Missed It By THAT Much!*

(* a rather obscure reference to the old Get Smart TV show)

Well, I must have been asleep at the wheel.  I totally missed my blogiversary the other day, Feb 5th.  Doh!  Something was nagging at me, and I ignored it.  Now I know what it was.  My excuse?  I've just been busy.  Lots of social things going on lately, which is good.  And then I actually had to do some housework too - oh, the horror!  Anywho, it's now been 3 years since I started this blog.  I've really enjoyed blogging and being part of the blogging community.  People that haven't tried it don't know what they're missing!

The quilt at the top of this post was made by a friend of mine, Shirley C., back in 1994 as an exchange gift for me.  This was a pattern in the Fons and Porter magazine at that time, and I know it's an old quilt block pattern as well.  Unfortunately, I don't remember the name of the block.

 

Shirley was so sneaky.  We were in the same quilt bee, and I watched her do all the hand quilting on it, never guessing it would be a gift for me.  I remember telling her, more than once, how much I liked the quilt!

Here's a better shot of the hand quilting.  Unfortunately, she used a poly batting and it's starting to migrate through the navy fabric.  And yes, she did piece that corner block in the navy!

I cropped the photo to show what the block actually looks like, as it's difficult to see in the overall shot.  Hmmm, this might be kind of fun to try as a free-piecing idea!

I seem to have lost my motivation in the quilt studio.  I have made NO progress on anything in the last week or more.  I've been dinking around some with some applique and a touch of embroidery, but that's it.  Nothing to show, except a cleaner house.  Well, except in the quilt studio.  That's still a mess.  I wonder if that's part of my problem?  Maybe if I got in there and cleaned up some - made some more room to work - I might be motivated again. 

I've been having fun watching the progress that Beth and Sara are making with the Disappearing 4-Patch.  Beth at Love Laugh Quilt blog made a wonderful tablerunner for Valentine's Day, then Sara at Sara's Scraps blog started making some D4P's and they got wonky on her.  She went with the flow and got even wonkier and made a fantastic quilt top!  Then Beth tried it and got a great one too.  What fun!  It makes me want to go try it now too.  I have a  charm pack waiting in the wings that may be perfect for this.

 

We've been having some cold, clear weather the last few days.  I'm not enjoying the cold, but I am loving the sunshine!  I got this shot of Mt. Rainier today when I was coming back from the post office.  This is about 1 1/4 miles from my house, but we don't get a view of the mountain because of the trees between us and it.  I was going to crop out the house (in the lower right-hand corner) in this photo, and then decided to leave it in so you can see just how BIG this mountain is!  Mt. Rainier is 14,411 feet above sea level, which is pretty darn big.  See that little cloud hovering over the top of the mountain?  That's the start of a lenticular cloud, which is our forewarning that more clouds and rain are again heading our way - that's due Friday.  (If you follow the link, at the bottom of the Wikipedia page is an awesome photo of Mount Rainier.)  Maybe when the rain and gloom starts again, the quilt studio will be more inviting.  I sure hope so!