A Big Finish

Good morning, my friends. I'm feeling pretty spunky this morning, having finished the quilt top for Calendula Patterdrip's Cottage yesterday. It sure feels good. The quilt has been a thorn in my side practically from the very first stitch. Sometimes I think the witchy quilts are particularly uncooperative.

But let's just back up to the morning, shall we? I took the first stitches on the Humble Beauty embroidery piece. I wanted to stitch a little with all the colors I'm using. The floss is from my own stash, and I wanted to be sure the colors worked together. The green was my addition.

The only sewing I did yesterday was to finish up the final blocks for the outer border of Calendula Patterdrip's Cottage. For this, I had more help than you can possibly imagine. Certainly, it was more help than I could use. Smitty helped hold down the fabric while I cut it.

We briefly wondered whether these were kitty feetprints or woofie feetprints. We've felt all along that it's a travesty that there are no cats in Calendula Patterdrip's Cottage, and so we put some kitty feetprints in our pieced blocks.

Also, Smitty wondered if he shouldn't have his tail bobbed to be like Sadie's. His tail is annoying sometimes...always following him everywhere he goes. Could he live without it? We're still pawndering this impurrtant question.

The cutting for the five churn dash blocks took a surprisingly long time. I've pretty well picked over all my brown and tan scraps. That is not to say that the bins are any less full than when I started. They're simply filled with much smaller pieces than when I started. I was having a hard time finding anything large enough to cut the pieces I needed. Eventually, we got 'er done. I was reduced to taking apart cut-off bits of strip sets to get some of the pieces. With so much careful cutting, Smitty thought it best to sit beside me at the sewing machine to be sure I sewed them together propurrly.

Finally, they were finished.

Happily, all 42 blocks were finished. Here they are:

And then, I worried with so many seams and so much piecing if those were going to be hard to sew into borders. How much "easing in" would be required? Actually, they went together easily, and it was just about another hour before I had a finished quilt top. Ta-Da!

I had some fabric in the project box I thought might work as a quilt back, but I only have half the amount I'll need. I considered adding something to it for a pieced back, but then decided to wait. I have a birthday coming up in about a month, and I'll get a 25% discount at my favorite quilt shop. That's when I purchase fabrics for all the backs I expect to be making in the coming year. I'll wait until then. Another option is to take it south to a different quilt shop where they give a 25% discount on backing fabric if you bring in a finished quilt top. Vee haf our vays of getting fabric on the cheap. It would be worth the trip too because the quilt shop in question has moved to a new location. I've not been there yet. Also, there's another quilt shop in the same area that includes a cafe. I've not seen that one either.

Finishing the quilt top for Calendula Patterdrip's Cottage was my goal for April's

so I'll link up there when the party starts at the end of the month.

Okay, so what's next? Well, I've moved to the "Small Quilts for Quilting" section of my white board. Next up will be to quilt and bind the Best Friends quilt.

I'm pretty sure I already know how to quilt this, and so it should go pretty fast. After that, I'll be sewing this year's Stitched Inchy project into a finished quilt top.

I've pulled a lot of fabrics to finish this off, but I'm not sure I like any of them. I might need to enlist the consulting expertise of the Resident Engineer to help me make up my mind. Here's the thing though: I have to exhaust all possibilities first because I'm not always happy with the choices the Resident Engineer makes either. Nevertheless, if I ask him, I feel compelled to go with his choices.

It's a grocery shopping day today. Happily, our list is short since we're heading to the coast for a short camping trip next week. Most of the food for that trip will be from leftovers I've frozen along the way. This is the camping trip we've postponed at least three times. Maybe we'll actually get to go this time. Maybe we'll even get good weather. Stranger things have happened, right? After all, it's April in Oregon. Anything could happen.

Okay, it's time to get on with my day. I hope you have a good day planned for yourself.