March Madness

Okay, it's time for March Madness, but I'm not talking about basketball. I'm talking about everything else.

The weather has been wild. Two weeks ago we still had 6 inches of snow in the yard (see my last post). Then over the past 2 weeks it melted away. Last week it was great, in the mid 50's a couple of days! Yes, I said 50's! Then Friday night a cold front came through with some rain and on Saturday morning there was SNOW on the ground. Just a little bit that was melted by noon, but good grief! My poor crocuses can't decide if they really want to come out here or not. Today it looks beautiful; I was out at 7am with the dog, but haven't gone out again yet. Right now I can hear the cardinal singing his wonderful song.

Here's what I've been working on most of the day. This quilt is going to be for my nephew Evan, who is graduating from high school this Spring. It will be a twin size so it can go on his dorm room bed. I still have to sew the blocks together then add the borders. My goal is to have the top all done by next Saturday morning.

Earlier this week was St Patrick's Day. DD's 5th grade choir had a Celtic concert and toured the 3 elementary schools in town performing their concert. This picture was from the concert they gave for parents and family. Yes, I tried to take out all the red-eye, but it wouldn't all come out.

Another reason that I'm going through March Madness is that right after Easter I'm having double knee replacement surgery. My parents are coming here for two weeks (each and separately) to care for DD and the dog and when I get out of rehab, me. So this month I've been getting ready for that; everything from getting the house cleaned up enough for my parents to see, setting up appointments, taking the hospital's pre-surgery class, visiting the rehab center, changing dentist appointments, and just plain planning ahead.

In the meantime, it looks like Spring is finally here (even with its ups and downs), so that's the best part of March Madness (even if I think we might still get more snow).  Have a great week!

March 1st Flowers???? Not Here!

On several of my friends' blogs today in Northern IL, I saw pictures of crocuses and snowdrops. So I went out to check my own garden. I didn't find any plants fighting their way towards the sun. I didn't find buds starting to peak out of the warm ground. No, all I found was snow. I stuck my ruler down into the snow and you can see the tip of the ruler (see the 12 inch mark?) sticking out of the snow.

Granted, this area of my garden is where I snow blow my driveway clean and dump the snow, but even in the yard, there's still at least 6 inches of snow. Well, maybe come April we'll start to see the bare ground. But not March 1st.

Like Mother, Like Daughter.....

This was a real quilty weekend for DD and me. Saturday was a quilt-in at the church for our small quilt group. DD had started a modified Trip Around the World at the previous quilt in and finished the top in just a hour or so. She had a lot of fun using the iron like a big girl.

Here's her finished top. She's so proud! I'll help her baste it and quilt it. She expects to give it as a gift to her cousin, but we'll see...




The rest of us in the church group started on our own trip .... our Trip Around the World raffle quilt. Here's the first panel after sewing all the strips together.

And here's how far we got. DD and I dragged our butts out of there around 9pm. Boy, were we ever tired. We want to get the quilt done by early summer so that we can start selling raffle tickets at the Farmer's Markets on Saturday mornings. Then the raffle will be at the end of September at our annual Chicken Roast (held Homecoming Friday).

DD is out sledding right now; I've got about another 30 minutes of time to myself, so I guess I'd better get off the computer and over to the sewing machine.

Can you believe that tomorrow is March 1st? Spring, come on!

Have a great week!

Carolina Christmas Top Done

Well, it only took me two weeks to add the borders, but I got the top for my Carolina Christmas wall hanging done. I'm saving it to go to the long arm quilter next month with a couple of other tops that are already done.

Next project is a twin size quilt for my nephew's high school graduation. It will be black/white/red (he's into newspapers, get it?). I'm hoping to get the top made so that I can deliver all the tops at one time next month. I'm not sure about the pattern, so I guess I'm going to just wing it, for now.

