it's been a long time . . .

i haven't posted in a month or so, but there's been good reason. first, my grandad died. i spent eight days at home to help out my mom, but that meant virtually no internet time. then, when i returned, i brought my not-quite four year old neice home with me. wow. who knew kids were so time consuming?!? no sewing or blogging THAT week either! since then i've just been trying to catch up on sew much stuff.

some of my quilt guild friends came over to sew up some quilts for Quilts for Kids. everyone either finished her quilt top or came pretty close. i finished my quilt this past weekend, and miss kitty helped out with quality control.

safieh came over and helped me clean/organize my sewing room. here is a "before" picture:

i still need to deal with the stuff for non-sewing crafts that's in the middle section of the room, but it looks so much better now! no pics yet, but my fabric is now all in one place and organized by color!

i finally decided on what to make for my modern swap partner, worked on it this week and got it all finished:

it's a sewing machine cover, just in case you can't tell, and it's a good thing it's too small for my machine or i'd be tempted to keep it!

in cleaning in the sewing room i found a small cat nap quilt i'd made several years ago when i made up several to sell for a fundraiser for an online friend whose cat had racked up some huge vet bills. all the ones i made used fabric already in my stash. this one never sold, and this was long before fat tom came into our lives. it must have been fate, though, because the quilt i uncovered had fabric with generously-sized orange cats on it! i presented it to tom on saturday, and he immediately curled up for another nap!


i was also able to catch up this past weekend on several of my bee blocks. i hadn't started any of my august blocks, but i was able to get three sets done and packaged to send to their new homes!