March 2010 Accomplishments

Well, I had a bit of a speed bump the last couple of days so I am a little late in posting this. My only excuse is a couple of late nights at work. The positive side of that was that I got out of the office around 12:45 today! :)

This was a long month! A busy month! An exciting month! A few finishes and progress made on 2 quilts. The weather is finally starting to warm up, although I know that this means that the bugs will soon be out to feast. I despise mosquitoes, although they seem to find me quite tasty!

Without further delay, here are my accomplishments!

1. Made 2 quilt blocks for a Group Challenge. Luckily, someone else was the winner so I am not adding a new UFO!
2. Made 360 4 patches for the 2 secret quilts
3. Assembled blocks A and B for the secret quilts and began laying out 1 quilt
4. Got a new header for my blog AND got to 900 posts! Just that much closer to my 1,000th post giveaway!
5. Quilted and put the binding 3 charity quilts. Had tremendous success with new needles and the not so spectacular thread that I bought to quilt with.
6. Added just the binding to a 4th charity quilt.
7. Quilted a large lap quilt for a gal from the shop.
8. Sewed with Katy and Barb on the Friday Night Sew In! Great progress was made and fun was had by all! As was cake!! Yum!
9. Signed up for a Super Secret Quilt Challenge with some of the gals from the shop. And then I spent lots of time designing my quilt for Barb in EQ6. And I got to buy some fabric! I can’t wait to show the quilt off! It is going to look fantastic!
10. Made 2 Stitch N Chix bags for Katy and Barb!
11. Finished my 3rd sock and therefore my first official pair of knitted socks is complete!
12. Started a baby cap and finished a dish cloth. I have also started working on the gauge for my second pair of socks. Being a new knitter, I have realized that it will be much easier to find my gauge for a yarn and make socks accurately than to make 3 socks and hope that 2 fit well enough to wear.
13. Although this isn’t crafty, it was still important… Had my laptop almost completely overhauled! And it works like a charm!

And I read some pretty outstanding books this month!

1. Julie and Julia by Julie Powell – I still haven’t seen this movie, but enjoyed listening to the book. Although it was abridged, it was narrated by Julie Powell. She was quite captivating! I have already requested her second novel.
2. Out to Canaan by Jan Karon – This is the 4th book in the Mitford series. I enjoy the characters and the small town setting and coming back to the series was like a visit with old friends!
3. Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella – This is Sophie’s newest book and I thought it was fantastic! I absolutely adore the Shopaholic Series and, while I hope that Sophie will continue that saga, I’m quite content with her stand alone books. They are just as riveting and hysterical!
4. The Lover’s Knot by Clare O’Donohue – This is a quilting mystery and it was pretty well written. A ‘manual’ read for me – I read the book instead of listening to it. I have already checked the second book out of the library.
5. Alone by Lisa Gardner – This was a very intense book! A pretty good mystery that I just couldn’t turn off and, when I did, I couldn’t wait to turn back on! This was the first book by the author and I have already checked the library to make sure that they have the rest of her books.

Hours -- Knitting - 15; Quilting - 65.25

I still haven’t worked on my cross stitch or my afghan. I should probably dedicate some time to those.

My only goal for April is to finish the 2 secret quilts! I will be hitting those 2 hard!

The pups say...

"Rock on, Momma!"