Another Color Book Page Done

It's RED! Of course it had to be a wonky heart!

This was not the first time I'd done a wonky heart (from Lazy Gal Tonya's great tutorials on Quiltville), but for some reason, I couldn't quite wrap my brain around it this time.

I decided to do a "tester" before I did the big one for the Color Book, fortunately. I'm almost embarrased to show you this - I thought it was really horrible and was ready to throw it out. But I took the picture and then put the little heart (about 3 inches big) in my bin of scraps for Crumb blocks. Now, after a couple of days and a little distance, it doesn't look quite so horrible.

It even looks a little like a heart! So, I thought it was good to show you, especially if you've never tried these before, that even a not-very-good heart can have it's own charm. Don't be afraid to try these - or any of Tonya's gems. They're not always easy the first time, but it gets easier the more you do (like just about anything else), and they're fun. If I can do it, so can you!

Jackie @ Tall Grass Prairie Studio is doing Project Improv, a group free-piecing/improvisational quilting quilt-along. Unfortunately, she is full-up on participants, but you can go see what she's doing and she also has a link to the Flicker group where all the participants are showing their works so you can see what neat work they're all doing. It looks like lots of fun!

Shade had to help me in the quilt studio the other night while I was working on RED. He insisted on sitting on the cutting table, mostly on the fabric I was trying to cut. I was worried that Something Bad would happen, so I kept pulling the fabric out from under him, or moving him and so on and so on. He got stubborn.

Does this look like a comfortable position?


He finally found the only spot I wouldn't move him from...a pile of pattern printouts and misc. stuff, jammed in the corner with my Olfa rulers.

This is a very stubborn cat!

Some of you may have heard about the recent flooding incidents here in Washington. My DH was driving back from Oregon Wednesday night, and it was hairy! He got through Chehalis, WA about half an hour before the Dept. of Transportation shut down I-5 due to flooding! Anyway, we've found the Flicker site for WSDOT where you can see all the photos that WSDOT took of the flooding around the state. Here is what WSDOT has to say: "Starting on Jan. 7, 2009, rising temperatures and inches of rainfall combined to create flooding, mudslides, rockslides and avalanches. More than 60 state highways were closed at one time, including all of the mountain passes through the Washington Cascades." Click here to go see the pictures. They're pretty impressive. Fortunately, we've remained high and dry here. We've had two dry days with some sunshine, and things seem to be getting back to normal for most of the state.

If you want some inspiration for quilting projects for 2009, or just want to be impressed at one quilter's output, go visit AmandaJean @ Crazy Mom Quilts to see the 33 quilts she finished in 2008. You need to scroll down a little - the list is on the right-hand sidebar and each name in the list is a link to a picture of that quilt. Wow!! I'm so impressed...I can't imagine finishing that many quilts in one year! AmandaJean truly is an inspiration!