Fire Storm (WiPs in our evac box)

WiP Wednesday. What a treat.

Normal Wednesday. What a treat.

I've spent the last 5 days glued to the TV and the web as the Waldo Canyon fire west of Colorado Springs is raging.

The pictures you've seen on the web and Facebook are REAL. No photo shopping there. I hope I get those images out of my head. And fast.

I took one as I was driving to ballet yesterday. It's a totally crappy photo, but you can see the wall of smoke, and the wall of flames that were behind that smoke. It was unreal. I was sobbing as I was driving. Safety? Eh. Who needs it! My mountains are on fire! It's not a bad thing to be taking a photo, texting it to your husband, and sobbing while trying to navigate amongst others doing the same thing! :)



As of right now, we've not been evacuated, but I'm always afraid to go to sleep for fear of what I'll wake up to.

But I've been putting together my evacuation box(es). Nothing is in the car, yet, because I don't ...

well...

I don't want to have to evacuate, and maybe, JUST MAYBE, if I don't pack the car, I won't have to go. :) Like my logic?

In the boxes, though are the usual things, and then MOST DEFINITELY the quilts that have been made for my children. And photos. Ours, ones Grandma gave me, all my mom's stuff.

And my sewing machine and fabric for a few bee blocks I need to catch up on. :) I've actually made some progress on Natalie's bookshelf block, but I can't show you a picture because it's wadded up in a baggie, and it's 11:37 at night. :) Sorry! Maybe next week I can show you.

But, please pray. Pray for rain. Pray for containment. This is a fire storm of unprecedented proportions. This fire is a monster with a mind of its own, and there's no way to know what it will do next. Please pray. It's hard to be living in the middle of the nation's number one priority right now.

It's probably not allowed, but I'm hooking up with the WiP Wednesday group.

{WiP} Wednesday ~ 24/52

Man, these weeks go by fast!

I don't have much "in progress" to show, but I've got a lot on my list, that's for sure!

I was pretty productive this week, though, and got a few finishes! Woot woot!!

I finally  finished Audrey's wonky house block. It's not as cool as the others she has gotten, but I did my best for right now. :-/

I also made a bunch of 9-patch blocks because we make baby blankets for new babies in our guild, and right now we are expecting 6 more babies! I decided to make it easy on myself and got 9 pieces of Sock Monkey fabric and just strip-pieced 9 blocks rather quickly.

And in the end, I decided to make a bag for our Front Range MQG grocery bag swap. It's definitely different than everyone else's, but that's okay. :-). I made it out of a pair of my old jeans that had a hole in the knee, and almost didn't give it away! :-). (tutorial coming soon)

You can see that it's really handy to carry plastic vegetables. :o)

This week I'm working on catching up on all the bee blocks I've got to do.  My goal is to finish Natalie's bookshelf block, and then finish the 2 mod mosaic blocks I have to do for June. Then I'll go back and do Nicole and Alison's blocks for the Bee Happy bee, and then I'm done with those. I hate being this far behind.


I wonder how long I can use the "I've got a newborn" excuse...

(I'm linking up with Lee of Freshly Pieced for her regular WiP Wednesday blog party)

{WiP} Wednesday ~ 23/52

So...I missed posting last week. I'm not really pleased about that because I had really hoped to post every week this year, but it is what it is.

Plus, I didn't have anything to show you. I had no new WiPs from the week before. And the truth is, I still don't!

But I didn't post last week for another good reason -- I had just returned home from a spontaneous and very much needed trip to LA.

Rocket Man accompanied me, and it was SO GREAT to spend time with SO MANY of my favorite people again. There were lots of hugs, lots of laughs, lots of new people falling head over heels for Rocket Man. :o) And it was also so great to spend money at some of my favorite shops, like Trader Joe's and Sew Modern. Mmmm...Sew Modern. I love that place. If you're in LA, you need to go there. Lauren has everything a modern quilter could want. She's also got an online shop if you can't get to LA.

I made a quick burp cloth/receiving blanket combination for a friend having a baby shower while I was there, and I used my serger for most of it. A while back, I decided to try to make burp cloths entirely out of the flannel I have, rather than buying cloth diapers and adorning them with flannel. It worked out great, although I'm not sure it worked out any cheaper. BUT, I do believe the ones that are all flannel are much softer and will wear better over time than ones made from cloth diapers.

Here's a picture of the burp cloth:

For grins, I used pink thread on top and white on bottom.

Here's a picture of the burp cloths and the receiving blanket:

If you look closely (or click through to the picture in Flickr), you can see the serged edge on the top of the blanket, and the top of the burp cloths.

I had intended to make hundreds of these for the hundreds of babies being born around me, but so far, I've made 2. Progress is slow around these parts. I'm still going to make a bunch more, because they're ridiculously quick, but progress is slow. :)

Now, Works In Progress.

(sigh)

There are too, too many. I'm doing my best, but progress is slow. Rocket Man just loves to be held, and it's hard to sew while holding a baby. I know it's a blessing. Believe me, I know how much I should treasure these times of holding his little body. And I DO!! It's just frustrating to not be able to complete even the simplest of tasks. His crying is inversely proportional to the amount of work that I do.

Here's what I need to complete before my Front Range MQG meeting on Saturday:

1. Some 9 patch blocks for baby blankets we're making for all the new moms in the guild. We're having a baby boom over here, and I know it's common in other MQGs right now. :)
2. Some improv pieced and wonky pieced blocks, and talking points since I'll be speaking about the history of the Modern Quilt Guild and demonstrating improvisational piecing and wonky piecing.
3. Audrey's little house block. Right now, it looks awful! I've got more work to do, and I hope it comes together, but it looks awful. I don't even want to show you a picture, it's that awful.
4. (maybe?) A tote bag. We're swapping tote/grocery bags at this meeting, and if I want to participate, I best get myself sewing a tote bag, eh? I've seen lots of quick tutorials, but it's not the most important thing on my list, so it'll have to wait.

And after I finish those things, I've got bee blocks galore to finish. Hah. Let me rephrase that...I've got bee blocks galore to start!!

I still consider Rocket Man a {WiP} since he's not grown, yet, so here's a sweet picture of him I took the other day for his 2 month pictures:

Anyone want to come hold the baby while I sew?

(I'm linking up with Lee of Freshly Pieced for her regular WiP Wednesday blog party)