Catching Up!!

 It has been a long time since my last update which is a rarity for me!!  Yes, I am still alive and thriving and actually doing a  little work.  My biggest accomplishment has been trying to tame my stash of fabrics and sewing gear!!  I plan on having a sale this year to hopefully get rid of a lot of it.  That which isn't purchased will be donated to various charitable groups that either sell craft related supplies or groups that make quilts for charity.  Last year I decided I only wanted to work with fabric that I loved and not because it would look good cut up!  This applied primarily to all those "stack and whack" fabrics I have collected over the years.  I also have found that I don't have the same palette taste that I had when living up north full time. 

I have been diligently working on the Passaglia "rosettes" each day though and have made significant progress and may actually get this done some day!  This was where I was at the beginning of May.  It takes me about two hours to do those first three rows of hand stitching and there is a lot of wonkiness which hopefully will be less noticeable when all the papers are removed (if I am ever able to get them out!).

You can see the progress.

I am almost done with the rosettes and have taken the pattern and decided how to vary it from the original.  I will have eliminated several partial rosettes and will be constructing some of them a little differently.  The big block in the center is one of four that has more rows around it and I am working on the second of these now.  I still have a couple of more rosettes to complete as well.  The remaining rosettes will all  have some partial row of the stars around them, some more than others so the design wall will definitely be in  use so that I don't have any blaring color combinations as I have used the rainbow of fabrics here, good scrap quilter that I am!!

I have boxes and boxes of stuff to sell or get rid of and I couldn't face another day of doing that so I started machine quilting one of the "one block wonders" (the Canada goose) the other day and am happy to get back to some machine sewing.  It will hopefully inspire me to keep going on the "de-stashing".  Besides my sewing room, I also have my basement to deal with.  I was taken aback to find I had four more rather large boxes of hand dyes down there and may just include them in the garage sale but will keep whatever remains rather than donating.  I thought I had brought all the hand dyes either to southern home or upstairs!  One box is filled with just millions of shades of browns from golds to rusts.

Just a couple of spring pictures from here in western NY  This is the magnolia in the front yard in full bloom.

This is one of our Japanese Cherry trees.

My daughter's yard is full of babies this time of year.  She has had red shouldered hawks, Canada goslings, bluebirds and opossum in past years.  This year there are two families of Canada Geese as well as this nest with baby cardinals she discovered in a bush right next to her house.  She has had to monitor her cats closely until they fledge.