Starting a New Quilt

 I am a scrappy quilter by nature. That's why the scrap user system works so well for me. I want most of my quilts to have 50-100+ different fabrics in them, but I don't want to handle that many fat quarters, never mind yardage. Cutting my scraps into strips and squares gives me lots of variety in easier to handle pieces. 

I need to start a wedding quilt, and I'm actually only using 7 fabrics in the top. I got the quilt cut out before we went away last weekend. 

This will be a 105" square quilt, and the fact the 1,300 pieces only take up this much space is pretty sobering. I don't know how many quilts my stash could make, but it's a lot. All of these fabrics were from stash, so I am making dents in it, just not as fast as one might think. 

I've been trying not to go hog wild on buying this year, and overall, I've been pretty good. On our mini vacation to see DS the Younger and family, we did hit a couple quilt shops. I had a list in hand of fabrics I need for a couple upcoming quilts. I didn't find much that fit the bill though. I ended up buying three fabrics, half yard cuts of each. I really need several fat quarters of neutral batiks, and boy, are those hard to find! Even online I'm not finding a great variety. Anyone have a good source for batiks in neutrals? I don't want solids, the background of the quilt will be solid, but I need some nice variations in pattern so the batiks will show up in the all neutral quilt. It will be low contrast as is, so different patterns on the batiks is what I'm counting on to make the design show up. 

While we were at DS the Younger's house, I got to give Mr. X his I Spy quilt. 

I should have guessed that with two parents who are mathematically gifted, his favorite square would be the ones with numbers.

We saw him play quite a bit with the trains we brought him last visit.

I was afraid Miss X wouldn't come to me because of stranger danger, but she's an outgoing one, and came to both DH and I pretty quickly. Even more amazingly, Mr X actually sat on my lap and grabbed my hand to come play with him. He is quite shy, so this was huge! I am so sad they are moving so much further away. DH was in the Army the first 8 years of our marriage, so I understand you go where they send you, but it was nice they were only a five hour drive for a bit. 

We also spent a couple nights at a cabin in New Mexico to celebrate our anniversary. 

This cracked me up. The whole, "Leave the tree. Build around it" struck me as funny. 

I really enjoyed sitting on the porch and listening to the wind go through the trees. I miss trees. DH is a desert rat through and through, but I prefer trees and water. We live where he wants, so normally we vacation where I want. We'll head to the mountains or the beach to give me a break from sand and cactus. It was quite chilly up in the mountains, and we saw snow in several places. If you look closely at the photo, you can see a bit of the quilt I brought from home and was wrapped up in.

Now that we're home again, summer has hit with a purpose, and Easter Sunday is supposed to be 95 degrees! Good thing I planned brunch instead of an afternoon meal!