The Doldrums

No I am not depressed, but via maritime lore the doldrums were an area where the seas  and the prevailing winds were calm.  Another term was becalmed which is probably more accurate-- at a standstill, at a halt, unmoving, stuck.  That is what I feel at least.  

DH was a sweetheart and put up my design wall in the "junk" room.  It is the only room in the whole house which has not been updated.  It was great to have a design wall again, even if I run up and down the stairs many times a day to use it.  

Once my design wall was up again I decided that the Farmer's Wife was going to get laid out.  Surprisingly I started putting up squares and it didn't take me long to figure out which blocks to put where.  I only switch a few up once I stepped back to take a better look.

In the upper left hand corner you can see I started working on the sashing, and cornerstones.    No this is not all of the blocks, the room is not big enough for me to stand far enough away to take a complete picture.  Seeing this pictures I am very happy with the way this quilt is going to look. Especially since it was made from scraps which I have acquired over the past couple of years.  I still need to figure out what color I want to use for the side setting squares.  I was leaning toward a blue of some sort.  DH is suggesting a blue/green color. 

I have been working on these units.  I only have 18 done so far.  Man I am slow!  I have 102 more to go.  I think that me finishing is the Grand Illusion. 

See all these HST?  They are all sewn together and squared up.  I saw a Farmer's Wife tutorial online and the instructor was using a ruler and squaring up the units before they were pressed open.  I will say that squaring up works much faster using that method than other ways.   I have oodles of these units which are not sewn yet, I am using them as leaders and enders right now. 

I had another fabric acquisition which arrived.  I saw these and had to have them. 

The bright pink, and blue are batiks.  The gray is a cross hatch.

I saw this white on white and decided that it is what I wanted to use for the Modern Building blocks quilt I wanted to make.  It reminds me of dandelion fuzz or queen anne's lace. 

I then saw this gorgeous border print on Facebook-- on sale and had to purchase some too.  I want to make a table runner similar to this one which I found at Northcott Fabrics website.

I will say that we all have a little cabin fever today so I asked DH if he would take me to the antique mall down the road.  The parking lot was full, and some people parked behind other cars and so there was no way for the vehicles close to the building to get out.  DH suggested that he wanted to go and check out an antique store off the freeway going toward Toledo out in the middle of nowhere.  So off we went.

I bought a couple of flower frogs, and a cute little dish.  All for less than $15.

I am trying to solve the problem of me losing my scissors, pencil, and stiletto in my scrap pile.  I think this will work and it is pretty too. 

One of the older daughters posted pictures of her family hiking this weekend in Oregon.  They were wearing tank tops, and t-shirts.  Quite a difference from our 17 degrees, and 18 inches of snow on the ground. 

What do you do when you get the winter blues?