so make like a bee and get busy

Or go find flowers, or some such.

This has been such a ridiculously busy week I'm still reeling. Spring break + workin in the restaurant business = exhaustion. And we're not done yet; we've still got at least tonight to get through and possibly tomorrow, although if it truly IS only Spring Break for this week, then we'll most likely be slower then.

In between such things, I've been working on quilts as well:

- Patched together more rows for my hexagon quilt.
- Basted at least 100 more hexies and cleaned up the box of hexies yet-to-baste.
- Bought a queen-size, warm + natural batting at Hobby Lobby and cut it into 12" squares.
- Planned at least 10 more blocks for my boyfriend's QAYG log cabin!
- Set aside the next ten blocks I want to work on for MY Heather Ross QAYG log cabin!

Looking at postage stamp quilts online, especially quilts inspired by pictures, I got an idea for a quilt in my head. When I was a kid, I read comics religiously - and Kurt Wagner aka Nightcrawler from the X-Men was always my favorite! I want to make a postage stamp quilt with the color scheme of his uniform and some pictures of him - I even found the perfect backing!!!

But I can't - and won't! - work on it until I'm done with my friend's baby quilt and my boyfriend's quilt.

So my goals this week are:

- Cut out 1.5" x 22" strips of white solid for Emma's baby quilt.
- Start piecing the quilt together.
- Quilt at LEAST one block a night of the boyfriend's quilt so that it gets done faster :)
- Get my craft stuff organized!

I've got my work cut out for me for sure :)

And so it begins

But not without having an awesome off day pass by, wherein I accomplish many things:


- Sewed three new blocks for my QAYG log cabin (yellow, brown, aqua)

- Basted forty or sew hexies

- Watched Sleepy Hollow (again) and put up the Christmas decorations

- Cleaned up the apartment a little (and managed to put back all fabric pulled out)...

- Took the boyfriend for dinner and enjoyed a nice, quiet evening :)


And this week, luckily, I have a half day! I think that I'll be taking a trip to Joann's up in Webster for some more batting and some coordinate fabrics, preferably dots and stripes in basic colors ... though I'll most likely take along my Heather Ross fabrics and see what matches up where, and take a small amount of those.

I also plan to FINALLY finish my "couch" quilt ... I need to piece the backing and quilt it, but I have so much 80/20 batting that I don't need to buy any! It's all in the house! I've just been too lazy to actually do it ... and lucky for me I have a wonderful mother who has mad handquilting and binding skills, which I do not yet possess. And when you want a quilt bound fast (faster than a speeding bullet! quilt in a single bound! or at least a couple hours), who better than her?

I also plan to put some pictures on this darn blog...I've got them saved, but I'm a "procrastinator" and I tend to put things off. But there will be pictures! I swears it.
Off to work now! Later days!

two day break? o-kay!

So I had two days off this week. It's really a rare occurrence - some strange luck that another manager had to take my half day, two weeks in a row, leading up to it.

Let me tell you, it was nice.

I started it off with a trip to nearby Webster - it's the closest place with decent bookstores and craft stores (Barnes and Noble, Joann's, and Fry's all within a mile of one another). I didn't get much - a book of recorded ghost sightings, the animated version of Lord of the Rings (I was really hoping for "The Hobbit", but they didn't have it), and some 100% cotton quilt batting. This last thing I was REALLY excited about - because it was all I needed to start my quilt-as-you-go log cabin blocks!

Initially, I wanted to do the quilt from the Q-A-Y-G along - with blocks alternating white and color throughout - but I decided to go with monochromatic blocks instead. At the center of each block is a scrap of some of my most treasured fabrics, my Heather Ross! I finally cut into both lines of Far Far Away, and picked a little of each from all of the scraps I had gathered (Lightning Bugs, Munki Munki, Mendocino).

So while watching countless movies (an eclectic mashup of all the Resident Evil films and Jane Austen films), I managed to arrange several blocks and quilt four. I was working on one last night when I ran out of thread on my bobbin, and since I HATE threading the bobbin, I decided it was time to give it a rest.

But I'm rather pleased with my progress! I knew this would be fun, but I didn't know how much - I really love this method!! Fun, easy, and quick. I'm certain that I have more blocks than the original quilt along (56), I minimized the size to 12" per block to account for it.

I kind of can't wait to get home to finish the blue one I was working on ... and rent a few good movies to watch at the same time :)