busy and busier

  This crochet afghan has been a long time in the making.  I finally sewed the ends in yesterday and now it is ready to head out to warm a baby.  It was made from leftover yarn from my son's Dr. Who scarf.  I like having a project to work on when I'm watching TV and a simple round and round afghan fits the bill nicely.
 This one worked up pretty quickly and is a corner to corner crochet afghan.  I found a bag of white yarn and it's another pattern that doesn't require thinking.  I love the texture on it and it's great because it could be for a boy or girl.

 12 hours yesterday were spent grading.  Yep, 12 whole hours.  But, to make sure I got up to stretch, I threw some quilts on the machine and at the end of each row, got up to push the button to stitch some more.  Here's a little one with horses.

 And spiders and snails.  I really love the snail quilt design I came up with.  It stitches out so cute.  It's a free design you can find on the top of my blog page.  Even if you don't have a robotic machine, you can print it out and then follow along with your lazer pointer or make a stencil for your own quilting.

And here's the backing of the next quilt.  This is another quilting design I came up with.  Cowboy boot and hat and this one stitches out so cute too.  I'm still in shock that I could draw something that actually looks like the idea I had in my head.  I'm not that great of an artist.  One thing I loved about teaching first grade was the compliments I got from the kids.  Oh, Mrs. Lewis, you are such a good drawer!  Why thank you!

And the front of the quilt.  So, yes, 12 hours of grading lab books and science fair projects and staying inside when it was 80 degrees and beautiful outside does have some benefits I guess.  Today is more grading time and more quilting.  I have to put some backings together before I can quilt anything else.  I wish they would put themselves together.  There are some 'least favorite parts of the job' and making the backings is one of those, but it must be done, so no more procrastinating.  My papers are calling me.

Oh, and I get to have a meeting tomorrow morning with my shooter boy's mom and the police officer and the district office big shots and we will see what comes of it.  They already had one meeting where he lied and said he didn't say what he said.  Now, let's see what his story is when I'm there too.  Should be interesting to say the least.  He's been really quiet in class the last couple of days.  His dad asked him if he wanted to go to a different school and of course, he said he didn't.  Kids...  He did say that if he was going to bring a gun to school that nobody would know about it.  Gee, that makes me feel so much better.