANK YOU for visiting me, Gail, and for inspiring me to blog again!

I must say that, since opening the shop and learning to knit (I know, that sounds a bit backwards, doesn't it?  Opening a yarn shop and THEN learning to knit?  But I didn't know it would be a yarn shop when I opened, it just kinda evolved...) I've been knitting much more than I have been quilting.  That and making class samples for all my kids' sewing classes.  But last night, I was tidying my sewing room at home and realized that I couldn't properly close the drawer with the blue fabrics in it.  Honestly, I don't use blues very often.  So, what's a gal to do but make a blue quilt?  I had inspiration for a quick and easy quilt from the Emerald Waves quilt in the April/May 2014 McCall's Quick Quilts issue, and tweaked it to make it work for yardage of white that I had.  I targeted all the smaller pieces of blue in the drawer, cutting what I needed for the quilt and then cutting the rest into scrap squares for future scrap projects.  I'm happy to report that the blue drawer has now been tamed!  I got 14 of the 50 blocks I plan to make completed.  At this rate, I should be finished with the top by the end of the week!

The blue fabrics just won't fit in the drawer anymore.

See my inspiration photo?  And I cut my scraps to every size between 1.5" square and 5" square for future projects.

So far, so good.  Although I don't like it as much as the original green quilt - I LOVE GREEN!

So, that's it for now.  Gotta ease myself back into blogging, after all.  Let me close by saying that I am so amused that the quilt I featured in my last blog post LAST YEAR just sold today.  AND the dress I am wearing in the second picture of my last post is the same dress I am wearing today in honor of Cinco de Mayo.  Honestly, it is like no time has passed at all!