Making Progress

It was my second NBS day in a row. There was housework to do, but I didn't do it. When I'm on the cusp of finishing something, it's hard not to just keep going until it's done. Yesterday, I was determined to make the last of the Jericho Walls blocks. It's going to be a pretty quilt, but the blocks have been more of a pain to make than expected. They aren't difficult, but there are a lot of steps from cutting to completion. Of course, nothing could be accomplished without the assistance of the most dedicated sewing cat in the world.

He was fairly insistent we get on with sewing together October's light green blocks.

Mostly, he would like you to notice how purrfectly these blocks compliment his furs. You simply can't go wrong with grays and blacks.

He's considering asking for a small quilt to use in his photography shoots for Cosmeowpolitan magazine. This green reminds him of the many wild grasses he's sampled in his travels.

From there, I had just two blocks left, and I settled on lavender for the final two. They were laid out...
 

And sewn together.

And then they were all finished. I laid them out on the floor. There are 32 in all. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, these will be set on point eventually, and that explains the odd number. (Be sure to notice my newly-carpeted design floor.)

Earlier, I continued on with the quilting for the Snowflakes quilt. The setting triangles were next, and I'd printed out a motif I found on Pinterest. Sometimes I need to follow along as I start a new motif, and so I got the bright idea to clip it in front of my face. (I've simply laid papers like this on my quilt before, and then quilted them to the back when they got lost in the shuffle.)

It was a simple enough shape, but it was hard maintaining any symmetry. Oh well. I tell myself I like to keep the "free" in free motion quilting. It was pretty quick to stitch all the way around the quilt. It's hard to see on the front, but here's a look from the back. 

I was curious to see how it was looking, and so I took the quilt downstairs and laid it out in front of the living room windows where I get the best light for viewing quilting. Here's how it's looking so far. 

Next, I moved to the two inner borders. The innermost is from a pale blue fairy frost fabric. It has a little bit of shimmer. The next border out is from a fabric that has silvery, sparkly birch trees. I've used it for its trees, but I've also used it to make striped bindings and narrow borders. I like the sparkle, and so I don't want to be quilting over it with white thread. I'll leave that border unquilted.

For the other, I did a sort of upsy-downsy ribbon motif. It's super easy. You just do an edge to edge wavy line, and then a smaller one over the top. 

Now all that's left to quilt is the outer border, and I have a motif picked out for that too. I'll use that same blue and silver stripe for the binding. It's getting close.

So next on my to-do list is to sew together the quilt top for the Heartland Barns. As I've been working on this quilt, I've come across fabrics that I might use in the quilt top (or back). As I found them, I dropped them into the project box. As you can see, I've collected quite a few possibilities. Um...excuse me...could you just...

Okay...there we go. I won't use all of these. 

There are still some "barn quilt" blocks that I made when I finished off the Appalachian Memories quilt.

Some of them ended up orphans when I ran out of a certain fabric and had to rethink my design. I might use them in this quilt. 

If you remember how the quilt looks on the pattern cover, then you might remember it has about a zillion broken dishes blocks. Yikes. I'm not doing all that.

I have in mind to set the embroidered blocks as shown in the pattern, but then I'd like to do something with pieced maple leaf blocks. I found some free downloadable instructions that include three sizes.

So, I have an idea where I'm going with this, but it's hard to know where to start. It seems to me the most logical starting place is to sew together the embroidered blocks, and then measure vertical and horizontal space to see how many leaf blocks I can fit. Of course, I can always adjust by adding a border around the whole thing.

So that's my next sewing room quest. 

In slow stitching, I stitched far enough to move my hoop yesterday. This is a little more than half finished now.

When I finish that, I'll probably be ready to bind the Snowflakes quilt. Next up in slow stitching, though, is to get caught up on the Books & Roses blocks. The last one made was from July.

I've printed off the instructions for August, September, and October. November's block hasn't been released yet. I'm not sure if there will be more, although this was supposed to continue through the end of the year. We'll see.

Sadie was no help at all yesterday. She couldn't see any reason to abandon the best seat in the house: Mike's lap.

So I don't know if there will be any sewing today. We need to leave a little later to get our COVID boosters. We're going to a grocery store pharmacy, and we'll probably pick up whatever is on our grocery list while we're there. (This particular store usually gives a discount when you get a vaccine in their pharmacy.) After that, I'm not sure what will happen. I'm hopeful the shot won't make me sick, but that will be something to worry about tomorrow. (I don't know about you, but I keep a long list of things to worry about. I would worry if I didn't have enough to worry about. Wouldn't you?)

Okay, so it's time to get a start on my day. Breakfast is next, and then there will be some time for slow stitching before we head off to get boosted.