Well the quilting is coming along nicely as a new hobby, other than waiting for my mom to finish cutting things out . But I finished the top for my brother's tall ships, over sewed a bit since my mom cut out more triangles than we needed but I now have 25 ships all lined up and ready to be quilted when we're ready for that. I'm now working on my aunt's sampler quilt, we have a few plain type blocks mixed in with many different style ones plenty of stars and such including an 8 point paper-piece one that I can't decide if I love or loathe but since I'm only doing nine of them I figure it won't matter much in the end .

I've been a lot happier after finding something I can do, and my DH is happy that I've commandeered our spare room as my sewing room so he doesn't come home to the old mess across the kitchen table and floor from any other time my mom and I have gotten together to sew. I just hope I don't start getting bored with the whole thing, not especially worried on the sampler quilt as there's something different pretty much every day with it, but when I'm back to baskets and scotty dogs, I might be in trouble of boredom setting in once more.

Okay not so much with the scotty dogs LOL, it's for my sister and kind of an inside joke, since when I was six I had a red white and blue scotty dog shirt that I always wore with my red and gold plaid jumper, my sister hated it because "she" said they clashed, I rationalized it as what else would scotty dogs wear if not plaid... duh! My favorite outfit and the one she most despised of all the things I ever wore. So we're making her a very clashy plaid scotty dog quilt for Christmas heheheheheh..... and no it wasn't my idea but my mothers . I love my family sometimes, and if that doesn't get her to talking to me again, well... there's just no hope for our sisterly relationship .

I like polka dots, checks and stripes all together... she's more the solid neutrals kind of person, I liked GI Joes, she liked Barbie (I liked storming the giant Barbie stronghold with the GI Joes ). She likes sappy hair bands and bubble gum pop, I'm more death metal and underground. About the only thing we have in common is we both love the Beatles, different favorite songs, mine's Eleanor Rigby and Helter Skelter, hers is Yesterday and The Long and Winding Road... but at least it's still the Beatles. And we both sew, knit and crochet (or at least I used to be able to do the last two).

She scrubs her house top to bottom before company comes over and then annoyingly tells them to not mind the mess... I swipe the cat hair off the chair while they're standing there and tell folks not to mind the mess And only if there's a mess beyond cat hair for them to mind.

Really if not for liking the Beatles which my brother does too (When I'm Sixty-Four was his wedding march). I'd wonder if she was even related to any of us by blood. . Everything with her has to be perfect... it can be a perfect disaster, or simply perfect, but it must be perfection to one extreme or the other, there's really no in between and she has the sense of humor of a dead fish, and doesn't do sarcasm at all. She was found in a garbage can, I just know it!

Oh well, back to working on my paper pieced stars, and hopefully maintaining my sanity till I finish all 9 blocks.

There is so much you can do with quilting. I have a friend who traveled the world teaching fabric arts. She's a well known fabric artist and has tons of quilting designs that you can buy. Her quilts are amazing! They are like looking at a painting but instead of paint she used fabric. So, I don't think you'll get bored in terms of lack of design options, but maybe lose interest in sewing. Post pictures of your masterpiece!

One 8 point star down, 8 more of the finicky little things to go. And I've still not decided if I love em or hate em yet lol. But mind numbing sewing they are not that much is for sure

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My DH is letting me get a new toy!!!! I'm getting one of the cricut wireless cutters. I'm sooo excited!!! I'm waiting to see if it pops up on Prime Days with Amazon, and if so then I'll get it at a bargain price and if not then at 3 am on the 12th, I'm ordering it!

I don't know if there's any other really crafty folks on here, but this thing will cut through so many different things! It does vellum, leather, fabric (including denim), felt, paper, balsa wood, corkboard, aluminum. It can emboss copper plating, I mean soooo many things it can do, which then means sooooo many things I can do. And it will even write on things with it's little pen, soo awesome!

Primarily I'm getting it to give my mom a break from cutting quilts so she can actually enjoy sewing some. But I really see myself picking up some balsa wood and having fun making little things out of it, and maybe a copper plate or two, and some leather, definitely some contact paper to make my own wall decals (those things are ridiculously expensive for an oversized sticker), and making up stencils too, and some stamps!! Decidedly bored no more And not really seeing an end insight to what all fun things I can do now. (Fingers crossed and knocking on wood so I don't jinx myself, I can't lose function in anymore body parts.)

Well one last hobby to give a whirl in addition to the quilting, just to ensure I really don't get bored with simply sewing. I'm going to try my hand at making my own area rug doing gobelin embroidery on netting. No worries if you haven't a clue as to what that is... I only discovered it tonight looking at antique patterns . I'm obsessed with the antiquepatternlibrary.org next to the Gutenberg project, it is my favorite sight. I just love all the Victorian through 1970's crafts they offer. And it seems there's always something new to peruse.

But basically you take a large blunt needle, and some very fine to fine yarn/threads and you just do a darning stitch around latch hook canvas. And what you should end up with is a Victorian era knock off of an oriental type rug. A very dense, rug with an almost embroidered design. It's ideal to at least make an attempt on since the needle should be quite large giving me more to grip than using a tiny embroidery needle and it's going on a very open and stiff netting so there won't be any tiny holes that I'm trying to line up.

Furthermore the darning stitch is basically just filling in the blanks in a straight line. And with 3.75 canvas and baby weight yarn it should take only about 5-6 passes around to fill in my squares, and I can use any cross stitch pattern out there that will fit to the "grid" so to speak, in that if my grid size is 125 x 225 then that's the size cross-stitch, filet or embroidery pattern is that I need (give or take depending on borders going around).

So in about a week or two, hopefully I'll have enough done on it to show ya'll, I'm really looking forward to have yet another thing to keep my hands and mind busy. Plus my new toy too, so yeah, my DH might end up being upset with me when the CC bills come in . Honestly though they're inexpensive enough crafts minus the electric cutting machine and only in the cost of the machine, but for an 3'x5' area rug I'm looking at well under $50 providing the yarn doesn't go on sale at Joann's or Michaels'. If I can get a good deal on the yarn I might even be sitting pretty at less than $30 for what I'm hoping will be a pretty sweet looking area rug for my living room.

Wow!!! You're on a roll! They star looks great! I have never been into quilting but looking at your start has me thinking. Just thinking, not planning.

A Cricut! You are so lucky! I've seen how they work on a few YouTube videos. They look amazing! That certainly will help you with all the cutting. There are tons of things you can do with those machines. Enjoy it!

It's like my body knew what was coming, my knee went backwards today, collapsed itself in a full backwards bend, that is rather than bending toward the toes it bent towards the heels.. completely, like I was taking a step in reverse from the knee. Let me tell you, I have felt some pain in my life, massive shock inducing, pass out-wake me up when it is over pain, and nothing at all to date in my life has compared to having a knee go backwards like that. And i didn't hit it or anything, I was standing but not walking when it happened, the muscles jerked the knee went backwards and all I saw was white for about 3 seconds before the world went dark on me. When I came too, the knee was swollen about twice it's normal size and the muscles still kept pulling at it trying to force it backwards again.

When the DH got home he got my knee brace out for me, it's hinged so it won't let it go backwards or sideways, and lots of ice. But I imagine I'm going to be a couch potato for at least a few weeks now till whatever gave way in there can heal up. But I got my cricut today to play with and still have quilts to make so I'll be busy even while keeping one leg propped up and iced down. My mom said I just wanted to get out of all the ironing involved with making quilts... I'm not gonna lie when I say I'm not exactly crying over the ironing even though it's just delayed until I feel better, since my mom dislikes it almost as much as I do lol