Some of this and some of that

 Hi everyone! How are you all doing today? I am happy to say that this past weekend was one of the best weekends ever, as we got to go to visit our Wisconsin grandchildren for the first time in 15 months, and to meet our smallest granddaughter for the first time ever. I'm happy to say that Giggles is just the happiest child, and is so cheerful that it's contagious. It was glorious, and so long awaited. I think my heart grew several sizes. Also, restaurants are now called "the french fry store," which is what the 3-year-old calls them. Guess what her favorite food is?

After that, how can anything else compare? It can't, but I've got a few irons in the fire-- or in the sewing room-- right now, and I'm making some progress. I've got one machine set up with the walking foot and am really trying to power through some more donation quilts. It's going okay, mainly because I'm sticking with plain straight stitching. It isn't fancy, but it gets the job done.

 

And on the other machine, I'm making some dolls today:

 

 

This is a panel by Stacey Iest Hsu and it is just darling. The dolls themselves are very easy to make, just stitch around the edges and stuff with fiberfill. The hardest part is the cutting. And look-- they even come with some tiny pets:

 

 

I need to get these finished up, because my local tiny granddaughter is finally coming over, on Mother's Day. By then her parents will be all vaccinated and ready to re-enter life. I can't wait to hug her too, and I'm in a hurry to get "her room" ready. Too bad that darned job keeps getting in my way! (There's only 25 days to go in the semester, not that I am counting or anything.)

I've also started cutting these half-hexies for another donation quilt:

 

I think it's going to be quite lovely, and it's also the first time I've really appreciated how fast the Accuquilt can cut shapes. I'd been using it to cut some scraps into squares to add to the bins, but I think this summer I'll have to explore using it a lot more. For now, it's going to make quick work of cutting this donation quilt, so maybe I can have it finished by June.

One other thing that I'm working on is what to do with these little crocheted circles:

 

 

There are about 50 of these, and they were all made by my grandmother in the last months of her life. She had had a stroke and couldn't sew any more, but a lifetime of needle work meant that she needed something to do with her hands, so she just kept making these over and over. She didn't really know who we were, but she certainly remembered how to do this.

 

I had thought that I would applique these to different-colored solid squares and join them into some kind of a quilt top. When I started putting the colored squares on the design wall, they looked awful. No matter what colors I used, I didn't like them. Then I thought about just hand-stitching the circles together for a kind of free-form blanket of sorts, but I don't know how that would work, really.

 

 

My current idea is to make type of whole cloth quilt using one solid color and then applique the circles onto it. Maybe I could quilt a crosshatch and then applique a circle in each square? I'm not sure how that would work, either, but I'm kind of stuck. Anyone have a better idea? 

So, that's what's happening around here. some of this and some of that. Plus a lot of zigzagging batting together, but that's a boring story. At least it gets used! I'm sure many of you have heard about the email issue with blogs and the widget that emails posts to you going away, but I haven't had time to look into it yet.. I'm sure there's a workaround somewhere, but I just haven't had any time for research. We'll see what happens.In the meantime, let me know if you know anything!

Hope you're all having a good week with long-postponed happy small gatherings and hugs. And if not, they're coming soon! I have high hopes for a semi-normal summer. Another thing to wait and see!

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