Prepping

Good morning, my friends. It's going to be a busy day. In addition to a few housekeeping chores on the day's agenda, I'm going to do a couple of make-ahead dishes for our family dinner tomorrow. On today's list is creme brulee (just the custard for now), and some deviled Easter eggs. I was happy to find some beautiful fresh asparagus at the grocery store yesterday. That will be for tomorrow, and our dinner is shaping up nicely.

It was fairly late in the day by the time I was able to get to any sewing tasks yesterday. It seemed a good time to get ready to quilt the Amish Sampler. 

I was thinking more about how the back was going to look, and these were my thread nominees. (Thank you, Ila.)

The backing fabric was included in a box given to me by a friend. He was friends with a quilter who passed away last year, and he's been helping distribute her stash. It's a dark purple with some lighter purple mixed in. As I'm writing this, I'm realizing this doesn't stick with the Amish solids-only tradition, but oh well. Desperate times, you know...

Because I'm not a confident quilter, I never want my quilting to show too much. These two variegated ones had an awful lot of white in them. That worried me. The three spools to the left among the candidates seemed to have too much pink.

But when I laid them out on the back, I really liked the way the lower one looked. The pink in the thread blends in nicely with the fabric, and that made it an easy decision.

I have three spools of this 40-weight King Tut, and I'll use it both top and bottom.

The quilt has five rows of four blocks. My plan is to quilt one row per day, then an additional day each for the vertical and horizontal sashings, then one more day for the outer border. I wasn't in the right head space to start yesterday, but I'm hoping to get going on it today. I left it needle down at the friendship star.

Knowing I would be finishing the Cozy Quilt stitchery soon, I'd already prepared the next batch of Tiny Treasures for stitching. It's hard to see on this fabric...

And so I'm showing you the page from the book. These are the ones I'll stitch next.

There wasn't time for much else. I was close enough to finishing the Cozy Quilt that I decided to just sit and do it. And there it is. 

It's still trying to decide what it will become. It could be a small wall-hanging...or a mug mat...or I could follow the recent idea of my friend, Wendy, and use it in a quilt somehow. 

And that was a colorful way to end the day. Looking outside, the heavens seemed to approve.

And I can't let the day go by without wishing this handsome young man a very happy 42nd birthday! Good grief. Where does the time go? 

We'll celebrate tomorrow, and I'm looking forward to that.

Okay, so there's much to do today. I'd better get to it.