one of my museum pieces...

pelican island causeway - copyright j. schaudt

that's one of my favorite drawings...the underside of pelican island causeway as seen from the "beach" at texas a&m university-galveston. i was almost standing in the water itself when i took the photo for the composition and i remember it was cold that day. it's got a lot of the elements i want in my architectural landscapes - mold, rust, mildewed concrete, etc. i like the yuck factor or something that shows its age. i've got a scene from a london sidewalk with stone buildings that i need to finish. never mind that i started it a decade ago. more than a decade...wow... hmm...i should get cracking!

i'm on jury duty this week. all week. i sat for 6 1/2 hours yesterday between 2 courtrooms, listening to judges and lawyers to find out that no...i was not one of the unlucky 13 to sit in the jury box for a week-long criminal case. whew! but i'm still on call for the rest of the week and have to call the courts every evening to see if i go the next morning. at least i'm back at work today and getting things ready as much as i can for the month-end, etc.

after all my excitement yesterday, i was ready to veg out at home. that and boo is getting over a stomach flu. eeew... since i was waiting on the hubby to get home to watch our shows, i played some guitar hero to numb the brain. patterns and quilts were calling to me, but i needed some downtime.

oh!! speaking of quilts! i got my first qov back from the long-arm quilter and it looks fantastic!! i need to finish the binding still and then i'll take some pictures and post them. and then make the presentation case. not sure i want to do the pillowcase style yet - i saw someone who did a totebag type and i'm liking that idea more. it's practical as well and the recipient can use it that way. any ideas?

really? it's spring?

if it's really spring, then why is it dark and dreary? i've tried to think happy and wear bright colors since it's raining...again... but i want sunshine and my pretty flowers to keep growing in the garden and have my herbs grow big. i just don't want the nasty texas heat and humidity.

but - the rainstorm last night was great. not this drizzly muck i've had all day. i'm talking lots of lightening, some loud thunder and pounding rain as i went to bed.

i've been working more on my gift project (see below), especially since i finally have a need-to-send-before date. the main portion is almost finished and i'll have borders and binding left. this is what i do during my lunch break at the office and my boss thinks it's funny. yesterday, my long-arm quilter for QOV #1 emailed that she's done quilting and shipped it back to me. i'll have binding and the presentation case to do now. yippee!! just have to find someone to present it to or ship it... reminds me - the safe harbor woman hasn't written back yet. and i did finish the next 4 rows of QOV #2 and start pinning the next 2. there is some progress.

snappy bought me the most fantastic green/white batik print from here a few months ago. 3 yards of the glorious leaf pattern with the intention of me making a dress. i found the pattern this week (it's #2886 if the simplicity site doesn't work). maybe the dress will put me in the spring-y mood.

back to the grind and looking out my darkened window...

next round of blocks

i've been taking a little break from QOV #2...it's tedious and i've had migraines, plus i need to finish up the gift quilt i've given peeks at. i need to mail it out along with whatever else i make/get for this person before the end of april.

for the last couple of days, i've been putting together these 2 sets of blocks for my "quilt guild" april block swap. we were given the task of doing any variation of a 4-patch using tone-on-tone plus white in any color we choose. on the left in orange: an old maid block; on the right in green: spool and bobbin. i'm early this time and i did 2 sets...that's fine since i need to get cracking on that quilt and the next QOV top. i just have to wait until the end of april to receive my new blocks. :(

but i did pin the next 2 rows of QOV #2 together this morning as well. it's not forgotten. and QOV #1 is being quilted this week - i heard from my long-armmer who told me she's finishing it when she gets back from spring break. i can't wait to see how it turns out! then it's making the presentation case, printing the journal and finding a receipient.

happy st. patrick's day!!

i found this picture a moment ago... it's supposed to be a background image, but i think it would make an awesome quilt design. i love shamrocks anyways - my mom has some that were a cutting from her old neighbor or something like that back in the 70's and the original plant came from ireland (this is all assuming i remember correctly). they're really big leaves and purple.

i have my corned beef in the fridge, waiting for me to get home and start cooking it, along with the potatoes, carrots and cabbage. i'm considering making a cheddar-ale soup as well with some yummy smithwick's ale. one of my hubby's coworkers is coming over for dinner before we go out for traditional guinness at a pub. snappy is not a fan of corned beef (too bad...) and that's what we're eating tonight. i didn't make it last year and i missed it. i could eat corned beef almost any day. later, i'll make rueben sandwiches with a heaping pile of saurkraut. mmmm...

