Time Certainly Marches On

If ever a month has passed by in the blink of an eye,

it has been March!  In less than a month,

I'll be winging it back to Cape Breton!

You know what that means!

Time to buckle down and finish up projects!

My latest obsession has been these wonky churn dash blocks

I try to make a couple a day.

My design wall is this little 16 x 20" bulletin board!

It may not hold many, but I can see them,

and that's all that counts right now.
I only need 2 more!

Enthralled as I am with them,

after making the (plus size girl) hipster bag on the right,
a free Riley Blake pattern which no longer seems to be available,
(at least I cant find it to leave you with a link)
Found it!!
Riley Blake Hipster Bag

(click on picture to make it larger)

I decided to use one to change things up a bit,
and the bag on the left is the result.

Here's a closer picture.

Since April is "Random Acts of Kindness Month",

it is on its way to a colleague of Crafty Daughter's,

who lost her young adult son just one year ago.

The rest of the Wonky Churn Dash blocks?

I have an idea, and I've drawn it out,

but you know how that can go, so I'll just keep it to myself

in case it doesn't work out and it becomes another cat bed.

During my Texas stay, I enjoyed my annual week long visit
with two of my quilty friends from North Texas.
We taught elementary school together and they came to my home
to quilt every Monday night for years.

Quilter Jill, Sew Sweet Susie, and moi

Sew Sweet Susie gave me the left over Riley Blake Extravaganza strips
she had been working with and this is
one of the quilts I made with them.

(I had to add a couple of extra strips.)
It would have been nice if I pressed it before photographing it,
but I was in a race with the sun this morning.
The pattern is from
Sassafras Lane Designs
and you can get two quilts from one jelly roll!
This one measures about 41x52"

THANK YOU, Sew Sweet Susie!
And thank you, Quilter Jill, for your gracious hospitality!
I had so much fun!

~

Texas birds always delight me,
and seeing a Crested Caracara never disappoints.

It's the size of a large hawk, but of the falcon family;

a bird of open country,

seen only in Arizona, Florida, and Texas,

although I did see a rare bird report for one that had blown off course

this spring and ended up in Nova Scotia, of all places.

That's a long way from home!

Wonder if it was looking for me?

It's a scavenger that hangs out with the buzzards and the vultures,

which are also pretty impressive,

if you don't mind what they eat.

Enough said.

~

Keep it simple,

and make it fun!

XO,

karen

I'm linking up to

LinkyTuesday

Let's Bee Social

Throwback Thursday

Don't be shocked that I'm posting twice in one week!

For once, I have an opportunity to participate in

Throwback Thursday

sponsored by Jenn at A Quarter Inch from the Edge.

Don't you just love the name of her blog?

Anyway,

all my old pictures are in storage a thousand plus miles away,

but I visited a friend in Houston last month and this is what I found.

Back in the late 90's, my daughter's college friend asked her 

if I'd make her a quilt.  She was told to ask me herself!  

Can you imagine that?   What was my daugher thinking?

(I don't think she wanted to share me.)

So, she secured my email address, 

wrote me a letter introducing herself,

asked for a quilt, and a new friendship was forged.

(I sew for her and her family all the time, now.  As a matter of fact,

I slipped a parcel in yesterday's mail to her address.)

At the time, I was entranced with tesselating patterns,

and even back then, I was a scrap quilter.

Guess I've always been a scrap quilter.

I appliqued a kitty laying on one corner, taking a bath.

I used the blanket stitch and this is when I learned it did not quite

hold up to being washed and dried, so now I use it only on wallhangings.

I added a few frolicking mice,

and shipped it off to TX.

It's been well-used and well-loved over the years,

and I was so happy to see it again after all this time.

I am linking up to Jenn at

A Quarter Inch to the Edge!

See you there!

~Karen