Small haul

Wanna see what I picked up at Burkholder's?

I have an Etsy request for a wristlet and these fabrics seem to fit the bill.

The gray will be the focus fabric and the polka dots will be used for the band and interior.

I still haven't made my gift for the Covert Round Robin.  Yes, I know I have to have it in the mail tomorrow. Good thing I am planning on being up pretty late tonight watching as many episodes I can of "Newsroom".    (I have been sucked into the Xfinity Watchathon and I am totally in love with "Newsroom"!  I am this close to subscribing to HBO just so I can watch it weekly.  Aaron Sorkin is writing it and it reminds me so much of the very best of West Wing.  But I digress...)

These are the fabrics I picked up for my gifty.

The fabrics are from 3 different Moda collections - two by Bonnie and Camille and one from Sandy Gervais.  I love how they work together.  I will show you a finished product tomorrow before I head to the post office.  Nothing like procrastinating until the very.last.minute!

Where does the time go?

I love reading blogs.  There are a number of blogs that I follow on a daily basis.  Of late, however, I can not keep up.  This morning I tried to catch up but I found that I was looking at some that were posted nearly a week ago.  I have been trying to read a couple of dozen every day but at this point I feel like I am drowning.  I made a decision to just mark everything "read" and try a little harder next week.

Some distractions last week were making a couple of sets of these

and these

I only finished half of the top for the baby quilt.  I love it already!  I hope to have it finished after the Easter holiday.  My peeps arrive here on Saturday afternoon and are staying until Wednesday so my sewing time will be very limited.

Another distraction was the class I took last Saturday.  The class is titled "The Artful Eye".  It is painting with fabric scraps.  The class is taught by Teresa Fusco.  She is very talented and a great teacher.  Quilty sister and I took the class together and really had a wonderful time.  I am still thread painting my piece and then I have to hand stitch the beading.  I would love to have it hanging this weekend.

I decided to take the day off today to organize the studio (enough that my granddaughter can sleep on the daybed) and do a little spring cleaning.  I also have to pick up some fabric for a consignment piece.  I am going to print out my 25% discount coupon and head over the mountain to Burkholder Fabrics.  Fabric store + discount coupon + credit card = major willpower test!

One last thing, I just had a request from a reader to embed the comments section in the blog as opposed to having a separate page for them.  I did that this morning.  I hope it makes it easier to leave a comment.

Bloglovin

Since Google has decided to do away with Blog Reader I am going to use Bloglovin.  Apparently part of the process is to "claim" my blog.  For some reason Bloglovin thinks I have a lot less followers than I do but I am going follow the directions and hope for the best.

I am not sure where exactly in the post the link is supposed to be so I am sticking it below.  Let's see what happens!!

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/2598086/?claim=rmrpwngju94">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

My quilty sister in crime is out of town for the weekend.  We usually see each other at least one day over the weekend and spend the day shopping, thrifting and/or sewing...and if I am really going to be honest, more the of former as opposed to the latter!  This weekend the weather is also questionable.  It will snow/rain/mix (maybe).  I think this is an excellent weekend to spend in the studio with a stack of DVDs. And a tall stack of this

I am going to challenge myself to make a baby quilt, start to finish.  Well, maybe not the binding but everything else!  I am either going to do chevrons or pinwheels.  I love a good HST.

Secrets and surprises

I am participating in a swap.

Each blogger received the name of someone else in the gift exchange and the plan is to make something for that person based on whatever you can learn about them through reading their blog. My person lives a life very different from mine and I think that is part of the fun.  Trying to figure out what she might like is challenging but I think I have a couple of ideas.  Now to execute!

Big doings at The Reluctant Quilter!

I have been working with an incredible young woman who has been updating my Hazelnut Deux blog, designed a new logo, helped me start a Facebook page and set up all kinds of links for me.  If you need anything like that done for you I cannot recommend her highly enough.  Her name is Brandy and you can contact her through her Facebook page or her blog.

At the top of Reluctant Quilter you see a row of tabs that will take you my other blogs, my Facebook page and my Etsy shop.  I also have a brand new FB page for Hazelnut Deux.  If you are so inclined, please "like" the page.  As soon as I have 100 likes I will do a random drawing and the winner will receive this wristlet!

To all of you who faithfully follow my blog regardless of the fact that my postings are fairly infrequent, I thank you for your support from the bottom of my heart!

I'm in the mood to SEW!

I am not talking about quilting or purses or any of my usual stuff.  I am in the mood to sew clothing.  I have seen so many cute patterns and great ideas.  And sweet fabrics.  So many pretty fabrics that would look darling in little dresses or skirts.  My granddaughters are past the point of wanting little dresses and twirly skirts.  I found this one with a tutorial on line.

Photo from Erin's blog - House on Hill Road  (follow the link above)

 My great-nieces have birthdays coming up.  I think they are getting twirly skirts from their auntie!

Changing things up a little

In the next few days you will notice some changes on my blog.  Some changes will be barely noticeable.  Some will certainly make a difference in the appearance of my blog.  Some changes will provide links to my other blog pages.  As soon as everything is all "jazzed" up I will tell you all about the wonderful designer and blogger with whom I am working.

So, inspired by Brandy (Whoops!  That cat is outta the bag!!) I am trying a couple of things on my own including editing HTML code.  Who would have thought?!  Notice my pictures on the blog?  Notice none of them have shadow lines around the edges?  I did that!  I made them go away.  OK, so I had the help of a great tutorial but still I did it.  (After first backing up my blog template, crossing my fingers and saying a little prayer!)  I pinned it to one of my boards on Pinterest so if those shadows bug you as much as they bug me, check it out!