Happy Hump Day!!

ahhh mid week!!! Not long now before the weekend. Although these days, each day is the same as the next while on maternity leave. I still have 3 1/2 months of leave left before I head back to work in early May. Sigh....... where is the time going at all???

I haven't been able to get to the computer the last couple days due to various reasons. One of them being my friend Lesley gave birth to a beeeeautiful baby girl Sunday night. I went over to the hospital to see them last night and to see the new addition to their family. The little girl is just adorable! She is soooo tiny and petite. Geez, when I think of my own little boy it is hard now to imagine him that tiny 8 1/2 months ago. They just feel soooo fragile when they are born. We seem to take extra tender care with them. Lesley and Raff let me hold their daughter for the whole visit. The two of us just sat in the rocking chair and rocked for an hour.

Monday night I was able to get back to the 3rd Hot Chocolate Snowman BOM. I now have all the pieces fused in place and ready to be machine appliqued.





I have sooooo much stash and I'm thinking I'm running out of room for new stuff. There are fabrics in my stash that have been there for YEARS!!! In fact, I have some that I loved when I bought them and HAD to make something out of them, but now after all this time has lapsed I'm tired of seeing them in my stash. They are still very nice fabrics, but well as us Quilters know, textile designs change and we want to keep up with the newest and latest designs!

So I came to an executive decision. It is time I give back to my local community and make some quilts. After reading several magazine and internet articles about quilters doing good for others less fortunate, I decided I wanted to do it too. I thought I would make up a bunch of lap quilts to donate to one of our local women's center. The place I'm hoping will accept the quilts is called "The Irish Kirby House" It is "A Shelter for Women and Children fleeing Abusive Relationships" The type of work I do (when I'm not on maternity leave) is helping to provide housing services to low income families. We also see many women and children who have come from the Iris Kirby House. Most times the mothers and their children flee their homes in the middle of the night with just the clothes on their backs. I found out last summer that a good friend of mine stayed at this house when she was small as she came from a hostile home environment.

So since I plan to hit my scrap containers hard and heavy this year, I'm also going to hit some of the older fabric stash to make up some nice comfy lap quilts. As we all know, snuggling under a quilt makes you feel warm and safe. This is what these people need. Here is the beginning of the first lap quilt. This quilt will consist of 72 6" square in a square blocks.



While I'm making it, I have to cut off the excess fabric that I don't need. Instead of throwing them away, I will sew these up too into another future lap quilt. I'm thinking of making pinwheel blocks.





Well it is after 11:30pm here and I am ready for la la land. I hope to post here again tomorrow evening to show you the progress I am making on this quilt.

Til Then...

Quiltingly Yours
Andrea