I had imagined beginning my blog with a fabulous picture for you of the red moon over our gorgeous frozen lake and I was even up at the required hour of 5:30am. The sky was clear, but with a temperature of -5°F, well, that was that– sorry! I do question the wisdom of having our own outdoor weather center displaying real time information about conditions outside right by our coat rack. Life is passing me by.

This winter has really chewed me up. My shoulder still hurts from the ice slip, my face is ghost white, and I just can’t get up in the morning. Vindication– the native Mainers are also complaining. Because there’s always hope, it looks like we are going to skip from the 20s right up to the 50s– TOMORROW. Oh, glorious day!

In the meantime, there’s lots of action in Quiltopia, where it’s always a balmy 68°F. Last week, I did a little something on just about everything, so this week, I switched to doing everything on some little somethings. I’ not sure which makes for a more interesting blog post, but here we go!

I finished longarming baby Vera’s quilt and the binding just needs to be handstitched down. My flowers were so much fun to freemotion– in my head, I’m calling the quilt “Vera’s Violets,” but I’m not making a label. Not only will little Vera have no idea who I am, but I’m always so afraid anything attached to a quilt will make its way loose and become hazardous! She’s not here yet, the little love.

Then, I finished up installment two of Posh Penelope– I now have 28 blocks with 14 to go. It’s Posh, alright!

Here are some of my favorite blocks– then I’m going to give a short lecture on quilt design rules.

Do you see what all of these blocks have in common?

If you said “Nothing,” you’re right! I just went for my gut and just pulled different colors for each block, using it as an opportunity to try things– even things my head said wouldn’t work together. The result is the wonderful randomness of just letting things happen. It’s totally fine if one set of petals is lighter than the others, a background is too busy, another block is monotone– we’re going for the effect of unexpected play of light coming through stained glass. Posh Penelope is a great quilt if you need to let go of rules and just play with color.

It is going to be fairly challenging to come up with a final arrangement– will the human desire for CONTROL win out? Because I’m looking at my completely random placement above, and what could be better?!

Next up– it’s time to create that center area for “A Year on Sugar Meadow.” Wow, would I love to have this by the end of July for the Maine Quilt Show. Blocks are getting trimmed up, blue/green/white fabrics are getting pulled and we are all going to make a delicate scrappy star on which to quilt. The quilting is going to be an overall meadow view, of course! Then, on to the borders which are going to feature quilted versions of the flowers in the blocks.

I’m working on this for San Francisco Stitch Co.– there’s a lot of interest in patriotic this year, obviously. I’m also planning a “Patriotic Twist” project for those of you who don’t enjoy cross stitch look designs.

We’ll have the nine little stuffies to go with it, the same as all of these sets– so cute!

The Lori Holt Sweet Land applique block is almost finished– I know I said I was going to alternate between this new project and the cross stitch stocking, but I enjoyed it so much I just kept going! I’m trying to make one a month for the next four months. It is sew fun to make little quilt-y goals for yourself, whether or not you meet them, isn’t it?

Finally, I did a lot of scrapbooking this week! Scrapbooking is such a happy place for me, since I’m so nostalgic. There’s nothing like a trip to yesteryear to squash winter blues.

My goal of doing the 2005, 2015, and 2025 books last year was an abject failure. So this year, I’m going for 2025 (again, 🤣), 2016 (because that’s the year when I officially stopped scrapbooking so I have nothing) and 2010 (because I didn’t even know I had almost finished this year and there’s just a couple pages left to do.)

So here’s a page from 2010, just for fun.

That was our son catching a snapper turtle on the lake behind our house– I guess we have always lived near infested ponds! I was so delighted to find this album, but it’s full of Mister J. D. doing all sorts of dangerous things: rock climbing, wakeboarding, Polar Plunge, etc. etc., so that looking at it now makes me feel kind of stressed out. 😧

Then there’s 2025– I did get some of this book done last year, and I’m up to Easter. Again, if I finish it this year, it will be a huge win. Here’s a cake my daughter made last year. I still have to fill in the writing. It’s not always easy to find the right words– if you’re rolling your eyes while muddling through my blabby blog, I am guilty as charged– but the spaces in my scrapbooks are typically small.

Now here’s the easy way to make a scrapbook. On Snapfish, a photo printing service, you can put everything together and it’s really fun to do. That’s how I’m realistically going to get some of these books done, since I hope to leave my entire life story behind, starting in 1961! 😂 If I can finish 2016, I may move on to 2017 this year. So here is my Snapfish book, so far, up to May. Looks great, doesn’t it?

This is a beautiful 12×12 inch book and if you consider how much I would have spent on stickers, paper, and large prints, it’s a bargain. I’m fully confident I’ll be able to get a 60% off coupon when I finish, and I can order two, one for my son and one for my daughter. If you took a special vacation or wanted a quick memory album for an older person’s birthday, consider it!

Finally, if you blog, you can also order a complete book from whatever time frame you want at “intorealpages.com”– I did this last year, and I treated myself again this year. This one breaks the bank at about $150, but again, if I scrapbooked my year with all the trimmings, I’m sure it would exceed that by a large margin.

So that’s all my silly stuff I work on! Oh, my goodness. Thanks for reading. Can you imagine what it’s like to live with me? Here’s your reward for getting this far– I photoshopped a version of what the blood moon probably looked like, over the lake, this morning.

If I accomplish anything in life, it would be to have you pull out all your “things” and make something beautiful, something to send out to the ages, today.

xox
Carol