Where Would I Be Without My Trusty Assistant?

I'd probably not be pulling every hair out of my head!

Lately I've been in a real quilting tear!  I can't get enough of it.  But do I get what I want done?  No!!  The reason for not getting done what I'd like to is this:

Yes, Mr. Bailey.  He silently snuck into the living room while I was laying out these blocks (where he isn't allowed - I thought he was sleeping) to get in on the photo shoot.  He's so sweet, so cute, but WHAT A TERROR!  A terror on four paws.  Huge paws!!! But how can you do anything but love him with a face like that???

But Mr. Bailey doesn't like me doing the things that I like to do.  Try to clean during the day?  Oh no, he's not up for that.  Trying to sew during the day - nope - not up for that either.  If I take him downstairs with me, he's after something - biting on the iron cord is not a good thing.  If he asks to go outside, I put him out, but he must have some kind of radar that alerts him to the minute I put one foot on the basement stairs or try to run the vacuum.  He barks like a fool to come in.  My neighbors don't say anything, but..........  So I've been resigned to sewing after dinner, making nocturnal visits to the basement and hoping that the stairs don't creak.  I know that he's going through his toddler stage, but what a bunch of work.  And what a sweetheart!!

He's growing like a weed - about 40 pounds.  Here's a couple more pictures and then I'll get on to what else is up:

Excuse the laundry - it's wash day, but DD decided to see how Bailey's sleeping accommodations are.  And then while Bailey looks small, he's growing like a weed.  My daughter's 5'4", so he's getting pretty big.  He has so much energy!!!!

And trying to look innocent (but don't let the face fool you):

Anyway, I've been on a real tear with the quilting.  I've finished off about 13 of the 18 blocks that were backed up on the Farmer's Wife quilt.  It took me three days to cut those blocks out, and one day to put them together.  Intensive cutting!

I still have a few more to go - the harder ones.  Some of these have so many small pieces!  UGH.  But I'm making progress - doing the happy dance and then..........cue in the Psycho shower scene music............ this arrives:

Next months' fabric.  OY!!!!  Is there no rest for the wicked?  But I now have 59 out of 111 blocks finished (refer to first picture with Mr. Bailey), so I'm doing a happy dance.  Hopefully in a few days I will be completely caught up!

In stitching news - not much at all - a little progress on Mary (that I'll post another time) and a little bit on Elizabeth Clayton:

The letters are taking me soooooo long.  Of course some of the letters and borders are in eyelet stitch, which I like to do, but seem to take me a long time.

In other news - not that much.  Still playing around in the craft room trying to see what works best for the things that I do.  I realized one day that I was wasting a perfectly good wall for some storage - a wall behind a door in which Mr. Santa resides until the holiday season.  As all my fabric is packed in those huge Rubbermaid bins, getting to it is a chore, so I went from this:

To this:

Cheap bookcase from Walmart to store just a small part of my fabrics.  DH made the observation that I needed about 10 of these to store all my fabric.  Unfortunately he's right, but at least it's a start!!!  Once I fill this baby up, it will be a beautiful thing!!!  DH actually L-bracketed the bookcase to the wall because he's sure that it will topple over once I pile the fabric into it!!

Well, it sounds like Mr. Bailey has wound himself around the basketball post again so I need to rescue him!  Pray for me that DH finally springs for the electronic fence!

Thanks again for all your wonderful comments.  I truly love receiving them.  And even if I haven't left a comment on your blog recently, I have been stalking lurking and I'll get back to commenting soon.

What A Slump!!!

Have you ever been in a real stitching slump - no mojo, nothing interests you?  Well, that's about what's happened to me the past few months.  I looked at my blog this weekend and realized that I haven't really had anything stitching related to say or show in the past few months.  I haven't been reading blogs either.  Just in a huge slump!  Well, I think I finally got out of it.  I guess they call it "Life Gets In the Way".  It happens - we all go through it - one thing after another - some good, some bad, but enough to just throw you off your mark.  When I get like that I retreat and just be.  I also tend to pull things apart - organize, throw out - it's calming.  While I'm throwing out the unnecessary items in my cleaning, I also seem to deal better with what's going on at the time.   Anyway, one day after weeks of purging both material and mental things, I decided to completely tear apart my stash and catalogue it.  What a process!!!  But the spark came back and I finally got the itch to stitch again!  It was like finding an old friend.

I started with Mary's Best Handwork that I began in Utah:

I still wasn't ready to start stitching again when I picked this up, but it seemed like the path of least resistance.  I had to stitch on something at the SB retreat get-together.  Ya just can't go to a stitching retreat and not stitch!  But my heart wasn't in it.  I didn't even put her on scroll rods - my favorite way to stitch.  But I worked on her for a while and now she'll get attention when DD dances on Wednesday.  So then I started Angel's Song with Loraine:

Not a lot of progress, but some - this is one night's worth.

In all my sorting and cataloging, I realized that I am a sufferer from startitis.  Going through all my things made me want to start something new, but I decided that I needed to get rid of some WIPs  I thought about going back to an HRH piece because I'm so lame I have three going and have the perfect wall for them:

But instead, I went back to Elizabeth Clayton:

I stopped working on her originally because I got bored after I finished the left side and the house.  I didn't feel like stitching the trees, etc., on the right side.  Lame!!!

Then one thing leads to another.  I start putting my craft room back together, which has laid in a state of upheaval since my sister left in August!!!  Once everything was back in the closet and things rearranged (pictures another time), I started getting more of an itch to create - do something.  Which made me look at all the quilting goodness laying around in there.  So I picked up the rotary cutter and had at it - I caught myself up on cutting out my Farmer's Wife blocks - all three months of them:

Cut off the selvages - still don't know what I'll do with these.

Cut out the blocks (all 18 or so of them - and a huge process because a lot have to be template cut).

And put them between the pages of the book.  This only took me three days of work because if you notice, the fabric is marked for template piecing - not my favorite thing to do. And I better remember to be careful when I pick up the book.  Last time my mind went blank, forgot all the pieces were in the book and they flew all over the craft room.  Took me hours to get all the pieces together again.

Then before I know it, I'm on to another quilt - Sheer Bliss!

I could not resist getting started on this quilt when I saw it on Cluck, Cluck, Sew.  I know it's springy, but a little spring never hurts in the fall.  And since I had this Jelly Roll of Bliss fabric, it was a no brainer.  I cut out my sister's quilt too in the hopes of having it finished by the time I go visit her next month - finger's crossed (but don't hold your breath Cin!! :o)

So my mojo is back and I have a ton of catching up to do on blogs.  I know that I've missed so much.  I had some comments last time about stash that I picked up in Utah.  I didn't pick up that much.  Common sense was probably telling me that I didn't need anything (and if you saw my Excel spreadsheet of stash you would have to agree with me), but I picked up a little:

Not too much actually, although now that I look at the picture, there may be more things around here.  The fabric at the top I picked up because SB made the cutest pillows out of Ewe Eye & Friends Petite Examplaries that I've had in my stash forever, and I thought they were adorable:

So another thing to add to my to do list!

So that's what's been going on with me.  It feels good to crawl out of that dark hole I've been living in for the past couple of months!!!  Thank you for all your comments and emails that you left on my last post.  It always gives me a smile to see them, and I will catch up on everyone's blogs soon.  I know that I've missed tons!!!