Whew....

I have a good excuse...I promise. My new camera, my husband, my roommates, and even the memory card from my old ghetto camera went on spring break for a week and half in mid-March. They were here (well, ok, one roommate went to Hawaii - everybody(thing) else went to the British Virgin Islands).



And I wasn't bitter one bit that I was left here and that it rained the whole time they were gone. And I certainly wasn't bitter that I had to cat-sit for our friend's very grumpy 19 year old cat that apparently isn't very fond of other animals. And I especially wasn't bitter that they were running late for the airport and left the house a complete disaster.

Once I got the house clean (the house hadn't been this clean since we moved in 10 months ago) I continued on the home-improvement theme. I figured that by leaving they gave their implicit consent for whatever changes I might dream up.

So I painted these to go over the couch:





These paintings make me so very, very happy. I had never painted anything before, but I figured that it couldn't be that difficult. It's just paint and canvas, right? And since I had decided to paint quilt squares, I could just trace the patterns onto the canvas and then paint over them. In my family, the phrase "all you've got to do is..." is a recipe for disaster. Honestly, it usually ends with someone sitting in the floor in tears. So, it was a surprising change for this project to actually be even easier than I expected.

I also made these to go in our bedroom:



I bought the fabric for these back in the Fall, but was very sad to discover when I finished the first panel that they had cut the fabric 18 inches too short. With all this peace and quiet I finally managed to finish the second panel and bought more fabric to go at the bottom. The curtains are lined with black-out fabric, so they are finished just in time for the sun to start coming up at 5 am!

Oh, I also made this:



And I started this:



So, now that they're back and the house is trashed and they're eating all my food as fast as I can fix...I'm kind of wondering when they'll leave again....