Grey Cat Quilts

January was a very busy month for me! Lots of swap blocks done, for the Scrappy? Sew Bee It! Swap. A re-purposed floor mat for my kitchen. Major progress on blocks for the Test Your Skills Sampler. A quilt top sandwiched and pinned, ready for quilting – and I even inadvertently named it. A couple of blocks for the Farmer’s Wife Sampler.

Too bad the busy streak won’t continue for a while – my mother-in-law is temporarily in a nursing home, recuperating from her second full knee replacement, so I don’t have even the free Saturdays and Sunday mornings I had before 😦 I’m hoping to eke some time out over the next month, but not holding out much hope. With his schedule being disrupted by not seeing Grandma on a near-daily basis, Zeb is a little more clingy than usual. Poor kid gets totally thrown for a loop when his schedule is messed with.

1. OMG, 2. Neutral Cabin 01, 3. Neutral Cabin 02, 4. Neutral Cabin 03, 5. Neutral Cabin 04, 6. Neutral Cabin 05, 7. Neutral Cabin 06, 8. 36_Patch_02, 9. 36_Patch_01, 10. String Web 02, 11. String Web 01, 12. Completed Mat, 13. Filler Blocks II, 14. Filler Blocks I, 15. Filler Blocks III, 16. Snowball & Nine Patch, 17. Bullseye, 18. Basket BOM, 19. Basket BOM Backing, 20. Capital T, 21. Dutchman’s Puzzle, 22. Card Trick, 23. Pinwheel Fillers, 24. Basket, 25. Indian Hatchet

I’d like to complete the Farmer’s Wife top by the end of February. Then, of course, I have to figure out how I will quilt it. I’d like to be able to quilt all of my tops myself, but I’m sort of limited. My quilting table is too small for the quilts I’ve been making. I can use Sandi’s frame and setup, but I’m sort of tied to staying at home most days until my mother-in-law is healed and up to baby-sitting an active five year old. (I’m selfishly hoping that I can figure out a sitter for sewing days.)

My plan is to purchase a sewing table, or have one built, so that I can focus on my FMQ skills. I’m sort of leaning toward purchasing the table, though it’ll be my ONE big quilting purchase for the year that I’m allowing myself. I just don’t need to invest in a lot of fabric again, and I’m honestly more interested in finishing my projects this year. I have gained a lot of skill and accuracy since I started blogging about quilting, and I’m ready to take the step into entering some of my finishes into quilt shows. I may not win anything, but I want to get out there, to challenge myself, to push my creativity and skill.

Other things to accomplish by the end of February? 1.) Design and get some quilt labels printed up via Spoonflower. Some will be specially designed labels for the quilts that I have in production. Others will just have blank spaces that I can embroider the quilt’s information, though they’ll have my ‘branding’. 2.) Design and print the color labels for  my scrap buckets. 3.) Re-organize my sewing area. I now have another unit for storage, and it’s about time I use it! 4.) Get to the gym more. I’d like to go three times a week, minimum. Right now, that means I need to add Saturday mornings to my rotation, as well as ensuring that I go on Monday and Wednesday evenings after work. 5.) Train myself to wake up earlier, so that I can do some exercising before I go to work, since getting to the gym has been a challenge.