I decided to check my blog today, thinking it had been a few months since I posted. I was horrified to see that it had been over nine months! Where does the time go? Over the months I've considered no longer writing the blog, but in looking back, it's as close to a journal as I'll ever have, so have decided to continue. 

It's probably fruitless to try and catch up on the past nine months, so I will just begin with where I am now. Last time I posted, I was working on the Tulip Quilt and have made sufficient progress on that. All of the blocks for the center are done and I'm working on the border. It doesn't look a whole lot different than last time, so I won't bother with pictures. I have, however, started a new quilt – Bed of Roses by Sue Garman. (Click on the photo in the link for a larger image). I had originally planned to do her Friends of Baltimore, but decided that might be a little too ambitious for my skill level at this point. Instead of red and green, I will be doing this in shades of blue. I am using the paper pattern pinned to foam core to pin on my pieces as I prep. I'm anxious to get sewing, but this gives me a chance to vet all the colors before going to all the trouble of sewing them down. First off – lots of little circles and stems:

To the right is a styrofoam tray with bias strips waiting to be made into stems and to the left is a little heart shaped box given to me by Mei-Mei where I keep all my little circles. Unfortunately, when she gave me the box it was empty, but oh well!

On the hand quilting front, I am working on my Aunt Gracie's Garden. This was from the Fons and Porter website and I utilized lots of fat quarters of 30's fabrics. I'm probably about halfway done with the center.

I'm going to be taking a break from this in order to quilt on a little baby quilt. I made this Windblown Kite Quilt by Susie Ennis way back in 1982 and gifted it to a friend's baby (who has since graduated from Harvard with an MBA – I like to think that my quilt had an influence in his development!) I liked it so much that a year or so ago I dug out the pattern and pieced another top. And now the time has come to quilt it.

I'm trying something new with marking this. Recently I was reading about Crayloa Ultra Clean Washable Markers.

Apparently they really do wash out and a lot of quilters are using them for marking their quilts. I did a test on the fabric I was using for the backing – I made a heavy "X" out of each color and washed the fabric. They did indeed come out. It was still with a lot of fear and trembling that I marked the baby quilt top. To my frustration, I discovered that I marked part of it wrong. This is not like the blue wash-out marker; it doesn't just disappear with a spritz of water, but needs soap as well. So – I tossed it in the wash with laundry detergent, and lo and behold! It came right out. Here's a close up of the marking (this time the wind is oriented correctly).

There are also knitting and music that have happened since last I wrote, but I'll save that for another post. Hopefully it won't be another nine months! For now, I leave you with photos of last weekend's snow camp at Tall Timber.