The Easter bunny came for a visit yesterday– he ate my tulips, but left no candy! I am probably the only person in the world who will stand at the door watching a bunny destroy my garden, but PETER is so cute with his little cheeks stuffed with food!

     Earlier in the week, I did try to chase a turkey off our lawn– they pull up Mr. SFO’s grass by the roots– but I only succeeded in chasing him further back into the property, and probably giving my neighbor a good laugh. Best not to interfere with nature.

     We are going to have a little cookout tomorrow– I cannot face one more holiday in my stuffy dining room. My sister is bringing over steaks, and I have shrimp and scallops, for a little surf ‘n turf meal. I pulled these out to inspire my baking daughter– let’s see what happens!

     Another week got away from me in the sewing room– this week I tackled that bane of every small business person’s existence– TAXES. Yes, I know we have until May 17th, but I read that you still have to file your estimated tax on time– since I need to finish 2020 to estimate my estimated, what is that extension good for? It’s a grumpy time of year for me no matter what.

     My sister also went to Florida for a few days, and I was designated cat sitter. But I really did enjoy driving over each day to visit Muffin, Mimi, and Holly. It’s only fifteen minutes and it was a nice break for me. Doesn’t Muffy look so excited to see Aunt Carol? 

The Tablerunner of the Month is Fig Tree’s “Mini Canned Pears.” 

The operative word is MINI– some of the pieces are 1″ x 1.” I don’t shy away from itty bitty, but this is about my limit.

I have a layer cake of Joanna’s “Chantilly” collection. I am making this for a friend who lives on Pear Street. That was one of my inspirations for Tablerunner of the Month this year– to have some beautiful handmade gifts at Christmas. 

I’m going to go with a different configuration and am shooting for two rows of seven pears each– I’d like a little bit larger, horizontal piece. It’s really fun to make different colors of pears (what color IS a pear?) and mix in larger and smaller scale prints. These stitched up quickly, but they still have a stem and leaf, and then a checkered border, so I’m hoping to get through this by the end of the month.

The charm size piece is coming out beautifully.

     I should have instructions and designs ready for release early next week– if you are a subscriber, it will magically appear in your mailbox. Thank you so much to all who paid for the twelve designs which were offered “free”– now it’s your turn to get a FREE finishing kit. It’s getting well into spring now, but stitching out those late snowflakes– some of us can still get a storm at this time of year– well, the thought of it was making me smile.

     I was able to freemotion the brown strip on this project– it came out so pretty. This is the first time with my longarm that I wished I had used contrasting thread!

   THE BAD NEWS– right after I finished this, something happened while I was rethreading, and I just couldn’t figure it out. The take up finger was up and the needle was down. Innova prides itself on 24/7 phone customer service, but I just wasn’t interested to open up the back of the machine to adjust a belt. So I have a tech coming on Tuesday to fix it– and to install a little bit of an upgrade while he’s at it, hehe– I’m super excited for this. Maybe I will have twelve 100% completed tablerunners on tables by the end of the year.

So that’s my week in a nutshell– now that I see what I accomplished, it wasn’t such a bad week after all. Sometimes, I notice, instead of making TO DO lists, it’s better to make a DONE list– much more gratifying.

HAPPY EASTER!

xox

Carol