are you wearing green today? i am. i have on green slacks and my toenails are a lovely bright metallic green too.

sneak peak and qov #2

here's a sneak peek at something i'm working on.

it's the backside of a little something i'm working on and don't have much time to finish it before it gets shipped out. this one comes with me to my office and i spend a half hour or so of my lunch break quilting. the quilt is super cute though.

the first 4 rows of QOV #2! whew...it's a time-consuming quilt i tell ya!! my sailor loves the way it looks so far and i have the feeling he's going to ask me to make one for him later. i did want to test out the pattern since i've been looking at it for a year or so in my book. the finished blocks are 5" and there are 4 "types" of blocks. each one has to be rotated and laid out in a pattern, taking even more time...

and a close-up view so you can see the fabrics better. i do like how it makes stripey pinwheels when the squares are all rotated and put together. this quilt pattern calls for a couple of thin borders and a bigger border. i've been kicking around the idea of one skinny border, probably in red, with a wide border in the blue navy fabric that my first QOV is primarily made up of.

such boredom do i have

my boss is out of town at a conference. he left yesterday afternoon, so all the end-of-month stuff that i needed to do before he left is done and i cranked out a lot early on. now i'm stretching out the remaining items as far as i can because i would have nothing to do right now otherwise.

so.... i've been picking through more blogs. i have an addiction to reading crafty/artsy/quilting blogs lately. yesterday and today, i've been going through the long and lovely list of blogs provided by the happy zombie alphabetically. before, it was a blog here or there and at random. not today. it's all of them. i'm at "n" and it's just 11am.

i bought a teeny tiny sewing machine recently for my 6-yr old son and my husband to use. boo has been begging me to teach him to sew for a while now and i want to. i worry a little about his little fingers and a sewing machine, especially my brother machine. my husband went through my stash of fabrics a few months ago and decided to make himself a quilt (that bag of fabric, plus the pattern he picked out are still sitting on my studio floor, untouched). why not get the boys a super simple, yet supposedly efficient, machine to learn on? it's small enough for a kid to use - the thing weighs about 5 lbs! - and doesn't have a million stiches to confuse them with. 2 needle settings with straight stitching and a couple zig-zags. perfect. plus, it's not a chincy kid's toy machine that doesn't work. realized last night that my original plan of putting it on one end of my sewing table so the two of us could work at one time won't work....while boo has long legs for a 6-yr old, he won't be able to reach the foot pedal and see to see at the same time. guess it'll have to be set up on his little vintage school desk when he works.

i need to post an update on QOV #2. i've been working on it -i promise. i've never done a quilt with this small of a block before and it's time consuming. i have to rotate all the blocks in a certain pattern and use a specific one of four blocks for each place. argh. the pattern was one in my to-do-one-day list, but i'm not sure i'll do it again for a while. maybe i can make them bigger instead of 5" finished.

new qov and other stuff...

i started my next QOV last week. above is the fabric that i'm using and you can see it's another sailor based quilt. the quilt pattern is called "anchors-a-swirl" but i've found it's a variation of a roman square but arranged differently. my navy fabric will be added to it somewhere - possibly a border fabric. the first QOV is off at the longarm quilters still and i'm hoping to get it back fairly soon so i can make the presentation case and find a destination.

i recently participated in sew mama sew's fat quarter swap while they were celebrating a month of fat quarters in february. i got the last of my fabrics yesterday.

aren't they great?! our group was all "j" based for names. there was a joey, two jennifers, and a jessica. the green and brown fabric is wild! i can't wait to use them in a project or two.

above are the blocks produced in my first ever block swap. mine is the top left block. our task was to do any variation of a 9-patch using blue and yellow with an optional white. we had so many people join in that we're extending what was supposed to be a one-time swap into one every 2 months for now. the next one is due in april and it's a 4-patch using any color we want, but it has to be a tone-on-tone with white (light blue/dark blue + white, light green/dark green + white, etc.). originally when it was a one-time thing, i was going to make a table runner from my blocks. now that we're going to do them at least one more time, i want to make a lap quilt and i think i'll do two sets of blocks so i get 10 back. it'll be a complete surprise this swap though since we're completely open on the colors. i could have one scrappy quilt in the end.