Butterfly Doll Quilt Finished

After returning to my sewing room this afternoon, I settled on the colors for the butterflies in this fifth of five doll quilts for my friend Lisa's granddaughter, Allison.  Little Allison is barely beyond toddlerhood, and so she didn't make any special requests for her quilt.  Her mother, on the other hand, asked for butterflies in reds and purples, and that is what she shall have.  Here is the completed quilt top:

This still needs to have the appliqued butterflies stitched down.  I'm trying to decide whether to use a blanket stitch as I usually do or whether to do a more raw-edged look by just straight-stitching around the edges, and then doing some machine embroidery on the wings.  Or I could do blanket stitch and embroidery.  Or forget about the embroidery and do it all with quilting.  I'm not usually this indecisive.  It always works best for me if I stare at a quilt for a while before moving forward with the decorative stitching in whatever form it ends up taking.  

One thing I am sure about is that I'm going to machine embroider some antennae on the butterflies using black thread.  Also, I'm planning to use that same black polka dot for the binding.  It's hard to see in this image, but the polka dots are multi-colored.  Also, I'm using the same floral border fabric for the back.  I'll probably end up quilting it with black thread for the back and a green multi-colored thread on the front.

For now I'm going to set this aside and let its future gel in my brain.  This works well when your brain is made of jello, as mine is.  Sitting around sewing all the time is turning the rest of my body into jello as well.  And this bothers me not at all.  I suppose it should.  And there's that word:  "should".  I try to avoid giving into "shoulds" as much as possible.  Twenty years ago my life was busy as all get out.  Somehow I managed to juggle a gillion responsibilities and not break a sweat. . . unless I was exercising, that is.  And I was exercising back then.  In addition to my gillion responsibilities, I worked out regularly.

There are some things I ponder . . . for instance, why things like exercise are not important to me at this point in time.  There was a time when it was of utmost importance.  Now fabric has taken first priority over form--my form.  I remember reading once that someone . . . someone who was an astronaut, I think . . . said that we only have a finite number of heartbeats in our lifetime and that he wasn't going to waste any of his on exercise.  While I know there is something wrong with that logic, for now I'm adopting it as my personal philosophy.  There are a lot of  positions that I adopt just "for now".  I like to keep my options open, you know.  I'm glad we've settled this, aren't you?

George and Gracie have decided to forego exercise for the time being too.  Snuggling on the couch is a lot more gratifying.

My agenda for the rest of the week includes finishing the back for the Home is Where the Heart Is quilt, making the next set of blocks for the Amish sampler, starting my April NewFO project, and if there are still days left in the week, starting on another NewFO.  That last one is a mystery because it's a gift for someone who reads my blog.  My lips are sealed.