Is it Spring? Or, is it still winter?

 Weather here in the Pacific Northwest has been brutal. I know not as bad as in the eastern part of the continent, but not pleasant and certainly not dry.  Tennis playing days are very limited.  However, I have tried to get the roses pruned and a few weeds pulled as well as cutting the grass when it is warm enough to venture outside without wearing a raincoat or something warm. It is nice, when weather is decent, to see the baseball games happening with spectators cheering their teams on.

My April goal was get quilting and binding done and reduce my large number of tops waiting their turn.  

Three Thomas the train quilts got finished and they are toddler size.  Plus, two rail fence butterfly preemie quilts were finished and the main fabric came from a garage sale of a  dear, departed friend, Sally, in Mesa.   The flannel backing on the Thomas quilts was given to me by Marge, one of my Wednesday Diva quilting friends. 

A quilt made last fall at retreat was taken by a long arm quilter, Dianne, and she returned it to me, quilted and bound.  And, she took two more quilt tops/batting and backing with her to work on and get finished.  Thank you Diane!

I had a stack of quilt tops ready for quilting and managed to get three done plus the binding. The first one is Carolyn's blocks and used up a variety of fat quarters from my stash in Mesa.  

And, another project using the same Carolyn's block made from some knitting themed fabric and will go to a special friend who loves to knit.

This one is quilted and bound and was made by Janet.  Great use of red scrap fabrics. I need to get a picture of it finished with the binding.

Two more are quilted and waiting for binding - 9 patch field day and Illusions (another 3 x 1yd quilt) plus,  my red/beige hst quilt is ready to load up for quilting.   I also worked on cutting more batting and making more backings for the next 5 quilts that I am ready to tackle. 

We had a lovely Easter dinner, thanks to our neighbours and Susan always makes a great turkey dinner.  

March: 13 finishes

April: so far - 12 finishes with one ready to be quilted and a stack waiting their turn. 

This last quilt was made by Carole and I am showing it as a reminder and inspiration for using up scraps.  She used a variety of Canadian themed fabrics that she had on hand and made happy blocks.  But the center in some cases is a 2.5" square, some are four patches, half square triangles and some are strips.  She used what she had on hand and I think it turned out quite stunning and great use of  a "make it happen" quilt. 

The good news is that it is only the 19th of April so I still have 11 days to work on finishing up some of these tops that are living on hangers.