Great new read

I just finished Marie Bostwick's new book, Between Heaven and Texas, this is a prequel to her Cobbled Court series.  I am a huge fan of that series and didn't know if I would like this one or not.  I did and would highly recommend it. Between Heave and Texas, takes place in Too Much "where the women are strong and the men are handsome but shiftless"  (LOVE THAT DESCRIPTION).  The story focuses on twins Mary Dell and Lydia Dale who share two traits a talent for sewing and a weakness for men.  Lydia Dale marries and has children, Mary Dale wishes for children but doesn't get exactly what she wishes for, she gets much more.  This is a truly uplifting story, can't wait for the next one. 

44th Street Giveaway

Check out the give away over at 44th Street Fabrics.  Love Kathy Schmidt stitchery patterns. 

Piggies

 Last fall while in Houston for Quilt Market I found a stitchery pattern that I just had to have, This Little Piggy , by Scarlet Today.  (I have several of their patterns and love all of them.)I wanted to get started on it right away but too many other projects kept calling my name.  Before going to my mom's house for spring break a few weeks ago, I got the pattern out and traced 4 of the piggies.  I managed to finish three of them while at her house.  Last night I traced 4 more piggies, only 4 more to trace. 

Working on one of the "girl" pigs.

Piggie after cookies, my favorite.

Piggie carrying wood.

I think this is a dancing piggie!



Dixie Diary

 I spent part of this weekend catching up on Barbara Brackman's Dixie Diary.  I finished the blocks for March and April.  I really like  the pinwheel block for March.

After putting all four blocks up on my design wall I decided that I didn't like the way the green heart looked on the February block.  I have already taken it off and cut out a blue star to replace it with.  I guess it is true that sometimes you just have to step back and look and your blocks.

Odds and Ends

Finally, I am starting to make some progress on my UFO list for the year.  Last spring I started a Primitive Gatherings pattern, Odds and Ends.  (if you  have lots of scraps this is a great pattern).  This is the project that I have been taking to Thimbles each month because it is just straight sewing that I really didn't have to think about.  Last week I finally finished all of the blocks and have started sewing them together.  This is not a quilt that I am putting up on my design wall, I am just picking the blocks up and sewing them together.  The only thing I am really trying to avoid is putting to of the same blocks side by side.  I have five rows sewn together so far, each row has 18 blocks and there are 20 rows. If I work at it this week, maybe I can get all 20 rows sewn together, I already have the rows together. 

An explosion of wool

One reason for my absence in blog world is the explosion of wool that has happened at my house.   Over the last few weeks I have been oh so busy dyeing wool.  You can see that I have pretty much covered the color spectrum, all the way from pastels to dark orange and red.  Last week was a great week in the wool business, Saturday I had to make deliveries to several different stores in the Atlanta area.  That normally isn't much of a problem, however Saturday the traffic was awful and I do mean awful.  I knew that I had to go to Marietta and since there was construction on 285 I decided to take 85 that was a mistake, 85 was completed closed had to backtrack, get on 285 sit through that road work, then to 75 where they were also doing construction.  Finally got to my destination, only a couple of hours late.  I hate to be late.  I was so over the traffic that I decided to scrap my plans of doing some shopping and going straight home.  I did get some sewing done, more on that later this week.

New "old" quilt

I don't know where the last few weeks have gone.  There just doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day to get everything done that I need to.  I was  out of town for our spring break helping my mom out with various projects around her house.  Needless to say I was exhausted when I came back and needed really needed another week off to recover.  This has also been an incredibly busy week at school this week, we are getting ready to start our state testing next week.  This year I actually have to administer the test, it has been years since I have done that.  I usually just proctor for another teacher, not this year.  I am giving the test to a small group, really small one student.

I have also been incredibly busy dyeing wool.  I am really excited that my wool business is taking off like it has.  I am looking forward to the summer when I can concentrate more on it.  I have done  very little sewing, but the borders on Snowbound, (which I will show later) and did some mending for my hubby.  I have obtained one new/old quilt.  I am trying to build up my collection of old quilts.  This one is from Pennsylvania the late 1880's.  The colors are absolutely beautiful.  I has never been washed and it looks like it has never been used.  The backing fabric is really nice.  It doesn't have any batting between the layers so it is very thin.  I would love to recreate this one in different fabrics.