Sew Satisfying

Today I had two goals:  (1) Unload the trailer, and (2) Sew.  Mission accomplished.

But before I tell you about my sewing, I wanted to show you the one-yard cut of fabric I won in the Summer Quilt and Recipe Fair put on by GenX Quilters earlier this summer.

I think this would make a cute little boy's quilt.  Not that I have a little boy.  My little boys are all grown up.  But I'm always hoping, you know.  Little girl, little boy.  It makes no diff to me.  A little person of any kind will do.

Also, I won this "Little Wallet" pattern by Valorie Wells.

You can use it for putting your little punch cards in.  I think these would make great Christmas gifts, especially for people who provide services during the year, like your hairdresser.

The day started out a little off because we're getting ready to paint the exterior of our house.  Our house has cedar shake siding, so in fact, it will be stained rather than painted.  That meant that it needed to be pressure washed so that it has time to dry before the stain is applied.  All of that to say that the pressure washer guy arrived fairly early this morning to get started.  Interestingly, when he removed a sun sculpture from the side of the house,

we discovered a little bat sleeping behind it.  We've provided them a lovely bat house because (crazy as it seems) we are actually trying to attract bats to our yard. 

They eat the bugs in the evening.  So we were surprised that, with these two structures being just feet apart, the one bat we've seen would take up residence behind the yard art rather than the little bat house we provided.  Maybe he's not happy with the condition of the stain on the bat house.  It was still in very good condition behind the sun sculpture, sheltered from the actual sun as it is.  We'll be sure to paint their house too.  Maybe then they'll like it.

So I couldn't really unload the trailer until the pressure washer guy left since he was raining water everywhere.  This was acutely distressing to George and Gracie, as I'm sure you can imagine.  I had little alternative but to head to the sewing machine and save the task of unloading the trailer for later.  I'm sure you can imagine how disappointing this was.

I was able to get the inner border sewn on the embroidery panel.

I think I'm going to use that same polka dot fabric for the binding, but I might decide on a royal blue batik I have. 

Then I made the 12-inch Martha Washington star block.

After that, I completed the final four of the pieced blocks, the 6-inch pinwheels.

With those all complete, I was ready to cut the final filler pieces and lay out all of the blocks.

So totally cool!  You must understand that I started this quilt nearly two years ago.  I honestly never thought I'd get this far with it.  Now I just have to sew all the pieced blocks together, and it will be ready to head off to the quilter.  I've also purchased three different sizes of hot fix crystals.  When it's quilted, I want to put them in among the embroidered snowflakes.  I did that on a quilt I made last Christmas, and it was very effective.

(I had to pause just now to hold the ladder for Mike.  He fell off the ladder last week when he was picking cherries from our cherry tree.  He's suddenly exquisitely aware of how easily he could break a bone and be sorry for a very long time.  I don't know about you, but neither of us mends as easily as we once did.)

So.  I'm so excited that this quilt is nearly finished.  Too bad I can't have it finished for tomorrow because I'm meeting up with Tammi, my quilter, to pick up my Kitten's Tale quilt.  I can hardly wait to see it.  I just hope all the little yo-yo's stayed put while she quilted it.