Crazy spring makes for scattered life

I can hardly believe it's almost the end of April!!! This winter-melting-into-spring has been crazy with lots going on. I've actually gotten more quilting done than I thought, but it's been bits and pieces of a variety of projects, so nothing new is actually finished. Ugh!

I did have one finish! The jelly roll race I had made at a Saturday Sew and Sew several months ago finally is quilted and bound. Race to Spring was fun to quilt! There were prints of sketchy circles and modern flowers in the 2.5" strips that I managed to complete in the quilting, taking the flowers out into neighboring strips. It was a stretch for me to step outside the box like that, but I think it came out great! 

 I got the idea to quilt the flowers out into neighboring strips from a blog post I read by Marija Vujcic late last year. She was quilting a woven quilt and used the flowers in the fabric as inspiration for the quilting designs. I remembered that post and tried to follow her lead as I dove into quilting my Race to Spring. Marija explained her quilting thought process in her post "The clue was in the fabric."

I took the partial flowers in the strips and created complete flowers in neighboring strips with the FMQ.

There are so many other projects piled up on my sewing table that it's hard to decide what to do next. I have one major project for a friend (20 personalized 11"x17" mini-quilt wallhangings) that has a fast-approaching deadline, so that will have to be first. Then it will be back to my Wizard of Oz quilts--two in progress, both nearing completion, my pink and black camp quilt, and the Vintage Rouge that is just about ready to assemble (I've been doing English Paper Piecing on several blocks before I can start sewing rows together).

I am trying to stay on track with my quest to have more UFOs finished in 2014 than started. We'll see how the rest of the year goes!

Mormor Liz with my grandkids--Joe (14), Jacob (almost 2), and Jordyn (10)

I hope everyone had a blessed Easter with family and friends. My day was wonderful, spent with all three kids, two sons-in-law and all three grandkids. It's so wonderful to be close enough to spend holidays and other times together again after living 1800 miles away from them for over seven years.

More snippets from the sewing room soon,
Liz