Last weekend found me driving with 2 cousins up to Bethany to my uncle's funeral.  Right before we left the funeral, we took a girl cousin picture............

The last time we took this picture was at one of Jackson's high school football games.  Jackson will graduate from college this spring.

David went to St. Peters to work on stuff in Sarah's house.  He built shelves in her basement.  

Her cat did some investigating.

He also installed a gas log in the fireplace.  This included running the gas line.  He set a record on Saturday with 5 trips to Menards, 1 trip to Home Depot, and 1 trip to Ace Hardware.

 I am headed to St. Peters today and David is going to a funeral visitation for his cousin's husband tomorrow.  On the way he will stop and have lunch with my cousins in Ashland.  He's also going to help install a new deadbolt while he's there.  I hope it doesn't require as many trips to the home stores as last Saturday.

Another UFO finish for 2025!  I think this makes 4 of the 10 on the list.  This is a Bonnie Hunter pattern called Bricks in the Barnyard.  It's all quilted and bound and ready for show and tell at guild this week.  I put a plaid flannel on the back that is so soft.  It took several nights to bind it because I kept falling asleep under the warm softness of it.

While it was on the longarm, I did some "cleaning" and created a couple of placemats from the leftover parts as well as this table topper from the leftovers of Orange Crush.  We're going to start calling these things collateral damage.

I also worked on cutting the sashings and borders for Randolph & Rudy.  Mabel was on hand to help with ruler selection.

Obviously it was a taxing job.

But here is the quilt in it's flimsy form.  I love it.  It was so much fun to make.  I have some gray plaid flannel that has a light blue stripe in it that I plan to use for the backing.  And I think there is just enough of the blue background left for binding.  My sister has seen photos of the blocks and has offered to let the bears and deer reside at her house.  

I truly think I might be addicted to Elizabeth Hartman patterns.  This is the other pattern that I got for Christmas from Sarah.  I started pulling fabrics from my stash even before R&R became a flimsy.

Yesterday I cut the pieces for the bear, deer, and rabbit blocks and last night I made the bear and deer.

These have been appropriately sniffed by Esme.

Again, they are so cute!  I can't wait to work on the rabbit block.  I am going to make the baby quilt size since that's what I could get from the fabric in my stash.  So, I will need a dozen tree blocks.  And I've already decided that the gray/blue plaid flannel will make a wonderful backing.

In other news, we released Willow from the Cone of Shame yesterday after lunch.  Mabel had worked so hard as the emotional support kitty.

We invited both of them inside and worked the collar off and proceeded with a good allover scratching and brushing of Willow.  She then licked her butt for a good 10 minutes (no kisses from her anytime soon).  I guess a week of not being able to do that was pretty awful.  She then went back outside to roll in the sunshine and Mabel took a much needed nap to recuperate from her support duties.

I'm off to St. Peters after lunch.  Sarah wants to make homemade pizza for supper and then I imagine we will sit in front of the fireplace and watch TV.  I've found an estate sale to hit Saturday morning and she has promised to take me to The Quilted Cow!  I can't wait!  I also need to go to a music store and since both my hair dryer and my food processor quit this week, I would love to find some replacements.

Oh, and I started a new book (audiobook) which I am loving..........How to Read a Book by Monica Wood.  So even the car time is going to be great!  And then the Chiefs are going for their 3-Peat on Sunday so it's looking to be a wonderful weekend.  

Christi