Where does time go?

Do you ever just want time to stop?  HALT! Just give me some time to catch up without the clock tick, ticking away…and then it can start moving again.

I have so many things that I want to do, that I need to do, but don’t seem to have the time. I know some people will say, you have to make the time…. Yes, that’s true. But it seems like time is moving so fast, in my mind it should still be 2003, but the calendar says it is 2011!

And, how did it get to be June 13 already? We are practically half way through the month and half way through the YEAR.. I think one cause is I’m always workin’ for the weekend. You know, like hurry up 5 o’clock. Before you know it, five days later the week is gone and then you breeze through the weekend only to start all over again on Monday. Seven days can go by pretty fast when you live like that.

I don’t know what the solution is, but I do know that I am almost 40 (gasp! I remember thinking my parents were old in their 40s…when I was 10!) and it needs to stop.

I am thankful that Sunday seemed to have more than 24 hours in the day. It was a beautiful day in central Illinois, and it seemed more like spring than the 90% humidity-filled days we have had. The temp was in the 70s, the sun was shining and there was a nice breeze. I was up relatively early, made some AWESOME basil spread for snacking and some iced tea for the husband. Over the weekend I also taught the Saturday Farmer’s Wife Sampler Quilt class, quilted a small quilt, bound and labeled two quilts and made three pillows. Everything was for donations. 

Donation quilts: Neoga Booster Club and Charleston Red, White and Blue Days.

Pillows I made for the Charleston Booster Club auction.

Here’s some interesting things I’d like to share:

I love the Pioneer Woman Cooks blog. Here’s something I’m going to try soon. I am a once-a-day Starbuckser. This would be a lot less expensive. 

If this making-your-own-iced-coffee thing works out, I may need to get one of these.

And something else from The Pioneer Woman – this is what we’ll be having for dinner tonight after I harvest some basil from our plants.

What I’ll be doing this weekend – Neoga Days 2011. I’m on the committee, and will be there most of the weekend. Quilty friends – there is a quilt show at the Methodist Church on Friday and Saturday from 10 to 5. Unfortunately I have nothing super special to enter. I may enter a mini quilt I made recently and Taylor Rich’s t-shirt quilt I made a few years ago.

April Blocks

Believe it or not we are more than a week into Spring. To celebrate Spring I decided to pull several of the Farmer's Wife blocks that have birds in the name or have something to do with birds, and we'll be working on those this month.

Hovering Birds, Hovering Hawks, Swallow, Flock, Buzzards Roost and Bat Wing.

We'll be doing Bat Wing in class and YES! ladies we will be foundation piecing it. (I can hear a moan coming from Monticello with that news!) However, because I love ya all, I have also put the directions for that block in rotary cutting terms! I figured out how to do that 39 degree angle just for those ladies who don't like to do foundation piecing.

But, honestly, I found it easier to foundation piece this block.

Here are the two images of the block, one in Miniatures fabric and the other in Arnold's Attic.

So, bring your fabrics and your machines if you want and we'll put this bad boy (or Bat Boy!) together in class on Friday, April 1, at 6 p.m. or on Saturday, April 9, at 9-11 or 12-2.

I've taken some time to get my schedule organized. According to my figures, after April we will be 40 percent of the way done with this project. That is - we'll have 44 of the 111 blocks done (I'm sure everyone has their blocks up-to-date, right??????). I've divided out the remainder of the blocks according to their construction type and I came up with some of my own categories: Easy, Small Triangles, Flying Geese and a category called "Strange Piecing." Ohh. Can't wait to tackle those blocks! The title of that group should be: How in the heck am I going to do that block?

See you soon.
Sarah

FWSQ for March

Hurrah for foundation piecing! It sure saved me on this Flower Pot basket block. That's what we'll be working on Friday, March 4, and Saturday, March 12.
And, guess what? It has set in seams!! Ohhh, we're gonna have fun!
See you at class!

Pitch in and make Just One Star

Just saw this posted on a Moda blog and a few others. If you have a few minutes to spare soon in your sewing room, consider participating in the Just One Star program. Click on the link and you'll be directed to the directions where you can make a star block, send it to Moda and your block wil be included in one of the 100 quilts Moda will be donating to soldiers. The directions are all in the document. Why not pitch in an send a star? Deadline is May 1.
This tutorial will tell you all you need to know!

Cutting edit for February

My bad.
I failed to include some cutting directions in one of the February blocks. It is on the Strawberry Basket block. I should have told you to also cut two 2 1/2" squares from fabric C. Please update your block directions. Thank you to Linda (no last name!) for helping me catch this.

I already have a few blocks done for March. We'll be continuing our block theme and will be working on Basket block 3, Fruit Basket and the Flower Pot...just to name a few. We will be paper piecing Basket Block 3.

Talk to you in a few weeks. We'll be meeting on Friday, March, 4, at 6 p.m. and Saturday, March 12 at 9 -11 and then noon -2. Closer to our next class I'll post which block we'll be working on in class.

P.S. I know I've mentioned to a few of you the Barbara Brackman Block of the Week I've been following. Here's a link to find out more about this block of the week.  They're already on Week 7 so you'll have to go backwards to get up to date if you are interested.