Close but no cigar

Progress is progress!  Still not finished, but at least the end is in sight.  It looks so small here, but I ran out of room for all the blocks I have.  I'll add another row to the width and two to the length.

Diagonal 4-patch, end Jan2012

It's been a long dry spell!

First of all, Happy New Year! I'm so glad 2011 is done with and I made it to the other side. To quote a facebook friend, my plans in 2012 are to " Eat less, move more. Frown less, smile more. Do what I can, when I can." Especially those moving & smiling parts.

I haven't sewn a stitch since probably April, so I've decided to participate in Judy's UFO challenge to get several projects to the finished flimsy stage:

1- Rangeley Stars
2- Triple 4-patch swap
3- Blue/white Duck & Ducklings
4- Black S&W
5- 4-patch on design wall (Yes, I cheated and made this #5 so I could get it off the wall!)
6- Swap from California Cruisin' book
7- Cheap Trick
8- Green County Lines
9- Patriotic Hidden Star
10- Baskets BOM
11- Green Caffrey mystery
12- Leaf Season

I also joined in on SewCalGal's free motion quilting challenge.  A lot of comfort quilts are going to be my practice pieces this year, so hopefully next year I can quilt this year's finished UFOs.

And last but not least, I've joined Denise's 12 in 2012 sock knitting challenge.  I think I've only finished one pair of socks this year!

Worst blogger award

Yeah, well. I'm the worst blogger in the world. It is what it is. But I have been busy.

Last weekend the kids went out of town for a little R&R before school starts up and to celebrate the sale of a portion of their company. GMan stayed with me and O.P. went down the road to the other grandparents. We are really fortunate to all live within a few miles of each other and I have never once regretted moving back from Texas to be near this one. In addition to a little fun at the big scary mouse house, we played badminton inside and had endless hours of trains, watching movies, and peeling tons of apples to make applesauce. G was thrilled that the owner beneath me was out of town too, which meant he could run and jump without me trying to keep the rambunctiousness of a 3 y/o in check.

This was a little gift/blog win from Joanne, who moved this past week from Indiana to New Hampshire. Really cute stuff, but I'll have to let those fabrics age a bit while I decide on a pattern. Thank you, Joanne, and let me know when your machine is up and running again!

Yesterday was a PIGS day at the LQS... lots of fun, people, and food. What more could ya ask for? I knew no one but the owner, so I didn't spend as much time gabbing as others, but still felt like I didn't accomplish much. Then the power went out with an hour left to our day, so we all had to pack it in.

One of the things I worked on was this County Lines project that I bought a couple of years ago. This will most likely be a charity quilt.

Friday was the 2nd class of our Mystery and we are now making these 5-inch blocks -- twelve with the accent as the background and another 24 with the usual background. Slooooow going; here are eight done with the black/accent background shown with the 12 blocks we made from the first class. Friday's class was short and I only got one made then, and another seven yesterday. Thankfully the next class is a month away, with 28 blocks to go. I did come to appreciate the Tucker Trimmer though. It will be interesting to see how this all comes together. That stuff on the right in the picture below is the S&W I had to pull out of the way.

Here are two UFOs I took that I didn't get around to working on. The blocks in the top are pair sets for disappearing 9-patch which, when it all came together, I lost interest in when I didn't care for my choice of background. The fabric on the bottom is a Lasagna quilt that just needs the rows sewn together and decide on a border. These will both be Project Linus quilts.

More stuff I took and didn't work on!

I'm still enjoying my fruit every week, although it's starting to pile up! Yellow Shiro plums and apricots and apples out the wazoo right now, and no time to do anything with them. This fresh-from-the-oven pic was a Plum Torte I made for a birthday celebration at work last week. I figured something that (urban?) legend says gets printed in the New York Times for 20 straight years might be tasty. I threw in the blueberries so it would have a little color, and they provided a little more sweetness thankfully, as the Shiro plums were amazingly tart when cooked (tart skin, sweet flesh).

What are your favorite apricot or plum or apple recipes?

Until next time,

Sheila