Finished Projects and More

 Life has almost felt normal lately.

My Material Girls quilt retreat the second weekend of February was a blast. I didn’t accomplish much in the quilting world but that really wasn’t my primary goal. I was there to “talk story,” and laugh. Lots of that happened, 

My primary retreat project was making a border for, “Stomping Ground.” 

This will be a fun top to quilt...someday!

I finished getting the binding sewn on, “12 Days of Christmas,” for retreat show and tell but the button embellishments were added back at home in the studio.

A few closer looks at the blocks...

The Mill Hill frame arrived and it looks great with the polar bear cross stitch piece.

So glad to have a quick way to finish this project.

I finished a few more small cross stitch projects. 

I picked up this Shepherds Bush kit, “Spooky Night,” off of eBay. I made a counting mistake and since it was a kit with limited floss I had to work around that mistake...I’m pretty proud of my recovery.

I’ve had the most fun making these little skull ornaments. Two more in the series to make.

We made a quick trip to Hawaii...where I got to shop at a Swatch store. 

This has to be one of my favorite destination watches.

But we didn’t travel to Hawaii for the shopping. 

My oldest son got married!

We are very happy to have a new daughter.

February = The Return of Sunlight

 My mood always lifts when we hit February because the sun is rising higher in the sky and our sunlight hours have increased by almost two hours since the winter solstice on Dec. 21st. We usually get really cold but sunny days in Alaska during the month of February and that is just what we have today. It is minus-six-degrees this morning.

I buckled down last week and finished up the elephant blocks for, "Stomping Ground." There are no other borders in the original design but I am really leaning toward adding a piano key border...so many pretty colors.

On my recent trip to visit my granddaughter I took a couple of small cross stitch projects to work on and got two of these mini Halloween skulls done. Very fun kits from Mill Hill. There are a total of six skulls in the series.

When I got home, I got back to the polar bear piece. I have to stitch six rows of the aqua color on top just like the bottom band. Once I finish all the cross stitching I will add the beading.

And I did a little embroidery on baby Kate's dress. Since the dress just fits I only did a few watermelon slices on the bodice. She was a tentative walker when I arrived and was much less wobbly when I left. She just turned one in January...a very fun age.

I have a quilt retreat in two weeks!!! It almost got cancelled but we managed to get enough participants to make it go. Now I really need to get focused on the projects I will take for the long weekend.