Keeping a Promise

I am keeping a promise to myself. I told myself I would blog on Thursday no matter how much I had done. Things have been so crazy around here, blogging doesn't come up very high on the to-do list. I've promised myself that if I haven't blogged by each Thursday, I will blog that day. So here I am, it's Thursday!

I am working on multiple quilts at once, as usual. I will show you where I am on the three I am currently working on.

These blocks are for the scooter/stagecoach quilt. There are a lot of both of both of these blocks because they are for borders. This quilt will be a medallion type quilt, with several borders.

These blocks are for the scooter/covered wagon quilt. The HST's are for a border, and the hourglass blocks and flying geese are for rows in this row quilt. I love cutting all these units with my Go cutter and having no dog ears to trim! It's definitely a time saver.

I had been thinking I would be finishing the stagecoach quilt for this year's rally, and saving the covered wagon quilt for next year. The t-shirt design is in now, and I'll have to switch that :-( I have less to do on the stagecoach quilt, but I guess it will just make it easier for next year, right? In the meantime, this year will be a challenge. Come April 1st the rally quilt becomes my main priority until it is finished. The scooter rally is the first weekend in May, so I will really be cutting it close.

Here is where I am on the wedding quilt. There are 72 of these, and I need to add on the last two logs on each of these. I have the last two logs pieced, just not pressed yet. Doesn't look like much does it? This quilt is really not going to look like much for a while. It is deceptive though, one day this week all I sewed was 400 pink 1.5" squares to 400 black 1.5" squares. It took a long time to choose all the pairs to make it look random enough, so even though I didn't sew that many inches that day, it still took a long time. That one day of work got me started on three different steps on this quilt, and that is a good thing. There are so many different sized pieces to keep track of on this quilt, I am sometimes jumping around on which areas I sew just to keep working with the same sized piece.

So what else is going on? I got all my hair chopped off. I have been trying to teach DD#2 how to cut hair, and I really tested her this time. I went from hair being several inches past my shoulders to barely shoulder length hair. Besides my bangs being too short, she did pretty well. I never like my hair being short, but with four little ones in the house so much of the time, I was tired of having my hair pulled. It will grow back, but I may keep it short for a little while.

DD#3 is finally on her career path. She has decided to be a welder! Not a traditional path for a woman, but it suits her. With all of her interest in steampunk things, welding will be handy in her hobby as as well. She is working on getting the financing figured out, but got some good news on that front today. We looked at her required classes, and several of the college classes she has already taken will work for the associates degree she is going for in welding. If she can get everything done in time, she may start school in the summer semester, which starts the end of May.

Once DD#3 starts school, I'll be watching the twins full time, so my quilting time will really be scarce. At least the twins nap and the same time. The other two kids I watch don't nap at the same time as each other and not the same as the twins either. I am babysitting them tomorrow.

The twins have just been so funny lately! They are almost 14 months now, and Mr. L is just starting to walk, but Miss S is a little scared to do that. They were premies, so it's not that unusual that they are late on walking. Mr L has been getting into everything lately. There are child locks on stuff all over the place, but he still manages to get into trouble. His play is definitely becoming more complex, his two favorite toys are the Little People Farm and a garage where cars go down a ramp. He is such a sweet snuggler, and lately he's been a Nana's boy, which is fun for me.

Miss S is really doing great on her communication skills. We speak English, do American Sign Language with the kids, and they hear mostly Spanish at their other grandmother's house. They are basically learning three languages at once. Miss S uses over 20 signs, and recognizes more that that. She is starting to use English words as well as Spanish. We've been doing parts of the face with her, and the other day she said ojo for eye. She even has a favorite sentence, "Read it!". She is always grabbing a book, crawling with it over to one of us, she stands up, and plops the book on our lap. She signs "please" and says, "Read it!" We usually read it to her, and as soon as we say, "The end" and sign, "finished", she promptly signs "again" :-)