i finished!

*FYI - for those of you who don't know me in real life, the man on the right is NOT M. that's ray, a close family friend. M can be seen on the left in the top picture. please note his socks. i have tried my damnedest to get him to stop wearing socks like this with shorts, but you can see how effective it's been. last night he came home from a bbq cook-off really late, and i woke up and did notice he was wearing tennis shoes without socks. this morning he made sure to inquire whether i noticed and acted like i should be so proud. i think he probably just forgot to pack socks!

wow. it's really been awhile since i blogged, hasn't it? let's just say that work has been really, really busy and leave it at that, shall we?

i have managed to squeeze in some quilting and sewing time. in fact, i finished (finally) the quilt pictured above. i started this in february 2010 for my neice emily, when she moved up to a big girl bed. i whipped out the top in a weekend, and got it basted, too. i got it 2/3 quilted by april. then i'm not sure what happened, but for the next 12 months it languished in my sewing room, used by a variety of cats for a nap spot. at the end of april, knowing i'd be going home for mother's day and getting to see emily, i pulled it out and in one day made short work of finishing the quilting and stitching the binding on. over the next week i stitched the binding to the back by hand, just in time to give it to little miss emily when she woke up from her nap on saturday! i think she liked it, and i'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out.



now that i've finally gotten this project out of the way, i'm ready to move on to my next UFO next month after i finish up two swaps i'm in. last summer i got M's approval on fabric and block choice, and then the ladies in Fresh Modern Bee 2 made string blocks for me, in shades of lime green, with a center stripe of kona stone. i think i need to make a few more blocks, but then i'll have enough to make a bed quilt for M and myself. it should be easy enough to whip out a few more blocks, and no trouble setting them together, since there won't be any sashing and just a single outer border. BUT . . . all the blocks are paperpieced and i'm going to have to remove all the paper, and that's going to take forever! i'd like to send this one out to be professionally long-arm quilted when i'm done with the top, and my goal is to have it completely ready to give to M for his birthday in November. that should be easily doable, i think, even with the increased load at work.