This week.....

For the past week I have been working on baby things. I tried one last time to work on the quilting stage of Steph's baby quilt, and finally threw in the towel. (I think it's funny that just now, while typing "quilting" I almost forgot the 'l' and typed "quiting")  I spent a few minutes online searching for machine quilters in the area, and found one who believed she could salvage the quilting stage.  Yay! I was just at that point where if I had put one more stitch in the quilt, I would have hated it and never wanted to see it again. And when you are giving something to you bf to use with the precious angel you love to visit, that's not a good plan, to hate the gift! So, it should be finished in about 3 weeks, and then I will bind it myself. Hey, I'm willing to spend a little more money, not a lot!

About 3 weeks ago, my husband's grandmother had open heart surgery. Knowing that we would be at the hospital for hours, I needed a small handwork project to keep me occupied. I pulled out a Christmas themed cross-stitch kit that I was only 1/4 of the way through.  Worked on that for the day of the surgery, and then took it to work so that I could stitch while the kids sleep.  The pattern calls for only a few actual cross-stitches; most of them are half cross-stitch, but the interest and detail is found in the thickness of the stitch (2,3, or 4 strands) and the blends.  I worked on that thing for 2.5 weeks before I finally finished the sky. I was determined to finish the sky. It was so large, with large chunks of one color at a time and no interest level, but if I ever started on the trees, I wouldn't want to return to the sky. Plus, with the sky complete, now the trees I'm working on can now be "happy little trees"!! Finished one tree today, and started on the first of 5 trees that are pretty similar. 

Lastly, I am trying to sew together a pile of baby gift sets so that in the future, when I get notification of an impending birth, all I have to do is run to the closet and select the colors and wrap them up.  Phew! Turns out to be quite an undertaking when my gift set is 5-6 burp cloths, one "taggie" and one simple blanket. Tonight, I sewed all the burp cloths into the first step before turning them inside out to reinforce the stitching on the outside with a complimentary color. Also turns out, I need more terry cloth. And blue.  I have no blue.  Tomorrow, I will finish the burpies and work on the simple blankets.  I will try to get pictures of the completed piles tomorrow.