Every month, Trina, Ashley and I go to Winters for the Block of the Month.  Trina has been doing it for years, but last year was the first for Ashley and I.  Last year I think all of us were only able to finish about 1/2 of the blocks.  I could use my whole new baby-buying a house-moving excuse but Trina has me beat in that department so let’s not go there! 😉

But this year we are competing!  The winner is the person who completes their block every month – with proof by posting it on their blog! While the other two finished their block’s the first week, I had an operator error and had to get more fabric!  Bless Trina’s kids for napping in the car – she drove out there one day and picked it up for me (I still owe you coffee for that one Trina!)

And, today I finally finished my March block:

0042And, here is February’s block.

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We are using Batiks…and while I love the colors…I’m just not seeing how they will go together.  Of course, I’m only looking at 2 pieces of a 12 piece puzzle!

Today – the first Saturday of the month – is our quilting day.  I messed up my block of the month – sigh.  But hopefully Trina will be able to get more more fabric soon.  In the meantime I started a quilt for my living room….here is the beginning:

photo_030709_005Colors are not 100% as this was taken with my phone.  The next steps are to find fabric for borders and backing and finish it.  Since that will take awhile, I’m back to knitting.  Almost done with JGirl’s easter sweater and making good progress on Dad’s father day socks!

I have a great group of IRL (In Real Life) friends.  For a looong time I couldn’t say this as the majority (not all!) of my friends were online only.  When I started a local knitting group 3 or 4 years ago I never thought I would be finding truly good friends…but I have!

Not only am I blessed to meet with them all one or two times a week – but a few of us have started quilting together too!  We go to Cloth Carousel in Winters, CA on the first Saturday of every month and get our new square for the month.  Yes, it takes a whole year to get a quilt’s worth of squares, but even that might be too fast for me! LOL

This month I didn’t get my quilt square done – it was a whirlwind of too much to do and well, I really don’t want to review it all.  I was mad, disappointed and hurt that no one seemed to value what I wanted to do – but let’s not go there!

My friend, Trina, showed up in the middle of a pity party I was holding for myself Saturday afternoon – not only had she picked up the new square for me – but she brought me a sewing machine for me to borrow (the machine was part of the problem this month).  It was SUCH a blessing and I did my best not to cry!

Yesterday, during JGirl’s nap I finished May’s square and cut out June’s.  This morning I was up at 6am so I finished it!  :D  Here they are:

May:

June:

I feel so blessed!!

Here are a couple of the pictures Eric took of our Easter – we spent the day with lots of family up at my BIL and sister’s house.sm020.JPG

The only picture of J1 was when he was in action! Here he is looking for eggs.

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J2 with his haul

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J3 and his basket

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And, phew! I got my 2nd square done!