Looking at my calendar, I realize now I am actually one week ahead of where I thought I was, work-wise. (I was forgetting that last week of January). So I actually do NOT have to write an exam this afternoon, or an exam review, or do some of the prep work I was thinking I would have to do.

So I'm declaring tonight (and maybe later this afternoon, depending on how long a meeting takes and how fast I can do a little bit of grading) a Work-Free Zone.

I haven't decided yet what I will do, whether it will be to try to finish the sock monkey quilt or whether to watch one of the Campion movies I have and knit on something too complex for a knit-and-read project (probably the Little Child's Sock; the Angst to Crowned Heads scarf, while a lovely thing to knit on, you can't exactly look at the screen while you're doing it, and yes, I enjoy WATCHING Peter Davison as well as listening to the dialog).

I do have another quilt (yes, yet another) I want to start sometime soon. (I do not know what this brings the total of "tops in the planning stage" to). I have slowly been accumulating "cute tiny animals" fabric - I bought a couple pieces of printed-in-Japan fabric with animals not at all unlike the Aranzi Aronzo bunnies and bears and other critters. And as I'd see a fabric in a shop that would go, I'd get it. So I have the three original fabrics, plus one with tiny cute frogs on it, plus a couple of cartoony cat fabrics and cute stylized houses. And then I found Superbuzzy, which sells Japanese fabric. And I bought some (hedgehogs, deer, and sheep) from them.

I love the fabrics because they are so cute. And, as another blogger - and again, I don't remember who, this was during a bored-weekend fugue-state of blogsurfing - said that she liked the Japanese fabrics because their color and design reminded her a bit of 1970s fabric. And you know, I think that's part of it.

I look at the "dancing hares" fabric from Superbuzzy and I can imagine my mother making a school jumper for me out of it; and the cute fawn being a full-skirted dress with a plain white yoke.

So, sigh, I suppose it's partly nostalgia that makes me love these fabrics.

The quilt top? It's going to be very simple - just a bunch of rectangles, maybe a finished size of 6" by 3", all sewn together like tiles. I'm going to do a small enough quilt - a lap or "napping" quilt so that 4 yards of backing will be sufficient, because I have a very cute Alexander Henry farm print in my stash that will then work for the backing - it was one of those fabrics bought super-cheap at the Sewing Studio's January sale and I liked it but never knew quite what to do with it.

And though I've spoken of more Project Linus quilts, this quilt is going to be for ME. I am already thinking of calling it my "Yes, I AM 40, why do you ask?" quilt. Because of all the cute and the little dancing animals. Some of which wear clothes.