Karen Combs Workshop and Wildflower Season

Work continues on circle and bow tie blocks as well as quilting the Jill Finley quilt, but I have been hard pressed to sit down at the keyboard and record my progress.

The two workshops I attended week before last with Karen Combs were fabulous.  Everything she said seemed either to be a new concept to me or a familiar concept presented in a new light.  I went home both nights very tired, but happy.  Here are the blocks I constructed from the workshop on illusions.

Since then Bob and I have made several wildflower rides and trips to the country.  

The flowers have peaked earlier than usual this year and have made an unexpectedly good show.  I love it when the oranges and blues are mixed together.

I always try to memorize the good years in my mind’s eye knowing droughts will inevitably return and we will have sparse years.  Of course, I also took many pictures.  Between the workshops and flowers, my March 2016 folder has 221 pictures, quite a lot for me.

A Little More Accomplished

Our rainy days helped me make progress on a couple of projects.

I managed to stitch up some more bow ties.

For the moment, I'm even a couple of days ahead of schedule for March's Quilty 365 blocks.

Sunshine has returned and yesterday we took a country drive.  

It was very windy, as you can see from the state of my hair.  We still have water running over low water crossings. 

This is the fullest Lake Buchanan has been in six years.  You can make out the tops of vegetation and trees in the water that were on dry ground a few months ago.  

It will take at least another week before the Bluebonnets come in strong, but they are already getting started. It should be a good year.

Today I'll be cutting more fabric blocks for the color transparency workshop Wednesday, and I need to pull out my Featherweight and give her some pampering so she's ready for the Illusions workshop on Thursday.  It's shaping up to be a very busy week.

Our rain has continued at a slow and steady rate.  The official gauge for our area reports 2.58 inches for the last week, and our combined lake levels have reached 91%.  Yay!

The rainy days have given me an opportunity to spend some guilt-free hours at the machine.  Here are the 15 anti-ouch pouches completed yesterday that are ready to be turned in at next week's guild meeting.  Now I'm playing with circle and bow tie blocks.

My Christmas cactus is blooming too.  This plant was loaded with buds when it was given to me as a hostess gift during the holidays, but they immediately dropped due to being moved.  Now that it has settled in, it is blooming again.

Hexagons and Rain

My hexagon quilt is growing.  I need to add more to the top and bottom and fill out the corners.  The Kaffe Fasset fabric on the left looks better with this project in real life than it does in the photograph and I am considering it as a border.

After a nice moist fall, we have had an extremely dry winter.  It was so dry, in fact, we had almost decided that El Nino had forgotten us and our area had been put back in the moderate drought category.  That has changed this week.  This forecast week long rain event may prove to be too much of a good thing.  We are already in a flash flood watch.  For the moment, however, I am elated with the turn of events.  It has been a very long time since we saw rain puddles.

Exploring the Stash and Cutting Scraps

Yesterday’s quilting activity consisted of cutting and sorting 5 inch squares that I will need for a workshop later this month.  1 ½ inch remnants were cut for my on-going bow tie project.  It is fun reacquainting myself with the treasures I’ve forgotten about in my stash.  Two of my discoveries included a charm pack of Kona solids, which will be very helpful in preparing for the workshop…

…and another charm pack of prints that was gifted to me several years ago.  It will help out Quilty 365.

I’m cutting extra 5 inch squares for use as backgrounds for Quilty 365.  Maybe if I can get a good enough assortment already cut I won’t get so far behind.  I have a lot more cutting to do before I'm ready for the workshop, but fortunately I also have some time.

Of course, I needed a little mindless piecing as well, so I worked on a few more bow tie blocks.

Not much sewing will happen today.  We are expecting a visit from our daughter and 17-year-old grandson (aka Rent-a-Kid).  I have a list of chores including changing smoke alarm batteries, replacing burned out light bulbs, cleaning out a clogged rain chain and hefting 40 pound bags of potting soil for my container garden.  If time permits, there are also some transom windows needing to be cleaned.  

A Catching Up Post

My usual routine has been out of kilter the last two weeks, hence a slowdown in posting activity.  So today I am having to do some catch up blogging. 

First, here are February’s Quilty 365 blocks.  I am gradually coming to grips with the imperfect nature of these circles and that is also liberating me to be more playful with this project.

Last week the two winter Texans, who have joined our Tuesday group for several years, again treated us to a farewell-until-next-year-party.  The theme this year was the 1940s and we were urged to wear patriotic attire.  The goody bags were loaded with items reminiscent of life during that era including a can of Spam and Hershey bars.

On Friday, a friend invited me to ride with her to the LaGrange Quilt show.  This guild has a show every year and they always do a fabulous job.

There were vendors, of course, a local quilt shop to visit, and a stop at the Quilt Museum.  It was a fun day.

Yesterday, I had a medical procedure which required sedation.  Everything is fine, but the aftercare instructions said no driving, signing important papers, making important decisions or operating dangerous equipment for 24 hours.  I made the assumption this would include use of rotary cutters, sewing machines and writing blog posts.  So, I spent the afternoon alternately napping and fondling my fabric. 

I am signed up later this month for a Guild sponsored workshop with Karen Combs and we are asked to bring lots of “non-busy” scraps.  I was surprised to see how much I had that qualified.

Later I tried to work on hexies while watching Quilt-Cam, but found I could not hold my eyes open, so I turned in early.