Impromptu Vacation...

Last week I took a surprise vacation.  I didn't travel anywhere exotic (although someplace warm sounds wonderful right now), but rather I took a vacation from all of my chores, errands and other responsibilities.  I didn't leave the house for 7 glorious days except for my Wednesday night Bible Study and church.  I spent every day in my sewing room.  Uninterrupted.  Just sewing and creating and puttering and enjoying every minute.  It's possible there was even a day or two where I was still in my PJ's at dinner time.

I worked on several different projects during the week.  I made some progress quilting Celebrations before I put it aside and started on a new project.  My quilt bee is doing another mystery quilt this year and I'm planning to make 2 versions of it - one to donate and one to keep.  It's a scrappy quilt and I managed to find all of the fabric in my stash!

I worked on Step 1 of the mystery for several days.  I don't usually do scrappy quilts, so I didn't think about the extra time it would take to cut out the fabrics.  It wasn't too bad though and it was fun seeing how different the blocks look.

All the pieces for Step #1

I also started working on Summer Meadows, my version of the Schnibbles quilt 'Jersey Girl' for this month.  There's a lot of 'cut, sew, iron, repeat' in this quilt.  By that I mean, you cut out the initial pieces, sew them together, iron them and then sub-cut them, sew them back together, etc.   I'm having a lot of fun making this one!

Although I'm a bit further along than this picture, I still have a ways to go.  I don't actually have a sashing fabric either, but I'll figure that out when I get there.  This fabric line is a little too old to find enough for the sashing without buying a FQ bundle (which is more than I'd like to spend).

Of course, I had some visitors during my 'vacation'.  Moses, Jack and David found the baskets underneath my cutting table to be too much temptation.  One of them would jump in and the others would attack from the outside.  You can barely see Jack's head peeking up from inside this one.

While they played, Sam kept me company on my sewing table.  I put this pillow there to give her a soft place to lay since her joints are giving her so much trouble.

I'm paying for my vacation this week with a full schedule of shopping, chores and errands.  However, they'e calling for snow tonight and if I should happen to be snowed in tomorrow, I wouldn't be surprised if Elmo makes another all day appearance in my sewing room...

Look at the birds. They don't plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren't you far more valuable to him than they are? Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? 

Matthew 6:26-27 (NLT)