What I did during my four-day weekend

What a lovely long weekend it's been.  Friday was spent pin basting the new baby quilt and starting a new project for a toddler who loves dolls.

This is an old pattern that I used years ago to make a doll for my dear mother-in-law, Mae, who loved dolls and cats.  I love rag dolls.  My Mama made be a Raggedy Ann and Andy that I love and kept on my bed for many years.  The girl kitty has pantalettes, and a dress that looks like a blouse with an apron over it.

Here's the face all embroidered and bewhiskered.

On Saturday, I finished the body and got started on the clothes.

Here she is all finished on Saturday afternoon.

Sunday has been spent hand quilting the new baby quilt in the hoop.  This has been my idea of a great weekend.  

Snow Day!

Friday was a snow day, but here in North Carolina, that doesn't mean a vacation day for teachers.  Snow days are teacher work days unless you use trade time or personal time off to "pay" for them.  Since there was a big layer of ice under the snow and our driveway was pure ice, I used trade time to stay home.  The blocks beside the driveway are pavers waiting for our new driveway.  Once the weather clears we are getting, not only a new driveway, but new surface for the screened porch and slab patio.

The screens are down, so I got a clear shot of the backyard through the kitchen window.  We are going to have new screens without the view-blocking lattice.  I'm really excited about that part of the project.

I've taken lots of "before" photos, so when the project is completed, I'll share those.  

Climbing out from under

I have had a bad case of the OCD blues.  My house was a mess.  My studio was worse and I was feeling overwhelmed by the piles of undone things at school and at home.  This weekend, I feel like I climbed out from under the clutter both physically and mentally.  My house is clean (Thanks to Jim for driving the vacuum and the dust cloth in several rooms!) and things are put away.  The furniture is off the porch in preparation for our new driveway and new porch construction.  My studio is clean and I have laid out a new baby quilt for the newest addition to the UNC-G theatre family.  The photo above shows the backing fabric and the borders and bias binding.

This is the body ready to be sewn up.

The refrigerator is cleaned out and I have plans to reorganize the pantry after reading an article Anna suggested to me.  Last night I made chicken cacciatore that we will dine on tonight along with some pasta and our favorite romaine lettuce and mandarin orange salad.

Now if I could only finish the reading and writing the questions for the Battle of the Books and find the time to do all the cataloging at school, I would really feel good about myself!