Life is good!

So not so much a quilting progress post (or at least not solely) but more about progress in general.  Thanks to the support of a dear friend, I finished my first 5K.  I'm a firm member of the run-only-if-something-is-chasing-you category, and even with that I frequently gauge just how large the thing chasing me is before running.  But middle age is a cruel thing, and my middle section is rapidly expanding to take on a general whiskey-barrel shape.  So running and exercise, and cutting down on my beloved carbs and sweets, really has to happen.  My dear friend, whom I haven't seen in over 5 years, told me if I signed up for a 5K she would come run it with me.  As a "real" runner, I'm sure sticking with my snail pace was painful for her, but we had a great time and it was wonderful to see her!  Kid events are also taking over the calendar more and more, and I'm sure it will only get worse as the kids and niblings get older!  Isadora had he...

So there actually have been finishes recently, but I've been terrible about getting pictures.  The pictures have been largely dumped in favor of getting the quilts to where they belong.  The one above went to my Grandma, for her new assisted living facility room.  She was NOT happy about being moved out of her beloved house, but she simply can't live on her own (she's 95), so this was my attempt to help make her new digs a little more homey.  She loved the final quilt, so at least I made her smile for a bit.  It's a pattern called Secret Garden, and is made of a layer cake of Hoffman batiks.  I've had the top in progress forever.  I did the quilting for it on my Elna, and I'm pretty pleased with how it came out.  FMQ is such a learning process, and the only way to learn is to do, but you do end up with a lot of quilts that I wish looked a bit more professional!   The sad looking little guy is another reason not as much has...

I took almost two weeks off for Christmas.  I honestly can't remember the last time I was off that long, and it was blissful.  Crazy busy, but blissful! The biggest task accomplished was the migration of my sewing room.  It's been in a basement bedroom since we built the house.  Marc has always wanted that space for the guest bedroom.  So when we built a new shop this fall, we put in a 12x30 foot loft room in one end.  That's where my long-arm will eventually go, but for now most of my quilting stuff moved there.  My garment sewing/cross-stitch/craft stuff moved to the old (much smaller) guest room, and the guest room moved into the downstairs room.  Which, by the way, looks at least three feet wider than it did when all my sewing supplies were in there.  I'm honestly not sure how it all fit. I did throw away about five garbage bags full of stuff.  Projects that I don't have any interest in completing, mystery synthetic fabric that w...