Over the weekend, DD and I went to the Marquette Women's Basketball game. It was a Pink Zone game (everyone, including players, wears pink, in honor of breast cancer awareness). They had a really nice health fair that we did before the game. Here's a cute picture of three of the girls and the Marquette Golden Eagle.

Its snowing again (I know, its still only February), so I guess I need to go out and snowblow. There's only about 1 1/2 inches of snow right now, and its turning to rain. Very heavy, wet snow.

Have a Great Day!

February Update

I have a wall inside my foyer that I've been meaning to hang seasonal quilts for years, but I never quite got around to it. I bought the fabric for a Fall wall hanging, and a Christmas wallhanging. Well, a few weeks ago I saw this fabric for Valentines Day and even though its a cheater panel, just think its the cutest thing. So this time I finished it in time for the holiday! Isn't it cute?? Whoopie!!!!

Not much going on here in Wisconsin. Just snow, like the rest of the country. I heard on the news last night that every state in the contiguous US (the 48 states) got snow this week. I mean now really folks. I heard even Dallas and northern FL got snow. Here in Wisconsin we got about 12 inches and the schools were closed on Tuesday. I snow blowed about 5 times this week. But today is clear and sunny (okay, its only 19 degrees) and looks like it will be a beautiful day.

I'm working on the borders for my Carolina Christmas wall hanging (see previous post). I got the first border on and am trying to decide how wide to make the next border. That matters, because I'm planning to put a star block in each of the corners.

But right now I'm off to go buy 2 new tires for my car. I've had to stop for air every day this week since the big snow fall and I don't want to get stranded somewhere.

Have a great weekend!

Bonnie's Carolina Christmas

I've been working this week on Bonnie Hunter's Carolina Chistmas mystery quilt. Well, I cheated, so it wasn't a mystery to me. I decided that I really didn't want a big bed sized quilt (even though I have plenty of fabric for it). I switched around the green and the gold colors and it isn't as scrappy as the ones that she has done before, but I think I really like it. Let me know what you think. I don't think I'll sew together the blocks for another day or so.

Its been really cold here in Wisconsin this past week. And it snowed twice. I got the snow blower fixed so at least I didn't have to shovel by hand.

Other than the snow, cold, and the quilting, things have been pretty slow around here. We've just been busy getting back into the swing of things with school and work. Its amazing how resistant DD is about doing homework now that we're back from vacation. But grade cards are coming up in a few weeks, so when she doesn't want to do her homework, I remind her about the money she'll get when the good grades come in (and conversely, the lack of money if she doesn't do well).

Oh, yeah, the other thing going on is that we're selling Girl Scout cookies again. DD took the selling sheet to church this morning and did pretty good. But with temperatures in the single digits, we just couldn't find it in us to go door to door today. We've got several weeks, so maybe next weekend.

Hope everyone is keeping warm!

Last Finish for 2009

I finished one last quilt while on vacation in FL. I started this Sisters Choice quilt at a Bonnie Hunter workshop that I took last June in IL. I chose teal and purple as my main colors -- not totally scrappy as Bonnie's work typically is, but some of my favorite colors. The background is totally scrappy beige neutrals. It has a pieced teal inner boarder and a beautiful purple batik for the outer border. I worked on it off and on over the summer and then finished up all the blocks while at a quilting retreat in September. I finished the top in early November and delivered it to my long armer with the wedding quilt. I picked a flower design for the quilting to echo the floral design in the border.

When I was in Florida, all I had to do was hand stitch down the binding, so that was something nice to work on while watching TV when the weather was cooler. I haven't measured it, but I suspect its about a full bed size.

Now on to Bonnie's Carolina Christmas Mystery quilt! Well, okay, it won't be a mystery to me as I peeked at each of the clues as they were revealed and know what the final results will be. But when she started the mystery on "Black Friday", I still had the wedding quilt to finish and a Christmas present to finish. They I was hoping to be able to work on it while in Florida, but I just couldn't find room in the car for my machine and all the other stuff I would need.