1. My DD and I are both going to make the 1600" jellyroll quilt this week. (Got mine made, just the top) 2. Work on UFO's (nope, haven't touched them) 3. Start a new knitting project. Set sleeves in the current one. (sweater still sleevless. I did knit two scarves) 4. Lose 5 pounds, hopefully with the help of an Android app called MyFitnessPal calorie counter and increase exercise. (almost made it, lost 3 pounds but have been eating a lot better and exercising) I will have to put off any more sewing goals because I broke my bobbin case on Friday. I was working on a quilts for kids top and my bobbin was hopping, so I removed the bobbin case and cleaned around the area good. Did not get the bobbin case seated correctly and when I went back sewing, it jumped out of line and I sewed several holes through it. Then a tip broke off where the needle went through. Went to the dealer and he cannot get one in for 3 weeks. I asked him if it was on a slow boat from China? Oh well, I was hoping to get a lot of sewing done in the next two weeks because I may finally be going back to work. Rebecca

I do wall hanging size FMQ on an old 1970s Kenmore with great results. I release presser foot pressure and drop feeds. I also reduce upper thread tension a bit. I make a note to myself about those settings and keep it nearby as I go back to straight sewing a lot. My FMQ teacher says to quilt in ditch first and do fancy stuff after. I suppose it depends on style of quilt really. If I stitch in ditch I just use regular sewing settings and feed dogs up. I don't use rubber gloves now that my FMQ teacher said to use Neutrogena Norwegian Formula body emulsion lotion on my hands instead. It gives you grip without hurting fabric. I have a modern Janome I also use but prefer the old Kenmore for the FMQ. I think the heavy weight makes it more stable. I built a table for it to make a level surface since it's basically a portable without top case on. I just used an old prefinished shelf piece about 18 x 24" and cut it out with a jigsaw from a cardboard template I made first. (I can explain to anyone who is interested.) I may make a larger one for occasional use later.

