Stash Report & UFO Challenge

UFO Challenge for Jan/Feb - status complete! I'm up to eight blocks complete now.  I will get this bugger finished in this century.

UFO Challenge for March/Apr - these Dresden Plate blocks were brought in to the Binbrook Guild a couple of years ago.  She had lots of them in bundles of 12, so I took one bundle.  They are a little bit full in the center, so I need to...

• Tweak the seam allowances. 
• Turn under and baste the outside edges.
• Find a background fabric.
• Applique these to the background.
• Make and apply center circles.

Sassy Stars using the Quick Curve Ruler - DONE and OFF THE UFO LIST.

Another little cutie, finished and ready for donation to the Hospice.

STASH REPORT
It seems I neglected to file a stash report in January.  Bad me.

	30-Jan	28-Feb
Used this month	13.15	9.74
Used YTD	13.15	22.89
Added this month		0
Added YTD	0	0
Net 2016	-13.15	-22.89

I am adding a sidebar to the blog with an indicator of my current quilt booking schedule.  If you know you need a quilt by ________ (insert appropriate date) make sure you call me and get on the schedule.

Circle Love, and Winterruption Recap

Mmm.  This is a wonderful, scrappy quilt.  The orange peel wedges were all hand appliqued.

I like the quilting design of the overlaid circles.

OMG.  I love the colours.

This quilt was crying out for a 'modern' quilting design.

WINTERRUPTION
The Beach Girls arrived Thursday,  noon-ish.  We headed over to Debbie's for lunch, then back here where the final straggler had arrived in our absence.  Thursday evening was cocktails, supper, and lots of catching up.  We haven't seen each other since our week in Tobermory last October.  My birthday will be this weekend so there was CAKE and PRESENTS.
Friday was shopping and lunch at IKEA, then big-box shopping at COSTCO.  After supper we watched ROOM which is a very disturbing story about an abducted teenage girl.
Saturday was stitch day.  I gave the girls a demo on how to attach binding using the longarm, then we headed out for supper to the Cornerstone restaurant.  They helped me check a year's worth of lottery tickets before they started expiring (which DH likes to buy but not check) ...sadly, we are still not rich.  The evening movie was The Intern.  A much more pleasant night time flic.
Sunday morning was sort through all the leftover food and repack the coolers for the various trips homeward.  Everyone was loaded up and gone by 10:30.  Poor Sadie didn't know whether to walk around looking for them, or just go to bed (having worn herself out mooching for scritches over the last few days).  She opted for bed. 

FOLLOWUP NOTES ABOUT THE WEEKEND

• I try to do a signature cocktail for our retreats.  This one was Maiden's Prayer using the Calgary boutique Gin.  Mostly a big hit!!
•  It seems that all of our pre-retreat talk about yoga was just that:  talk.  Although we did wear our yoga pants, we never managed to crack open a mat.  
•  Two hours later the discoveries of 'forgotten' stuff started.  There are two books still here, and a glass bowl with lid.  This always makes me laugh... we STARTED this weekend with items being returned from the Tobermory week.  I guess we will never learn.

Geez Louise (which is NOT what I really said!)

So.  Where do you want to start, with the QUILTING story or with the HOUSE story? 

OK.  We'll start with the quilting story.

Cute growth chart, eh?  Yup.  Until you manifest your inner OCD and get a tape measure to double check the side bar with the marked inches.  It is actually 3" out of whack.  When you're a little kid, 3" is a lot.  From the 20" marking near the bottom to the 60" marking near the top there is only a distance of 37", not 40".

So I sent an email to the quilt shop where this was purchased.  She checked her stock, and by golly... YES, I was correct.  The measurement is too short.  First, she removed the rest of them from her shelves, then she contacted the manufacturer on my (and her) behalf.  They explained that the panels had been printed from 'inaccurate artwork'.  Okey dokey.  They sent me the cute little sheep replacement panel, along with 4 meters of apology fabric.  The sheep measured spot on!  Yay!  um...but only until I quilted them.  Sad, sad, sad, the quilting has shrunk the sheep like your wool sweater in a hot laundry.  Two inches in length was lost to quilting takeup.  So I guess this will get cut up into potholders.

Moving on now to the HOUSE story.  I have a boatload of houseguests over the next couple of weeks, between the Beach Girls and my just-retired brother and his wife.  I thought it was time to fix the holes in the walls of the two front bedrooms.

I sent DH down to the dungeon to find the paint can which was clearly (not) marked "upstairs bedrooms".

Apparently, (???) these rooms were painted so long ago that the walls have faded and the paint no longer matches.

Guess what MY decorating project will be this year?  (Should I offer a prize?  The winner gets a wonky growth chart, ha ha ha.)