Doings around here

 

Well, Easter is over and so I put all the decorations back in their boxes and took them down to the basement.  All except this little guy that I just got yesterday.  I needed to enjoy him for a few more days before he went into hibernation for a year.   My oldest daughter made him for me.  So cute!

We worked on a Wysocki puzzle this last week.  I bought this over a year ago but haven't been doing very many puzzles like I usually do and so it has languished in the puzzle closet.  It was a really fun puzzle to do because there is so much going on.  There isn't a lot of water or sky (or snow) to try and match similar colored pieces.  I just really enjoyed it.  I'll have to get another one out soon.

The apricot buds were starting to swell so my husband brought in a few branches.  

They bloomed in no time. 

 

I'm working on the Christmas quilt (still).  It just wasn't looking right and I came up with two reasons why.

1.  The stars were taking all the attention from the center.  The whole point of making the quilt was to have the focus on the little boy sleeping under the tree and that wasn't happening.

2.  I used white for the star backgrounds because I thought the background print of the center was white.  It's not!  It was just not right. 

So, I've spent a lot of time unpicking.

I decided to take a page from Laurie Simpson's book.  She often makes quilts with lots of applique framed by a really simple border.  Here are two examples;

Kato's Garden Quilt

and Hartfield.  I have wondered why she uses such simple borders and I figured it out.  It's so the center can grab the viewers attention, so the center can shine.

And so, with that in mind, I've put a simple surround to compliment the center.  And I used off white fabric - snow to be exact.

I put a 6" solid red border around it and called it good.  That was a week ago.  The quilt keeps whispering from the closet that it's not through with the stars yet.  So I've cut out an outside border of double stars.  

Only time will tell if it will look better or if I've got 28 more star blocks without a home. ~sigh

I thought I was going to have jury duty this month.  I sent in the questionnaire and haven't heard a word back.  Maybe I've reached the "too old" status.  When I watch courtroom dramas I seldom see a grey haired granny in the jury - ha!

Robin