Crazy Busy Stitching Week!

I may have too many oars out of the boat all at the same time?

I've enjoyed the past couple months of aimless stitching, no deadlines, no workshops, no lectures.

Just me and my fabric in the studio!

But the end of January is the end of that for a bit and it's time to put my game face back on and get out there -- mix and mingle!

My teaching and lecture schedule is gearing up for the balance of the winter so this week has been about prepping for that.

I had a weekend away at a retreat with a friend's customers -- we were in Ohio Amish country and the weather was balmy for us -- sunny much of the time with temperatures in the high 50's -- that's about 30 degrees above normal.

I finished the giant Carolina Lily piece! 

There's a complete normal size person behind it!

I kept the quilting simple for two reasons -- needed to finish it fast and not quilting on my big machine so confined it to lots of walking foot straight line quilting.

This looked too simple for such a large space so I went back and added some more lines.

Much better!!

I made my first Sew Together bag for a friend's birthday!

The final steps puzzled me but I had read there are lots of tutorials on line and so fired up my Kindle for a look see.  Even though this YouTube one is in Japanese, I was able to follow the process.

Pretty cute, huh?? 

My friend was delighted and surprised and everyone in the room wanted the pattern!! 

Well, actually they wanted the bag.

And it is the first finish for the first quarter of the 2017 Finish Along -- linky is HERE!!

I cut out a couple Indygo Junction tunic tops -- have to take advantage of large flat surfaces whenever possible!

And Wednesday evening, I stitched one of them up!

Very pleased!! 

One of my weekend tasks was to retrieve Marge Sampson George's Dodecagon pattern and templates from my cousin who ferried them back to the US from Australia over the Christmas holidays!

The cutting has begun and this project is going on vacation with me!!

With the start of lecture season, I spent part of the week stacking quilts for two of my lectures and printing out handouts.  The notes for one of the lectures has gone missing but my handout will get me through it -- I never say the same thing twice anyway.

And I have found several other (long) missing things during the search for the notes so that is good!

There have been lots of trips in and out of the studio as I do all this so I've been pausing each time to gaze at these two (very old) stacks of blocks that I spread out on the design wall.

My first inclination was to try to merge them into one project, but that's not going to happen.

I'm focusing on this group which was inspired by some photographs I took of a tree covered with lichen and plastered with snow after a particularly windy snowstorm.

I've been rearranging blocks to make the tree image stronger and as the next few weeks progress I'll make more "snow" blocks and refine the image.   

Winter is returning this weekend and my Christmas rose will once again be buried with snow. 

It's right outside the window by my APQS George quilting machine so I've been able to enjoy gazing at it every morning during "quilting time" as I finish a teaching sample.

Are you ever at a lose for what to do next?

I'm don't seem to be!

I'll be stitching this weekend!

Mary