I finished up Marilyn's placemats just as Mary arrived to take Brownie for his walk.  I'm pleased with the way they turned out, and she also gave them her official stamp of approval.  

They're now wrapped and ready to mail tomorrow, so they should arrive in time for her birthday on March 18.

With that project complete I got back to working on the string blocks. These are the seven that I finished up today, bringing the total to 91.

That should be plenty to make up the center of a quilt.  My current plan is to border that with black, and then future  blocks (with a different fabric as the diagonal center strip) will surround that to achieve the 'best' size.

Dinner was yummy, and the three of us definitely pigged out.  Alex had made some hard-boiled eggs which then went into the smoker toward the end of the meat cycle, but I was not terribly impressed.