Monday, February 15, 2010

dog tired

On Sunday I took the four cool pugs to the 3rd annual Valenpug's Party. It's a fund raiser for my local pug rescue and there were so many pugs there I lost count. :-) This is Clancy Sunday afternoon. :-)
I started on a new piece today, Alphabet Sampler from Birds of a Feather. I was making NO progress at all with my IsaV Marquoir. In over the week that I had been officially working on it all I got in was the gold highlighting in the letters that were already in place, one additional letter and half of a figure block. So I moved on for now.

I had a mixed quilting weekend. On Saturday I started working on trying to complete my blocks for my Paintbox Stars quilt but I only managed to finish six more blocks before I was going crazy. You quilters know how it is: pin, sew, rip, pin, sew, rip, re-pin, and finally re-sew just to get everything lined up just right. I just had to put it aside. That is when the quilting madness started.

I have been in a mood to do something primitive for a while. You know the kind with applique and stitching plus quilting? Several weeks ago I found a Jan Patek quilt called Homespun Stars that I could not get out of my mind. She is doing a quarterly block of the month club with this design. But right now I just can't swing it nor do I really have time with everything else that I want to get done. But I still can't get it out of my head. I do have a quilt pattern from several years ago from Whimsical Quilts that is sorta the same thing - quilting, applique and embroidery, so I pulled that book out "just to look" at. So before I know it I'm taking apart my quilting storage to find just the right fabrics for it. And of course I don't really have anything that quite fits but I keep going any way. A couple of hours goes by and I still don't have anything that works for it so I reluctantly put the book away for now - leaving a trail of destruction behind me that took another several hours to pick up Saturday evening. Then I started to go through my other stuff because I can't stop the urge to start something new. I ended up pulling out a really cute quilt made up of really small (4") blocks of baskets, log cabins and courthouse steps blocks. I was finished cutting out the pieces that I needed for the 12 basket blocks when I remembered why I hadn't already started this project. The pieces I needed for the log cabins and courthouse step blocks were going to come from the extra pieces that I was going to cut for my OTHER log cabin quilt. The one with the 1/2 logs remember? So duh, now I have another quilt in process. I did manage to get one basket block together and piece a ton of the other pieces for the baskets but had to stop because it was late Saturday and I had to tidy up the mess I had made that afternoon and I had no fabric ready for the other blocks.
So on Sunday I started to cut out the many, many fat quarters of reproduction fabrics that I have been collecting for the log cabin quilt. I did managed to get all the lights cut - all 7 yards of fat quarters and fat eights cit into 1 inch strips. I still have 9 yards of dark and medium fat quarters to go. Here are the lights!

What a project this is going to be! So there you have it - a full weekend of doing something but making no progress toward anything. :-)

Have a great week!

8 comments:

Becky K in OK said...

Well, Clancy looks just too comfortable. Great start on your stitching too.

Rugs and Pugs said...

Margie ~
Oh the projects you have going! How are you ever going to find time to learn to hook? Do you ever sleep?
A Valenpug party ~ that sounds like such fun! I hope they made LOTS of money for rescue. The picture of Clancy is just too precious.
Pug hugs :)
Lauren, Loocie & Eema

Michelle said...

Love that photo of Clancy! And I know just what you mean...busy busy, but nothing to show for it. Although - cutting all those 1" strips is a LOT of work! I love the fabric you've chosen for your new Alphabet piece...lovely!

Margaret said...

I love your new WIP! I know what you're saying about the quilting. And isn't it awful when you get to obsessing about a quilt you see somewhere? Oh, I know that feeling too! lol! Hope you get to relax like Clancy is doing. :D

Suburban Stitcher said...

I love it all! The colors on that stitching are so lovely, and I love the scrappy basket block. I CAN'T. WAIT. to see more progress on that log cabin quilt! What a beauty it will be :)

Deb said...

Just love the picture of Clancy all tuckered out! I definitely know how it is with the quilting. I tried to finish up some blocks this weekend and found that somehow, I had cut some strips 1/4" too narrow. Thank goodness I had more fabric! I love that Jan Patek quilt too and was r-e-a-l-l-y tempted, but I held off. Don't you just hate when something is calling your name like that.

And wow - a lot of yardage to cut!! At least you're 1/2 way done!!

MyLifesAStitch said...

Great pic of Clancy, lol!! He looks completely wiped out. :) I don't think you made no progress... just lots of little bits of progress in lots of different directions rather than lots of progress along one path. Good starts!!

Susan said...

Love the pic of Clancy.
Coming from a fellow quilter, I know where you are coming from. Most times the cutting takes longer than the sewing of the whole quilt top. Then the borders seem to take forever when they are just straight set. Go figure!