all of February

Wow.

That went by in a whoosh, didn't it?!

I ordered this from Charlie and Ella, and it arrived on Valentines Day. I love it so much!!

Let's see.

There was Groundhog Day.

Brandon joined us for the festivities :-)

~

And the Super Bowl.

(Which for us really just means 

snacks.)

~

Some friends gave us tickets

- enough for all of us! - 

to go to a Razorback basketball game.

That was fun,

but I realized I should explained 

some of the rules of the game to them beforehand.

~

I worked my fingers to the bone

trying to finish

Terry Frey's butterfly quilt

so I could enter it in the upcoming NWA quilt show.

When I still had about 50 hrs of work left

and only 2 weeks to do it in,

I knew I had to give up.

It's kinda bummy,

because

if Instagram is any indication,

it would have been really well received,

and I feel like my chance at a ribbon was pretty good.

Ah well.

Speaking of Instagram,

I hit 500 followers a few weeks ago.

It's humbling that that many people 

feel like I have something to offer in this crafty community.

It sure isn't my glamorous, well-styled photography 😆

~

Tyler has continued work on the porch railings

as he's had time

and the weather's been cooperative.

It looks so nice when I drive up!

(It'll really look nice when we paint / stain them!)

~

The girls went to SuperStart

and we babysat kidsat for some friends.

~

The biggest news of the month

is

I went to Quilt Con!!

Long story short,

about a week and half before the trip,

one of my good blogging friends

messaged me to say that

God told her husband 

that he was supposed to send us to Quilt Con.

It was rather humbling to be on the receiving end 

of  such an extravagant gift,

but who am I to get in the way of someone obeying God??

We met in Nashville -

her coming from Arizona, and me from Arkansas.

She was exactly what I expected 

and we pretty much talked non-stop the whole weekend.

We saw hundreds of quilts,

this was my favorite -  made by Wendy Hill

and met a few other quilters.

I tried out some longarms.

We had icecream for dinner.

(yum)

I wish I'd have been more 'myself'

because I feel like I wasn't really much fun.

All in all though, it was a very nice trip

and I'm so grateful for her and her husband's generosity,

and that my man was willing to let me go off 

for a weekend with a 'stranger'.

And I'm grateful that God uses technology

to bring people together.

in January

It's cold!!

But at least the sun is shining.

~

Tony and Andrina came to visit for a week!

😃

We celebrated Andrina's birthday,

and Lexi's, too.

 No more single digit kiddos!!

Tony and Tyler braved the frigid temperatures

and worked on the back porch railing.

I didn't pull out the camera,

but TJ and one of his boys came down on Sunday afternoon,

and brought Matt, Marin, and Milo with them.

💙

~

I didn't work on it while people were here, 

of course,

but here's a picture
(taken on one of the many not sunny days...)
of where I currently am

on Terry's Jeweled Butterfly.

It's going to be pretty dang amazing
if I say so myself.

I'm considering entering it in a quilt show in NWA,

but I'll need to discuss it with my client

before I make any decisions.

~

Brandon started a new internship on Monday.

It's pretty cool

and pretty top secret,

so I'm not sure if I can tell you where...

We're excited for the opportunity for him!

And thankful he got to spend a good bit of time here, too,

while Ton' was visiting.

It was so nice to have all of my boys in the house

at the same time!

~

Work continues to be absolutely crazy and rough

for Tyler

and we are sooo ready for this season to be over.

(Basically, he's been working 2 jobs

(for the price of 1)

for almost a year now)

~

I started a new crochet project.

This one will be much faster than the last one for sure!

I'd rather be English paper piecing,

but I just don't have the gumption

(or the space)

to collect fabrics for a new project just yet...

~

The males in the household
all have wild hair.

That
will be remedied
today.

Razorback Fan

Immediately upon finishing

the Block of the Day quilt,

I sat down and drew up a quilt 

that's been in my head for quite some time.

Then I went on a fabric collecting spree.

digging through every box, shelf, bag, and tub

that even might contain a red, black, or gray fabric.

I amassed a ridiculously large pile boxful,

having previously made

a red quilt,

a gray (and black) (with purple) quilt,

another gray (and blue) quilt,

and a black and white quilt,

and, oh, another quilt that heavily featured gray.

I've made a block here 

That churndash in the upper right didn't make the cut. Not enough contrast.

and a block there,

yes! I found the perfect spot for a bit of Jenean Morrison's fabric :-)

and cut background strips

 when I had a couple of decent chunks of time

(I spent 4 hours just cutting all those suckers!)

Once I had my little design wall filled up,

I made a real (expandable!) design wall

and threw everything up on it,

very neatly arranged the blocks on it

and realized - 

I still had a (very) long way to go!

 I made more blocks every chance I got,

and sewed some together with their background strips.

Sometimes I only had 5 minutes at a time,

sometimes an hour or more.

Then I sewed some more blocks,

and some more pieces together,

and here we are,

3 weeks later,

with a finished
one of a kind
Razorback Fan quilt top!!

There are 122 fabrics

and 52 hours (and 46 minutes) represented
in this 66" x 78" top.

That 52:46 doesn't count any of the hours spent 

designing the quilt

(or any of the blocks that I drew up  myself).

It doesn't include the hours spent gathering fabric,

or driving out to Mulberry in search of actual  Razorback fabric.
(which, incidentally, is rather ugly until you chop it up)

that embroidered white patch was commissioned from a friend :-) and the pink razorback fabric is from Stars for a Star :-)

It doesn't include the time spent
prewashing any fabrics that might bleed
(I'm looking at you, ugly razorback fabric!)

or choosing fabrics for each individual block

(it takes longer than you might think)

That big block is an 'Arkansas Star' - I couldn't find one the size I needed,
and didn't trust my maths to enlarge it and get it just right, so I drafted it myself.
It's paper pieced. Foundation Paper Pieced. Y'all know how much I love that 😏

or re-folding the fabric

after I've cut what I need from it

(when you use over 100 fabrics,

and cut fabric for each block as you make it

 that adds up to a lot of folding)

and it definitely doesn't include time spent

standing in front of the design wall,

pondering.

I will say,
I like it better when I don't know
quite how much time I spend on a project 😉
but
Razorback Fan
 will be for sale as soon as I get it finished
so it seemed prudent to keep track.

I'm eager to get to the quilting;
I've already got a pretty good idea
of what I'm wanting to do.

joining Amanda Jean and the other finishers