My Recent Projects

***First off, to avoid accidental feline-induced hypnosis, DO NOT look directly into the cat's eyes!***

When Pedro was born, I decided to take a sabbatical from quilting for a while. I'm a fairly laid back person, but when it comes to "projects" (this includes, but is not limited to: quilting, reading, organizing toys and clothes, and very occasionally, cleaning) I tend to be just a tad-bit type A. Type-A-project-fiend doesn't go well with a nursing baby and 3 other kids that also kind-of like having a mom around.

But now that he's a little older I've started up again. My first post-baby project was to finish a quilt that I actually pieced before he was born. It had been taunting me from a closet in my bedroom since we arrived in Brazil over a year ago. I pulled it out when we got home from our summer trip; I had 6 weeks before our California trip to finish it as a gift for Guapo's sister whom we were going to see there. So, I worked like crazy and finished it just in time for the trip:



I really like how it turned out. I'm not sure you can tell from this picture but it had A TON of quilting:


And now that it has been delivered, I am working on a Christmas "friendship" quilt with a group of 21 other expat women. A friendship quilt is where each participant chooses a design of their choice and then makes a block for each of the other women in the group. So, I will eventually receive 21 other squares, each one different and give one of my squares to everyone else. Then each woman can embellish the squares to her liking and put the quilt together however she wants.

So here's my block:



Cute, huh? And, here are 22 copies of my block:



Here's an example of my type-A-project-ness: the group is meeting today, and the "homework" for this week's meeting was to wash the background fabric so we can cut it into squares.

Hmmmmm. Think I'll skip meetings for the next month or so...