Just south of town there’s a giant spray-painted boulder referred to locally as “Blue Rock”, “Graffiti Rock”, or simply “the Rock.” It’s the unofficial billboard for the masses: team cheers, memorials, prom proposals…You name it, this boulder announces it to the world and has been doing it since at least 1966!

So, what does this boulder have to do with quilting? Well, it’s a stretch but it’s a great analogy of life, my life and the boulder of life I’ve been living under for the last 4-5 months. Sometimes you’re on top of the boulder of life, sometimes you feel like you’re underneath it! And I think if I were to connect the boulder with quilting, it would be that sometimes we have a great amount of creative energy and mental space to create, and sometimes we just don’t. And that’s o.k. Some may ask, Tonya, where have you been? What are you working on? Why aren’t you posting three times a day on social media? Your last blog post was in OCTOBER!

Well, my personal boulder would have several things written on it over the last few months and it would say something like this:

Sell house #1, buy house #2, pack house #1, move to house #2, sell a house #3, pack house #3, move house #3 across 3 states to join house #1 at house #3, break out in shingles, survive the holidays,  and sadly say goodbye to puppy #1 after almost 14 years as a member of our family.

Now as complicated and stressful (at least to me!) as all of that sounds, there’s LOTS of good in all of that, with the exception of losing the puppy. It just took a few months of focus, or should I say, distraction, to get there.

Sugar Shack, by Tonya Alexander

I’m happy to say I made it through the muddle, life is returning to a better balance, and we’re in a beautiful home, including a dedicated sewing space! Yeah! While I’ve been under my own personal boulder, a new book came out that included one of my favorite projects, Sugar Shack. (See, I did finally bring it back around to quilting!) And with all of my house-related drama lately, it seems pretty perfect!

Martingale just released a big, beautiful new book of lap quilts and it’s called, you guessed it,  The Big Book of Lap Quilts. Sugar Shack is making it’s second appearance, first being featured in another Martingale title called I Love House Blocks as part of their popular Block-buster series.

Sugar Shack is a project perfect for fat quarters and uses some easy half square triangle piecing for the roof line making it a quick and easy project. So if lap quilts are your thing – they are one of mine – then you’ll want to check it out. You can visit my shop page or ask for it at your favorite local quilt shop, they’ll be glad you did!

Other fun things are happening, visiting quilt guilds, teaching workshops and classes, and even finding a little time to sew with friends. More about all of that another time. But for now I think I will close with one more pic of the BEST. DOG. EVER. We miss you, our beautiful Seamus. Thank you for being a such a beloved part of our family. You were a blessing and made our lives full of unconditional doxie-love that is hard to imagine ever replacing…

Until next time, happy scrap quilting my friends – on top of all of the boulders of life!

Tonya