Do not look if you are prone to seizures - Psychedelic Quilt top!

For the first quilt I made out of this book, I chose the "Strip the Willow" quilt. I was able to finish the top this weekend, it worked out to be a pretty quick project. Maybe a total of 4 hours including the cutting and "fixing". I'm not the fastest strip sewer and I tend to stop and cut and press a lot to keep myself interested.



My only beef about the pattern is that it says you only need 4 WOF strips for each of the two sashings. This would ASS-ume that they are 44" wide. My fabric was only 42". Yeah, so, I had to trim the wider outer sashing by a 1/2" on each side to make it long enough. Other than that the pattern was well written and clear. It was a pretty simple one.



The thing is, the quilt came out CRAZY. I sort of realized this early on, but couldn't make myself stop sewing once I started. I'm always afraid that I'll never use the fabric again, since it's been cut once and I'd have to find just the right project for it.



It's loud, and might push you into a seizure if you stare at it too long, but I think I like it! Have you ever started a quilt, not been thrilled with your color choice or pattern, and just kept sewing??

One of my last winter weekends

I don't know where you all live, but here in CT it has been a strange, not-very-winter-like-winter. This was probably the last weekend for local skiing. Unless you go up north (VT or NH) it won't be cold enough to make snow, or keep what they did make...so we tried to enjoy it.

This is my step-son, who is a PERPETUAL teaser, chops buster and all around prankster extraordinaire. Lucky for me, Rob gave me this great photo opp. I NEVER get to pull one over on him, and he had no idea.



The best part though was, that he had a great sense of humor about it, and we both had a really good laugh.



I also have spent some time this winter making home made dog treats, and I think I've perfected this one recipe. I know how to alter it so that the texture is consistent and I can actually easily make these little disk shapes. I got the recipe here.



My daughter had her second horse riding show this morning, and she made such HUGE improvements, she actually took one blue ribbon home today. She was ecstatic.



And the tiny little bit of sewing I did manage to sneak in, was a strip based quilt that I started out of a Kaffe Fassett design roll I got on sale somewhere. Of course, I didn't realize that design roll means 28 strips, not 40. Thankfully though, I had enough to make the quilt. Once I get the top done, I'll blog about the book and the pattern.



Now off to watch the Oscars and eat popcorn. Not bad at all for a non-winter-like weeekend.