A New Project, FWSQ & More Baby Pictures

Most of the blogs I read have headlines like, "A Finish" or "Another Finished Project." Not me. Nope, I just have more starts. I just continue to start new projects as they come to me. This time, I'm on to embroidery :) Maybe one of these days I'll finish SOMETHING.

I saw on someone's blog that they had completed a block of the month embroidery project called "Birdie Stitches" and thought it was super cute, so I asked where they found the pattern. Turns out it is a free block of the month project found here from Little Miss Shabby.

So I did what any mother of a 7 year old artist would do. I borrowed his light table and got right to tracing the patterns onto fabric!

This is the block for January (I have a little catching up to do.) All the blocks feature the cute little birds. I'm looking forward to this. Embroidery is like walking to me - a super easy, no brain power required project. I've been embroidering since my Grandma taught me how when I was about 6 years old. I love to do it, and it works up quickly. And after doing a couple of the "easy" Farmer's Wife quilt blocks, I think I need a no-brain-power-required project.

I also think it's a bit unrealistic for me to think I can spend a couple of hours at the sewing machine each day at this point in my life. With a nursing one month old, it's just not gonna happen. I'll still get it in when I can, but I can't count on doing it daily. Let's face it... I didn't even bother to plant flowers this year. I knew I wouldn't have time for it all.

Speaking of the Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt (FWSQ), here are my first two completed blocks. This is block #4 - Basket Weave. It's a little catty-whompus. How's that for a description? I'm very thankful that it doesn't seem to look as much like a swastika as I expected it to. I think this ought to be about the easiest block in the book... and I had to re-do it twice. Frustrating. Made me really wonder how well I will be able to do the difficult blocks.

This is block #2 - Autumn Tints. All my fabrics are bright, tone-on-tones, and there will be a rainbow of color in the finished quilt. I'm trying to pick the most appropriate or fun fabrics for each block, based on the name of the block. For the Basket Weave block, I just picked the farthest thing from Nazi colors as I could - ha.

I know I said I was going to do each block in alphabetical order, and for the most part, I intend to. I prepped the first four blocks, and won't prep more until those are done. But when I sat down to sew the other day, I didn't expect the baby to give me more than a few minutes of quiet sewing time, so I started with the Autumn Tints block. I've got to kind of play it by ear, you know?

I've got my hands full, wouldn't you say? Quite literally :)

Hi everybody. (See him waving?) :) Looks like he's greeting all his loyal fans :)

Here he is having a little conversation with Mr. Giraffe...

And trying to figure out how to get those arms to work. He's been "reaching at" things - not able to get his arms to do what he's thinking, but you can tell he really wants to touch stuff and he's trying.

Love the perspective on this one. It was taken by my 20 year old :) And wow, do we need to get to those haircuts!

All that sewing was done yesterday and the day before. As for today, I'm not sure how much I'll get done. My 7 year old is finishing up his second week of VBS - this time at the other Baptist church in town, and they have a program at noon, followed by lunch, so we're packing up everyone and heading over there in an hour. Then I have some phone calls to make, bills to pay, and so on. Hopefully I'll get a few minutes to sew something. Actually, I did fix the basket weave block this morning, so I guess that counts for today, even if I don't get back to the machine. I'm thinking I'm really more in a hand-sewing season, and so I'm looking forward to getting to the store Saturday to pick up the colors of embroidery floss I need to get going on those embroidery blocks. (We're heading to the town 100 miles away to put the 20 year old on a Greyhound to Pennsylvania to visit a friend and do some sightseeing before he heads of to the next assignment. My local quilt store has about 30 different colors of floss - only two of which were the colors I was looking for. Can't wait to get to where I can buy a whole assortment. I sure hope Walmart still carries floss.) I'm pretty sure I can embroider while I nurse. If that proves too cumbersome, I'll get my hexagon blocks back out. So far, I've spent most of my nursing time reading and staring at that beautiful baby :) - which I do intend to keep doing!