Here are the directions I posted in December, when I finished the quilt. As you can see, each circle was separately lined with unbleached muslin, so the edges were already "turned under" and then I machine stitched them down. After finding that the 6" squares I got in swaps weren't quite big enough for the 9" circles, I cut down the template that I used to draw the round stitching line when lining the circles, so it is now 8&7/8" in diameter. My second Peek-a-Boo I-Spy was much easier to make, thanks to that change, and I have changed my original directions in a few places to reflect my experiences. 1. MAKE CIRCLES I lined them with unbleached muslin because it was cheaper and because I rather liked the effect of a bit of white edging peeking out on the rounded spots, but you could line the circles with their own colors: From the backing material, cut out circles (You are going to draw a line for where you stitch, so these do not need to be anywhere near perfect; just make sure they are big enough to take a 8&7/8" circular template and still leave around 1/4" for a seam allowance. Cut the same number of unbleached muslin circles, or--save yourself some trouble, though it wastes material, and just cut rough squares big enough to hold the colored circles you cut out. I used a 28mm Olfa cutter and an Easy Circle Cut "ruler" to cut the circles, having found one at a WalMart, though two local quilting shops didn't sell them. But so long as you make a round template for marking that 8&7/8" stitching line, you don't really need to cut out circles at all until after you stitch the colored "circles" to their linings. Then you trim all around them about 1/8" from the stitching. Before stitching, fold several at a time of the UNBLEACHED circles, or rough squares, in half and make a slit around 1" long right across the fold in the center with your rotary cutter. This will leave slits of about 2". They needn't be neat, as they are only for turning the circles inside-out. Be careful not to make this slit in the COLORED circles, only in their linings! You lay a colored circle on top of each muslin circle or square, check to make sure that there is enough for a 1/4" (at the very least, an 1/8") seam all around--but this seam allowance need not be even, nor do the white and colored circles need to match exactly--pencil around the template on whichever side will show the marking best, pin it if that makes you feel better (I skipped the pinning on my second quilt, and everything was still fine.), and stitch right on the line you marked. Trim the seam to about 1/8". Turn. Use a pointed Japanese chopstick or whatever else is handy to push the sewing line out all around to make a smooth pancake-like circle. DH did a lot of that for me. Iron on both sides. 2. SEW THE CIRCLES TOGETHER Now take a stiff piece of plastic or cardboard that you have cut to approximately 6&1/4" square--maybe a bit more. You want it the right size so that its four corners will just touch the edge of the finished "pancake". I had to fudge a bit on some of them or turn the circles around until I found a position where the square did what I wanted it to. Draw a pencil line all around this square on each of the unbleached muslin sides. Pin circles together with the pins through the penciled lines, AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE HAVING THE POINTS OF THE PENCILED SQUARES EXACTLY MEET EACH OTHER ON THE EDGES OF THE TWO CIRCLES you are sewing together. You will see why this is important when you begin to sew different rows together. If the points don't match up, you will have one circle flap that extends out longer than its neighbor, leaving you with the choice of stitching across the tip of the longer flap, which makes for a less pretty center where the flaps meet, or--much worse--in making sure not to stitch across the too-long point on one flap, you will stitch too far away from the shorter-pointed flap and end up with a little hole between the "squares" that make up the back of your quilt. When you can't make the points match up, I would go for stitching across the tip of the flap that is too long. This sounds confusing, but as soon as you begin putting the circles together and rows or groups of circles together, you will see what I mean. 3. PUTTING THE WHOLE THING TOGETHER When sewing the rows to each other, be careful to put pins right in the stitching line between the circles so that the points of the squares on the back will match up. I messed up a bit on some of them. Then pin along the line where you expect to stitch the rows together, and stitch. You may find that your penciled lines (made along the top of the square template) are no longer a good guide for this stitching. At this stage, ignore them if you have to; just try to stitch straight in such a way that you go exactly across the tips of the lines of stitching where you first sewed the circles in a row to each other. I put six rows together in the beginning, but stitching the flaps down on top of the pictures became a bit of a nuisance when I had to keep turning the quilt around. So for the remainder of it, I did 2 sets of 3 rows each, stitched down all their circle flaps except those that were going to be part of the seam when I joined these rows to others, and after that, put the whole thing together. I found that even when I joined 3 rows to the last 3 rows and then sewed those 6 rows to the previously-completed 6 rows, stitching down the last flaps in the middle was not too hard. If it had been a queen-sized quilt or something, though, I might have had trouble with the small opening in my old Kenmore. 4. INSERTING THE PICTURE SQUARES I used 6" squares I got from a couple of swaps. So long as your circles and penciled squares and the way you stitched them together is perfect, this size will be no problem. If, however, like me, you end up with some flaps that don't meet perfectly at the corners of the pictures and leave a bit of the unbleached muslin showing, you will have to fudge and use indelible colored pens to cover it up. Probably 6&1/8" or 6&1/4" squares would be ideal. But if the squares fit the space in the center of the circles too perfectly, then you have the problem of their corners tending to stick up here and there at the point where two flaps come together. That is why I made a 6&1/4" square template to mark the lines for sewing circles together, although the fabric squares are only 6". When you have put several rows of circles together, insert squares of low-loft batting (I used polyester) cut just a bit smaller than the pictures. Put the batting right over the slit (which I don't bother to sew up) in the circle lining and position the I-Spy square over it. If you realize that any particular corner is likely to have exposed lining because the circle flaps don't meet correctly, then try to make sure that in THAT corner, the I-Spy square covers all the lining. Pin the 4 circle flaps down over each picture square; I used those bent quilting safety pins for this and they were great. One pin per flap will do the job. Machine stitch along the curved edge of each flap, then stitch an "X" right across the picture, from corner to corner. I did not draw lines for this, and maybe I should have, but if I ever make this quilt again, I probably still won't draw lines. Enough is enough!! "Done is better than perfect," and all that. I hope this explanation will help anyone interested in making one of these quilts. At first making the circles was so boring that I thought I'd never do it again, but putting in the pictures and sewing the flaps down was fun and I did do it again recently. Besides, when you have put the rows together and sewed the flaps, you're ALL DONE! No more quilting to do; no binding to put on! So have fun!

Boo is adorable and I'm sure she'd love it that you're going to make her her very own mouse. As far as eating the mice, I think you all should be required to sing the ditty Bev posted above before gobbling them down. When I posted that photo on FB, my niece asked if there were any blind mice. What I've learned from studying animal behavior is that the wounded and certain types of animals are often disproportionately susceptible to predators and that's why she didn't see any blind ones or any chocolate brown ones.