A pillow by any other name is a . . . cushion

Last night's guild meeting went very well, in my opinion.  I tried to keep my mouth shut and let the new officers do what we elected them to do, and for the most part, I did okay.  I try not to be judgemental (That's a tip off that I actually am quite judgmental, one of my very few character flaws. Ha!) and appreciate that everyone has their own style of leadership. However, I'm beginning to see symptoms of micromanagement coming out of the new president and I'm curious to see how that's going to play out.  Time will tell, and I'll do my best to not speak of it unless it gets in my way.  Despite these thoughts, I truly enjoyed being at the meeting and not having to play much of a role at all. Just a regular guild member again--for this year, and then I'll probably get on one or two committees, but I need a break for awhile.

We always have show and tell at the end of the meetings and I brought two embroidered pillows that I'd finished recently.  The one below I embroidered while I was in Maine in April and May, 2016, and I finished it up into a pillow over the summer.  Lily really likes it and one of these days, it'll find a new home in Maine, I'm sure.

The second pillow that I brought last night is this embroidered scarecrow.  I wanted something to brighten up the house through Autumn and this design was perfect.  It actually was designed to be a framed picture, 11 by 23, but I added the rick rack and squared it off to fit a 14" pillow.  I really enjoy doing embroidery and will have to come up with another hand stitching project to keep my hands occupied in the evenings, but I'm not sure yet what it'll be.

This afternoon, I'm spending in the sewing room. I decided to get a head start on the row quilt that I'm offering the guild as a monthly quilt along.  I'll be gone at the end of the month and won't be home until the day of the guild meeting in October where I have to introduce the first row, so I want to have it completed and ready for everyone. I think I'll simply email the directions to the guild--saves paper and ink.

This and all the blocks I'm using in the quilt are from Marcia Hohn's Quilter's Cache. This link will take you to the page of instructions for the "Cat and Mice" block which is the first one in the quilt. I'll be making 4 of these 12" blocks and I'm going to use a different color for each, with the same neutral background for the row and throughout the quilt.  If I was really smart, I'd have the applique row prepared to take with me on the train trip to WA and back and get a lot of the stitching done on it, but I'll probably procrastinate and not get it ready.  Besides, I may want to machine applique instead.

So, it's off to the sewing room. I'll post pics of the finished blocks tomorrow--promise!