Well, that’s it for February. I was really good about writing goals for the month in my happy planner, so I was able to go back and see how I did– not too badly! I finished another major quilt, (that’s two for the year!) a small quilt, and four new embroidery sets. Then– I went off script and bought a new table for my embroidery machine I didn’t know I needed– thanks to Mr. SFO. Let’s go!

When last I left you, I had a left facing dragon to make– bing, bang, boom! If this table top looks like heaven to you– you’re my tribe.

Ironically, the first dragon went together better than the second. Right after I took this snap, I realized the jaw needed to be in a different red, so unpicking began… if you ever want to find mistakes, take a photo.

The bottom half of the block relies on partial seams– and I worked myself into a place where three sides of a 1″ patch had to be set in. I finally had to just hand sew the last little bit. Sometimes we forget that you can do a thing by hand, if needed, right?

So there it is– I already had as much as the top together as I could do without my last dragon, so it finished up really quickly. I hate cutting things ahead of time– but I cut my borders almost a year ago when the stitch-a-long started, and I was really glad I had them ready to go and even gladder they were the right size!

I am super happy with it– the bottom dragon’s horn really accents the diagonal energy, and I’m so glad I changed the trees to green instead of white. It made the quilt so much more colorful. We’re not done yet, are we? This will be the biggest thing I have long-armed yet– can you believe with a 10 foot long table, I’ve only done table runners for four years? I’m hoping to have it well underway by the end of the month.

In my February notes, I was only supposed to work on the butterfly quilt if I my “more important” things were progressing. Dang. It was just too much fun.

So this should be off the longarm mid-week and I’m hoping to get it bound and delivered on Friday. I’m giving it to my daughter-in-law early for encouragement– can you believe, six months pregnant and she lost her job. I can believe it– the same thing happened to me in 1997– haha. Do you know how embarrassing it is to show up at the unemployment office with a big belly like that? I had to do it– I felt utterly humiliated. I had to apply in person at a NYC office in the ill fated World Trade Center 7 building. The women workers there absolutely wrapped their arms around me with reassurance and love in what turned out to be one of the most beautiful days of my life. ❤

The machine embroidery set of the week was the March Tiny Sampler. I added a mug rug widget to add some more value to this series– next month, I’m thinking of a little pillow widget. It is really fun to make in the hoop projects with your embroidery machine– and this design stitches up so quickly to begin with.

Here’s the set of three so far:

On Brio, I dibble dabbled my way through HSTs and I was able to complete all 144 of them!

So, there is a value to just focusing on one project at a time, but there’s also room for the “hand in everything” approach I seem to gravitate to. Maybe the trick is to understand which one will work the best for a given situation? I’ll do some more overthinking on that and report back.

At this point, I am pretty sure I am NOT making placemats with these blocks– the risk of sauce spills– well, there’s a lot of work in this project. I pictured myself completely FLIPPING the picnic table if anyone starts to get fast and loose with greasy food. So maybe we just make the “thing” for a change. This is the “thing” and right about now I could use something cheery on my walls.

I started to make a complete block– this is going much faster than all the prep work, so I may change my mind back again. One thing is certain– I spend some some very pleasant hours and maybe even most of my day thinking about all of my lovely WIPs and how best to finish them. But if you get invited to my house for a BBQ this summer– just mind your manners.

So that was my week– time was lost with “Schedule C” of Form 1040. But it looks like SFO Stitch is getting a refund… and so my high good humor continues.

If there’s not a lot of sewing to talk about, you know you can always count on me to BUY something. So without further ado, here it is! (I did this before I knew I was getting a refund, heehee.)

Here’s the start of my story– sales of the tiny toolbox to quilters probably ignited sales for the the entire chain of Lowe’s– do you have one? You can bet Home Depot is not going to be left behind.

So there we were in the toolbox aisle– Mr. SFO wants to get a big, new one for our barn– yup– it’s danged inconvenient to go back and forth to the garage, where most of the tools are. Then– just look at this thing that was sitting up front and center!

There were dozens of them in the toolbox department. The first thing I noticed was how nice the top was. Then, I saw the big flat drawers. Then, the adjustable height, the wheels…

Mr. SFO saw me seeing it, and to his credit, all plans for his toolbox went up in smoke. He loved it, too. On sale for $275. I later pulled this off the Home Depot website– look who they’re targeting. Bullseye!

It even fit in the car. Oh yeah, baby.

And best of all– it precipitated a huge clean up of the entire studio. If this does not look organized to you, perhaps I should have take a before shot.

In Sugar Meadow Farm news, Miss Betsy Boo laid the first blue egg of the year, signaling the arrival of spring! Good girl! We don’t pay attention to groundhogs here.

This little girl gives herself the entire winter off of laying. Why shouldn’t she? Then, when the timing is just so, she gets back to work.

Never mind that the next day we got another 4″ of snow and our little weather station said this:

Forget the pesky decimal– I’m thinking of this as 64°.

It’s mind over matter, right?
xox
Carol