The corn beef was completely sold out at the grocery store and a batch of maple syrup is on the boil until late today, so we’re settling for a pot roast dinner tomorrow. It’s still pretty raw here, but the meadow is thawing– I’ll take it! That’s the state of affairs here on Sugar Meadow Farm, this March 17th.

I took three days off last week for my annual medical appointments and there’s two more this week. I’m still driving to my old doctors five hours away! I’m not sure how all the appointments converged like that, but I’m super proud of myself for not cancelling any of them.

One of the offices was near an IKEA– Quiltopia here is in a state of mass disorganization, and that’s part of what has been sucking out all my creativity lately. I bought this cute *NISSAFORS* trolley to organize my longarm stuff– I can just pull it out and then push it back in as needed. I was hoping it would look more sexy than it does with all of my colorful thread loaded! At least I can see what I have now, and a couple of drawers have been freed up for something else.

All in all, I had a fair amount of sewing progress to show for myself last week, too.

All the hearts were assembled for Harlow’s birthday cake– too bad I thought I was too good to need to measure them, so the strips came out a half an inch too long! Since I pressed open, I couldn’t really go back and stitch each seam closed a tiny but more. So I took off the inner white borders and made them bigger! I said I wished this quilt was larger, didn’t I?

After the setback, I somewhat lost enthusiasm to finish this, and I don’t need it until late May anyway. So it’s in the “marinate” pile for now. I have to say the borders are going to look great and it does seem to be a decent size, after all. I’d like for it to have been a nice playmat size, but since Harlow is crawling now, a playmat would have to be 1/4 mile square to keep her on it.

Then I finally started tackling the mushroom quilt– I need this for my daughter’s baby shower in early May. Yes! We’re having a barn shower! Remember the saying, “Were you born in a barn?” It’s now reality. My big Alaska Star quilt hung in a barn at the couple’s wedding, and I am determined the mushroom quilt will help fill out the barn decorations for this baby shower.

I’m not a huge fan of the color palette and the instructions are written very differently than what I’m used to. But now that I have it rolling, I think it’s going to come together quickly– I’m going to try to be a monogamous stitcher for a week or three, and maybe I could even finish it! The pattern itself is really beautiful– I’m hoping to have one of these large oak leaves done tonight– it’s about 24″ long.

Poor Posh Penelope has been sitting– today was supposed to be the day for my local quilt shop sewing day, but I had to cancel it because of an appointment! I promised myself I was going to have the last 14 blocks all cut and ready to sew by today anyway, but that didn’t happen. The next class is in late April, so the promise now is that I will have all 42 blocks ready for final assembly. Promises, promises! Did I tell you my quilt shop wants to hang it in their store display at the Maine Quilt Show? I feel so honored and It. Must. Get. Done.

In a few spare moments each night, I got the next Sweet Land applique block ready to hand stitch. Each one of the four blocks uses different fabrics, and I love this Block #2. There’s a free sew-a-long guide that shows every fabric Lori Holt used in every place. I noticed it even gives the exact fabrics for all 132 flying geese in the border– that’s a little intense even for me! I didn’t buy the kit, so I’ll probably try to use whatever I have left from my Americana fat quarter set for the flying geese when I get to that part. Here are the first two blocks together:

The Patriotic Village has arrived–

and a cute new wooden stand is not far behind! When you make something to be mailed like this, you have to think about packaging sizes and mailing costs. You also have to make sure the piece fits well on a large board when cut out with multiple units– I did my best. Here’s the latest iteration– getting close!

Special thanks to my DD for helping me with this project.

My Christmas stocking has critters! I am really enjoying this stitch. I went ahead and bought the rest of the floss I needed, because it was holding me back. Every color I needed next seemed to be one I didn’t have. I need to get the deer’s eyes stitched– he is freaking me out.

In the fabric purchase department (this could be a daily feature on this blog right now, as I am always spying something!) I found this maple syrup fabric collection in Marden’s– $6.99 a yard. They only have bolts, so I picked my favorite and tried to call it quits at four yards.

Scrolling got the better of me when I returned home, and I found the entire fat quarter collection on Etsy. I console myself with the knowledge there will never be a more appropriate fabric collection for Sugar Meadow Farm and the project ideas in my head are all amazing, of course. Let’s see if any of them come to fruition!

So that’s it! In Maine, we get an extra, fifth season each year- MUD SEASON! But, one of these weeks very soon, I hope to surprise you with a photo of flower bulbs poking through the ground. Until then, here’s a happy face– those Irish eyes are smiling.

xox
Carol