Lots of stitching going on!

I had hoped to get lots of creating in during my winter break from school...and I did!  It started with a mad dash to make a memory quilt for a friend who lost her beloved dog.  I had six pages of printer fabric sheets, so I found some photos of her pup online and made a quick quilt for her.  She is TALL and I wanted her to be able to cuddle in it, so it is pretty large, about 65"x 98".  I can't make a quick quilt that big using my usual little pieces, so the blocks are huge, each finishing at 31.5" square.  What a departure for me!  Probably not something I'll do again, but she really appreciated it so mission accomplished.

Preparing to baste for quilting...

After that, my desire to sew was gone, so I spent a lot of time knitting:

RBG Ornaments

Christmas crowns for my nieces

Socks for my sister-in-law

A Shoulder Cozy for my mom

More progress on my Excavation Blanket

Using up more sock yarn scraps in my Coziest Memory Blanket

And then, just like that, I wanted to sew again!  I joined a Block Exchange and have already completed and mailed January's blocks:

Mother Hen Block

I made two blue Bear Paw blocks  - this is the year I am determined to finish this quilt and give it to my stepfather.

I've been working on this since October 2019 - what's taking me so long???

I've been chipping away at my scraps.  With this bag of scraps and this tin of HSTs,

I am making this modified Rail Fence.

Hmmm...might reverse the HSTs on half of the blocks to see if that makes them all seem continuous...

And making blocks based on the 2020 Scrap Buster Challenge from Border Creek Station.

Haven't decided on a layout yet, just playing around as I add blocks

I'm sad that vacation is over but I'm glad I had so much time to create, create, create!  Now it is back to work, work, work.

Happy New Year, everyone!  I'm linking up with Oh Scrap and Monday Making.

I get by with a little help from my friends

A surefire way to keep your mind off feeling blue is to keep busy and surround yourself with others.  That was the strategy this past weekend.  We visited my husband's grandmother in Southeastern Virginia.  I though we were just going to a cookout, but there were at least 50 people there, so it felt more like a family reunion to me.  I knew next to no one, but pull out a quilt to work on, and all of a sudden you are surrounded by interested folks.  That was my strategy, and it worked wonderfully!  Everyone has a quilt story to share.  I even found a cousin who designs cards and signs, and he's working on a design for me for my new business.  Plus, I'm halfway done hand quilting the second rainbow baby quilt!

Back at home, I worked on the quilt blocks from my MIL's shirts.  I need to pull out some of them with wider stripes to give my eyes a break - those tiny stripes make me seasick!  But so far, everything is lining up pretty well, although I'm not being a stickler about it.  Let's face it, I'm not much of a stickler for rules and things being orderly.

The larger blocks are 8.5", the smaller are 4.5".  So far, I've used 4 sleeves total - who knew there was that much fabric in a sleeve???

Then yesterday afternoon we went to a cookout at a local friend's house (that's right - two days in one weekend when I didn't have to cook dinner!), and I was working on cutting up the rest of the shirts when a quilter friend got some scissors and gave me a hand.  My friends are the best!

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!

Memories

On this Saturday eight years ago (although the date was the 28th of May, not the 25th), I was sitting at work, talking with a colleague when I got the phone call.  Without even saying "Hello," my cousin Khadijah sobbed, "Uncle Craig is dead!"  I went home immediately, stunned.  My father was gone.  My larger-than-life, fun-loving, vibrant, effusive father had died in a car accident.  The thought that kept running through my head was, "Donald will never get to meet him."  I was 9 months pregnant at the time, and Donald was born 3 weeks later.

No worries, Dad, Donald has met you many times over in the stories we tell and the photos we share.

Dad graduated from college the year I turned 11.  I see that I get my aversion to ironing from him!

Luckily, he was able to meet Jason several times.  In every photo, Jason is gazing at him, enthralled.

One of my favorite photos - my dad and my brother

So this Memorial Day weekend, my father, who served in the US Air Force, occupies my thoughts.

He looked quite dapper in his uniform (with my grandmom)

So does my mother-in-law.  Knowing that she was dying didn't make losing her any easier.  I wailed after losing my father that I never had a chance to say "goodbye."  Having had that chance with Wilma, I realize there isn't enough time or words to say all that needs saying.

I've started making my husband a quilt from his mother's shirts.  She loved striped cotton oxford-type shirts, usually in blue, so I'm making a Kaffe Fassett inspired Shirt-Stripe Boxes quilt.  Luckily, she had a TON of them!  I've disassembled several shirts, but have only made one square so far.

First block made from Wilma's shirts

It is hard to cut and sew with tears in your eyes.