34 Blocks Down --- Another 335 Hours To Go

I have a couple of comp days to burn from my recent business trip, so I took the day off and decided to spend it working on Dear Jane.  13 hours later, I've got 8 paper pieced blocks to show for a day's work.

Here's how my day went....hope yours was a tad more productive than mine :)

Down By The River

Had a nice 3-day weekend in San Antonio last week. Went for a conference, dragged the hubs along. One of these days, though, I'm going to get over the whole "I need to get there as early as possible so that I have a full day to spend doing whatever". I'm normally just climbing into bed at 3:30 a.m., not rolling out of bed to catch a 6:20 a.m. flight.

While I sat in overly-air conditioned meeting rooms, the hubs toured the Alamo,

and then ambled over to the Mexican Market to check out the Cinco de Mayo festival.

We stayed at the Mokara Hotel and Spa on The Riverwalk, which was nice.

 

The Riverwalk has mystical powers....not only can you purchase a 30 oz. margarita for $14, but you'll be stone cold sober after drinking it. It always impressed me that no one ever fell into the river on any of my trips there--what with all the drinking and the crowds and the narrow pathways, but I think I've now discovered the reason for this--there's no tequila in the drinks. :)

Regardless, a nice time was had by all. (And we had a bottle of Vodka in the hotel room, where there was a daily fresh tropical juice drink served in the lobby each day that provided a nice mixer).

What with planning for this trip, and another couple, there's been little time to sew and I'm behind on some of my self-imposed obligations. I had only completed 5 of the 10 monthly Dear Jane blocks I committed myself to, so once we were settled back home I flipped the switch to 'catch up mode'.

This weekend I was able to knock out 9 blocks. If you're counting, I've still got 6 more to go to be on track for this month...

 ...except that I screwed up and repeated a block I had already made (Curses!!!)  So really, I've got 7 more blocks to do.

 

The problem is that I'm working with a book that has no instructions, that I use to measure and look at a drawing of a block for how to assemble the pieces, and I'm printing out paper piecing patterns from the EQ Dear Jane software. Rather than introduce yet another thing to keep track of (some people make a chart of the quilt), I'm simply sticking an adhesive dot on the book when I've made the block.

Well, note to self,  double check that the paper piecing patterns you're printing out aren't ones that you've already made....an easy thing to do because you pick them off a menu and send them to the printer. Basically, I wasted an hour making a block I already made. Won't happen again.

These are my two favorite blocks from this round of paper piecing:

I enjoy paper piecing. It's not something I do often, which is probably why I don't mind  the precision involved.

Good luck to everyone entered in the big Giveaway. I need to find some time to check out the offerings. Because of this trip I wasn't able to participate this time around, but I've got a super fantastic giveaway for the next one.

Enjoy your week, and hopefully beautiful late Spring weather as well.

It's Been an Interesting Month

Spent 10 days on the Green Smoothie Cleanse. Interesting. Healthful. And I didn't kill anyone, which was a definite plus. Got the worst haircut I've had for quite a while...it's been 5 days, and every time I pass a mirror I catch myself murmuring 'it'll grow, it'll grow, it'll grow'.

Just made it through one of my worst weekends in a long time, but I did learn that:
A. I will never drink boxed red wine again for as long as I live

B. I will now immediately throw away any food the hubs puts in the refrigerator, the minute he isn't looking, because if I don't, he'll put those leftover canned tomatoes that he opened 3 weeks ago on a pizza that I will unknowingly eat

C. I should probably see a shrink to get over my fear of throwing up...instead of being jolted awake at 3 a.m.to suffer through an hour of agony, gum chewing, heavy concentration, and deep cleansing breaths to avoid the 45 second' head in the toilet/get it over with//out with the bad stuff/feel immediately better' upchuck. (I can probably count on one hand the number of times I have puked in the past 40 years...throw in the other hand and we can cover my entire lifetime)

With my skin the pallor of 'Death Warmed Over', I spent most of the day Saturday in a zombie-like state at a quilt show in Hagerstown, MD (an hour or so drive---not the brightest thing to do---take a long drive)  and at the Berwick Offray Ribbon Factory Outlet.  (You're never too sick to look at quilts, or buy fabric and ribbon---cheap ribbon---REALLY cheap ribbon.)

I could not eat anything that was not white/beige or semi-tasteless for 4 days. Free pizza lunch tomorrow at work (our reward for attending an afternoon meeting) does not offer promise, nor excitement.

No amount of Zantac or Tums could touch the pain in the center of my chest, or dispel the lump in my throat that has been ever present, and super annoying since Saturday morning. It's quite a bit better tonight, but I'm still not back to normal.

The Big Suck?  I'm going to San Antonio this weekend...land of true Tex Mex cuisine. The big weekend-long Cinco de Mayo Festival will be going on and I'm not sure I'll be able to eat anything remotely spicy or salty, and that includes margaritas. So sad.

On the bright side, to forget about the discomfort, I rearranged the studio closet (this took a solid 8 hours to do):

Anything 3-4 yards got 'bolted'. A year or so ago the hubs brought home a bunch of 6"x24" foamcore scraps from the office, thinking that either our daughter or I would find a use for them. Took a year or two, but cutting them in half yielded a nice supply of  'bolts' to wrap my fabric around, that fit perfectly into my closet cubbies. Who knew....I was just sitting and starting at all the folded fabric stacked on the cubby shelves and remembered those scraps buried in the basement. I'm pleased with the end result. It almost makes me want to take the closet doors off :)

Stinkin' cute fabric alert:

Hedgehogs and tree bark. I have no idea what I'll do with it, but I couldn't resist the hedgehogs. Nor could anyone else at this small quilt show. People were lined up to have it cut.

And now, I am off to bed, only because it is FREEZING in this house, and I need to snuggle with a few warm bodies (a couple of them furry) under some warm blankets while I listen to the sounds of the downpour outside that's been mucking up the yard all day long. (8 muddy paws across the family room carpet at least 6 times a day....we try to wipe them down when they get in, but sometimes they are too damn quick and slip past us in their quest to get out of the cold, hard rain).

I'll share the latest Dear Jane blocks with you in my next post.

Happy Wednesday! Hope yours is dryer and brighter than mine is going to be.