When we decided to move house last July, quilting basically went on the back burner. We had a lot of belongings, and we knew that it was going to take a fair amount of time to go through everything and decide what to keep, what to donate and what to purge. Furthermore, we knew that it was best to start packing up the things we rarely used, and so by the end of July, that process was pretty much in full swing. During this time, of course, quilting was not really possible, in large part because my studio was prime storage real estate.

Just about the time we were getting ready to close on the house in November, one of Chris’s colleagues welcomed a new baby. I wanted to make a baby quilt, but with everything going on, there just was no way that was going to be possible. But when I was on vacation, I had time to work on putting something together. I know it’s late, but better late than never, right?

This is one of the simplest quilts that can be made, in my opinion, yet it remains one of my favorite designs. You may remember that I gave my son a nine patch quilt for Christmas a couple of years ago, and I have made several others along the way in the last 20 or so years. In fact, my very first quilt was a nine patch. I find something soothing about the process of piecing them, and when I want to “get back to basics” the nine patch is where I start. They are also super fast to make, so I can put a top together in a day when I put my mind to it. In fact, I did most of the work on this top yesterday. I had the nine patch blocks made in a few hours, thanks in large part to my AccuQuilt Go!

I’m using the Woodland Musicians fabric line from Michael Miller as the inspiration for this quilt, and I think it’s absolutely adorable. The bright colors gave me a lot to work with, and who doesn’t love animals playing instruments? The top is together so now I just need to sandwich it and start quilting it. I’d like to get it delivered this month, because I have so many other things I want to work on, and I continue to find cute projects I’d love to tackle.

In fact, one of the things I’d really like to do this month is the In The Hoop Patriotic Table Runner from Designs by JuJu. I haven’t tried an In The Hoop (ITH) project before, but I’m intrigued by them, and I’ve watched a few videos from Becky at Power Tools with Thread that make it look easy enough I feel like I can do it. I am going to squeeze in this project next weekend. We have a couple of months of patriotic holidays during the summer, and I think this would be a great table runner for that time.

There is also a patriotic placemat that I’d love to do. I definitely need some new placemats, so why not make them myself? Now that I’ve transferred to a building that’s just 20 minutes from home, I certainly have time in the evening to do things after work, and Lord knows I have plenty of things in the studio that I can do. I know we’re now more than four months in to the New Year, but I think my May resolution is going to be to spend at least 15 minutes a day in the studio. I can get a lot done in just 15 minutes, and once I get in there, I tend to want to continue working past the 15 minutes. My problem is that I am always so tired when I get home, but I also know that if I get involved in something, I’m less tired than if I just sit down after work.

At any rate, the truth is, I have many projects I want to do, and nothing gets done when you’re not working on something. It’s going to be my goal to work in my studio for 15 minutes a day and see just how much I manage to get done in the month of June.

What are your June goals? Are you working on anything special this month? I’d love to see what you have going on!