Midterms!

I'm sorry I haven't posted in the past couple of days. It's midterms at the school. I teach Communications at a vocational school, and I'm currently up to my neck in memos, letters, and exams. I've only been able to get in a couple of hours of sewing each night, so I don't have a lot to show you right now. These settings that I'm working on for the Tonga Batik are complicated and time consuming - but they're fun and challenging as well. I can't wait to see them completed!

It's kind of hard to see from the pieces above, but those are actually blocks of alternating four patches and squares. You can best see that in the block at the top of the photo, just right of center. With these patterned batiks, this quilt is going to be rather busy. I'm using different colors/fabrics from those that were provided for the project, and that's changing the quilt from a warm, rich raspberry and earth-tone base color to a cooler blue and green base. I am hoping to finish up with a quilt that will have masculine appeal. I'm really bad at making quilts for men. I keep throwing in flowers and butterflies, pinks and pastels, or purples and lime greens. We'll see how this one comes out. I hope to have the top done this weekend. Let's see if I can resist sewing in a large butterfly somewhere.

My husband and I will be traveling to Kansas City next weekend (don't worry, Mom will be coming over to care for the furries). I'll probably take the mask wall hanging with me to finish. Since it's the first day of March, I think I can safely say that I once again failed to complete ANY of my UFOs for the month. I guess they'll have to carry over to this month. In my defense, however, my heart quilt is finished except for the binding, and the mask quilt is finished except for about six inches of the binding and finishing the hand quilting around the applique. Okay, so I didn't even touch the Red Sea quilt all month... But I did get a lot done on my Tonga Batik, which wasn't even listed as one of my To Do projects for the month! That must have been why it was so appealing; it was something forbidden. : )

I'll try to get some photos tonight of the rest of the setting pieces and post them tomorrow. We'll see if they make any better sense to you than they do to me!

Back to teaching...

Deb