Working on the beagle quilt

The weather certainly changed around here. Yesterday at noon, it was 60*. Last night as we were going to bed, it was 15*. Now they are saying we have snow coming in. I guess winter hasn't let go yet. I went to visit mom early this morning. I got all of her monthly bills in order. I had planned to do that tomorrow, but didn't want to take the chance that I would have to drive on snow. I hate driving on snow, even a couple of inches. We had a good visit. She gave me some earrings and some money for my birthday, Monday. Then my oldest brother stopped by. I hadn't seen him since Christmas, so it was good to catch up. He even remembered my birthday and said he would call me on Monday. (grin) He actually gave me some money and told me to treat myself to lunch the next time I am in town. How nice was that! I filled the car with gas before coming home. It has dropped from $1.79 to $1.62. Not sure what is going on with the yoyo gas prices, but sure hope we don't have a repeat of the over $4 a gallon of last summer. I got home just in time to get dh off to work. He is glad that it is Friday. He's looking forward to a couple of days off. I don't blame him. He works hard through the week.

I spent most of the afternoon working on the beagle quilt for dh. I am loving it so far.

What do you think? I paper pieced the zig zag border. I think it is called 3-D in my EQ6. I got the beagle design from this site. They have some amazing applique pictures of animals.

I am trying to decide what to use for the outside border. Which of these do you like best? The dark fabric at the bottom?Or this lighter fabric at the bottom? The plan is to put a 3 inch border around the quilt, then applique this little running dog around it. What do you think? One of these fabrics or a completely different color. He loves blue. Here is the little dog template. Isn't it cute? I put the beagle quilt up till next week. I hope to be able to start quilting it soon, but first have to do all the hand applique. This project has been fun to create and I think my dh will really love it.

I have also been working on some bags and purses. I have already showed you some of the bags I made this week. Here is a purse. I am not really pleased with it. The quilting just doesn't show up well on the flap. I should have used the fabric that I used for the back for the flap. Oh well, maybe I will make another one. Here is the inside. I tried to hold it open so you could see the pockets. LOL Here is the back. Like I said, I am not really thrilled with this one, but it does remind me of spring. LOL Do you see what I mean about the backing fabric? If I had used it for the flap, the quilting would have stood out nicely.
Not sure what the plans are for this weekend. I guess that will depend on how much snow we end up getting. Dh keeps asking me what I want for my birthday, but I can't think of anything. Maybe I will just tell him to buy me some more batting. LOL Sounds like a good birthday gift, doesn't it? He has suggested us going out to eat, but not sure I want to do that. I guess I will just wait and see what sounds good at the moment. Everyone have a nice weekend. I don't usually get time to post on the weekends. Thank you for visiting and please come again.