BAPs are Not Conducive to Blogging

Trying to work on a BAP (big a$$ed project for those who don't know the lingo), is not conducive to blogging at all.  I stitch and stitch and don't see much progress at all.   So therefore, not much to show.  It's not like I can stitch little motifs here and there filling up the linen.  No, I've been toiling with fill-in and back stitching and lettering (have I ever mentioned that I hate backstitching?).  My needle flies, but not fast enough.  But I'm getting closer - little by little.

When we last left Ann (sounds like a Soap Opera, doesn't it?), she looked like this:

She is now looking like this:

She finally has some facial expression (I think she's eyeballing the fisherman), and her body is almost complete (although there is - yes - more backstitching to look like folds in her gown), and there was a lot of catch up wording done on the verses on the right.  You can imagine my excitement when I got to the letter "Y" which is what is showing on the right (minus the beginning letters of each word - they're done in a different color).  I was excited.  I was doing a happy dance!!  Imagine Snoppy with his head pointed to the heavens, his arms flung wide and a smile on his face -  that was me!!  Until I flipped over the page and discovered..........horror of horrors...............Miss Ann Medd - stinker that she is, or should I say, was - decided that she needed to put two Y's in her sampler!!!!  One just wasn't enough.  Well, quite honestly it wasn't because the wording wouldn't have made it to the bottom if she didn't do something.  With that discovery, I gently put her down and left the room.  My elation deflated!

I've been dreaming of doing other samplers - ones that have caught my eye - Susanna Rambo, Ann Grant and the list goes on and on..........but they're going to have wait.  I see many bloggers starting these beauties and I'm jealous.  Insanely jealous.  But I continue on.  I love you Ann - I truly do - but you're a stinker!!  I'm being cautiously optimistic though and am thinking that she can be finished by the time Spring arrives.  Very cautiously optimistic.  That's about three weeks - can I do it??

So to console myself I buried myself and my sorrows in my craft room.  So many unfinished projects.  We do all know that I'm a habitual starter, but the basket with all things cut out was overflowing, so I finally decided that I needed to make space so I could cut out more (like those pesky FW and CW blocks that keep arriving in my mailbox).  So I finally put together the Basket Case quilt:

 Basket Case

Pattern by Cluck, Cluck, Sew

Bliss Fabrics

Then I went back to the red and white quilt since the border fabric finally showed up (sorry for the less than perfect photo set up with the folds in it):

Yellow Brick Road Pattern

Mostly Moda and French General Fabrics

I really love this quilt a lot and think that it will hang from a rack in my craft room.

Then I finally finished up the quilt for my daughter:

Not the best picture as the wind was blowing just a little too much and kept throwing it off the holly bush.  Here's a better one (somewhat):

Turning Twenty Pattern

Pillow and Maxfield Whimsy Fabric

All these of these were a welcome relief from the Farmer's Wife blocks and the Civil War blocks.  Basket Case was made from a jelly roll (most of the cutting done for you), and the other two were just cutting different sized blocks!  A lot of fun, but now I need to get them off to the quilters and get down to business on all those tiny FW blocks!!

So that's all the news that fit to report right now.  The weather is being its typical Michigan self.  Almost a foot of snow last weekend with more during the week here and there, and now we're in for heavy rain and thunderstorms!  Crazy!  But you should have heard the birds singing this morning.  They know that Spring is just around the corner - and for that I'm very thankful!!!

Thank you for all your great comments on my last post.  I'm always tickled to receive them.  They definitely keep me going - and with Ann I need all the cheering on I can get!!