I definitely have the winter blahs. This is nothing new; it happens to me every year after New Year’s. I’m never surprised when Punxsatawney Phil sees his shadow. It’s really unrealistic to think that Spring would come any sooner than the middle of March.  It isn’t all that unusual to hunt Easter eggs in the snow so I just appreciate every day when the thermostat gets above freezing.

The Great Hunter and I haven’t done much of anything to speak of. We’ve spent a couple afternoons watching movies in the living room and eating popcorn but other than that, he has his pastimes (read here, You Tube videos) and I have mine.

Back in November at the Loose Threads Quilt Show, I bought a used book on a quilting technique called “Foundation Paper Piecing”. It’s a quilting technique that uses paper patterns to sew the pieces of fabric directly onto the paper which stabilizes the block. Once the block is put together, the paper, which is sewn to the wrong side of the fabric, is torn out. I had never tried this technique and once I tried it, I was hooked! I was able to make much more precise corners in blocks and there was much, much less distortion in the finished blocks.

So during the month of December, when I wasn’t shopping or wrapping or planning for Christmas, I was planning a paper piecing project that I found on the internet. It is a rather elaborately pieced quilt top titled “Cabin by the Lake” by Royal Quilting Designs.

This pattern is made for a large quilt. I found out several years ago that I’m not cut out for large quilting projects so I knew I needed to make it in a much smaller size. During my Christmas prep downtime, I spent it finding and ordering the fabric I wanted (even though I have bins and bins of fabric, the perfect one never seems to be in there) and finding paper piecing block patterns I could use for the redesign of the pattern to the smaller size.

Each block of the design requires at least one printed paper template so once I decided on a particular block, I had to make several copies in different sizes.

Finally, after the first of the year, I got to start working on my project.

All throughout the month of January, I pieced the blocks and when I had several blocks completed, I would sew them together into a larger block.

And finally, last week, I put the last blocks together. All that’s left now is to make the “quilt sandwich” which consists of the backing fabric, batting and the pieced top. Then I have to quilt the top and put on the binding. Eazy peazy.  I call mine “Cabin in the Woods” cuz I’m not sure where the lake is supposed to be.