MUDDLING ALONG

Our Country Lane

I have a hard time staying indoors when Spring is doing everything to call me outdoors to see the new beauty every day.  Our hummingbirds are back at the feeder and the Dogwoods are in early bloom.  Signs of renewal and new life are everywhere.  Yesterday we found a baby snapping turtle on our front porch, which was relocated to the far end of our property to keep it away from the Girls.  It's shell was just a little larger than a quarter and in a few months its jaws will be a real weapon. 

This will be Dottie & Olive's first country Spring.  We have already had a few major lizard and cottontail chases.  Before long the box turtles will be passing through our yard on their trip to our back woods to breed. This year they will have to navigate around two highly curious Scotties on their journey.   A few years ago I put a dot of fingernail polish on a few of the turtles shells to see if the same ones come back year after year. I was pleased to discover that they do.

Yesterday I managed to get one row of blocks for the You've Got Mail quilt sewn together.  I had to re-press a few blocks to reduce bulk in the seams. 

The fabric for the borders and binding arrived in the mail yesterday.  The fabric is from the Josephine line by French General for Moda.  After I lay out my blocks into rows I label the blocks and stack them in the order I want to stitch them.  For this project I labeled every block by putting a row number on the first block of each row and within each row I put stickers marked with A, B, C, D, etc.  I use little labels for this and I pin them onto my blocks even though they have sticky backs.  If I am working with a tricky layout I put a pin in the upper left corner of each block to make sure I keep them in the correct position.  After each row is stacked in the proper sewing order I use a plastic clothespin to hold all the blocks for each row together.  This is a very simple system that has saved me unknown hours of ripping.  At our house the phone always rings when I am in the middle of sewing blocks together.  Also, if a mischevious scottie happens to grab a block and run with it I can figure where it came from once I retrieve it.  Dottie likes to be a part of everything I do ~ even sewing. 

What are you working on this Spring?  One thing I would like to make this year is a barn quilt sign to hang between the doors of our garage.  I think a 24" sign would work perfectly in that space.  Now to decide what design to make.  More on this later.

Enjoy your day!