Where crazy weather induces productivity on Slow Sunday Stitching...

Well that was certainly a crazy week of weather... we had rain, snow, abit of ice,  sub-zero temperatures, fog, and sunshine... a weather buffet... Mother Nature couldn't make up her mind!  Now my worries over Tuesday were totally unnecessary as it was very cold... single digits...but that was the extent of the "weather"... Wednesday and Thursday had us in the polar vortex but we made it through and Friday was a little snowy but nothing to keep us home... Saturday started really foggy and then the sun broke out and the temperatures soared and today we are going to be almost 60 degrees!!  I love 60 degrees... it won't last but a day or two but I'll take what I can get.

And suppose I shouldn't complain about the weather... but I will ... it gives me something to say here each week...LOL... however this week it made me quite productive. I worked on and even finished a bunch of projects ... to start I got the binding on my baby quilt present for my daughter-in-law's baby shower... which was yesterday so now I can share it...

The colors are a bit truer in the second picture and if you zoom in you can see that the fabrics are Richard Scarry prints... one of my son's favorite childhood books was Richard Scarry's Busytown... it was a series of pictures and objects were labeled but there wasn't any "story" text. He would sit with my Grandma... his great-Grandma... and she would make up stories about the characters on the pages... and he would add to the stories. He loved doing this with her, to the point that our copy of Busytown is in tatters.  I've had this fabric for probably 5 years just waiting for the right time to make something with it... so this is the first of many quilts I hope to make for my grandchild who's due to arrive in late April.   I put minky on the back in my favorite color...

which shows off the quilting pattern nicely... David of Quilting by David did this one and I'm very happy with it.

I was so pleased with myself that I had this quilt ready to go on Monday and the shower wasn't till Saturday that I jumped into another project I'd been wanting to do... dye and paint some more linen...


I painted these with Lemon Yellow and Coral...

they are light and soft and I've got projects picked out for both pieces... and I painted a pale green piece which you'll see further down...and since I had the dyes in little mason jars I squished a piece of linen into  them...

The yellow is a combo of Golden Yellow and Lemon Yellow.... the aqua was Apple Green mixed with Aquamarine ...and the coral  is just Coral... I like how mottled they came out.

Success with this project spurred me to go to my sewing room in  the basement and sew... I got the binding on a quilt I've had finished for months and I completed my top for the Moda String a long ...

It finished 61" x 61"... I'll go into more detail about it tomorrow in a design wall /make it Monday post.  I even got a back together out of something that has been in my stash for eons and sent everything off to David to be quilted.

Having finished this project I moved onto some cross stitch... I'm loving the A Year of Celebrations series by Hands on Design... I turned February into an FFO just in time for the first of the month...

I don't do a lot of decorating for Valentine's Day but I'm happy with this little vignette... I found the cake felt pincushions in my stash of decorating items ... I made them years ago and I was happy to let them see the light of day. I don't do many pink things but these are pretty in pink... the pins in the jelly roll are from Just Another Button Company ...

And I did this little display too...

I stitched this Blackbird Designs sampler back in 2011... it is called Truly Thine but I changed it to Truly Mine and added my sons' initials in place of my own... and the vintage valentines came from Hobby Lobby...

And since I'm trying to keep ahead on this series I started March....ta dah!!!

This one was so quick to stitch... I spent about 4 evenings on it ... now I did change almost all the colors to go with the linen I painted with Apple Green Rit day... I like the splotchy-ness of  it ... I'll turn it into an FFO at the end of this month.

I also started a new quilt ... a  Moda Love quilt variation with my collection of American Jane fabrics... only have 7 of the 30 blocks I need sewn so I'll hopefully have more to show next week.  You can see lots of versions of this quilt here on Instagram .And I saw that Fat Quarter Shop started their BOM Threadology ... you can see it here... I want to do it in American Jane fabrics so the plan is to get them done in tandem with the Moda Love quilt... we will see where it goes. I feel like my sewing mojo has returned  and that makes me happy happy happy!!!

So I will start this week off with high hopes that I will be at least half as productive as I was last week... I have no illusions that I can repeat this performance  but it was nice while it lasted... at the moment the upcoming week only has 2 out of the house things I need to do, so that it a plus. Hope does spring eternal ... and Punxsutawney Phil said Spring would come early... hope he's right... but I read he's only correct about 40% of the time...which is less than a coin flip... oh well.

I wanted to share this game from the baby shower yesterday... my son, the father to be, put this together ... it was a quiz to "Name that Storybook"... in lieu of a card they asked for books for the baby's library... I was able to find a vintage unused copy of Richard Scarry's ABC book which made for a great themed present to go with the quilt (I was so proud of me...LOL)... anyway here are the questions that were posed... can you name the book?

1. Undersized steam powered vehicle ascends incline and overcomes self doubt.

2. Gluttonous larval stage Lepidoptera binges on fruits and vegetables in preparation for climatic metamorphosis.

3. Young obsessive compulsive cotton tailed mammal bids evening salutations to inanimate and celestial objects.

4. Pathological fibbing martinet seeks animated status and more complicated relationship with Maestro Geppetto.

5. Over -generous arbor indulges ungrateful youth who exploits a lifetime of gifts until only a stump remains.

6. Impulsive yellow Ursus with obsessive fixation on nectar products explores .156 square mile forest.

7. Anthropomorphic Felis Domesticus in striped cranial accessory entertains unsupervised children on a rainy day.

8. Affable sow piglet befriends clever arachnid to win blue ribbon and inspire a generation of vegans.

9. Whimsical lumbricus terrestris navigates congested urban core in red malus pumila mobile.

I'll put the answers in the comment section so you can check how you did... and yes my son is a smart ass... he reminds me that crazy doesn't fall far from the crazy tree and that I am responsible for this situation... ROFL..

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts today and plan on a post tomorrow that is quilting related... I know you are shocked and amazed... me too... posting more than once a week hasn't happened in quite a while...
hope your week is going to be a great one!

happy stitching-
carol fun