Working Hard

My husband has started to remodel the bathroom and the destruction of one room, has somehow managed to track stuff all over the house. We spent weeks looking at different tiles and fixtures and planning out exactly where everything will go. Nobody can swing a hammer in the house without everyone getting in on it, so much fun is being had by all.
I ran a 5K yesterday morning, followed by a long shower and lovely nap, but then I finally sat down to finish quilting the pinwheel quilt. The binding is even on, but still needs to be hand sewn. I think I like the back of this quilt more than the front, especially because everything on it was leftover from something else. The Churn dash in the middle is from the baby quilt I made for my first daughter who is almost 9 now.

I got a package of scraps in the mail on Friday, and spent the evening turning them into strips and squares. I find cutting fabric to be so relaxing. Something about taking a big bag of cast offs and turning it into something useful is very pleasing. There were a bunch of pink bits that I can use in the quilt I have planned for my niece, and some bigger pieces I can use for more OC blocks. I think I have enough now, but I wanted a few extras to play around with.
Part of the family has gone to race pine wood derby cars, and I'm taking the rest to a library book sale. Ice cream has some how found its way into our plans, so I'd better get moving. I want to get my Carolina Crossroads quilt basted this evening, but I should plan tomorrows scout meeting and start working on final exams. Summer vacation is so close I can almost taste it!

Retail Therapy

After being a single mom for most of the week I had an uncontrollable urge to get out of the house tonight. I let my husband feed the kids dinner and made a trek to Joann Fabric. I didn't have a coupon, so I decided I would only buy things if they were on sale. They were having a really good sale :) I got some pink for a quilt I am going to make for my niece. Her two brothers got quilts recently and I don't want her to feel left out. They had some remnants that were really on sale and thread was half off as well. Even the batting was on sale, so I picked up one for the Carolina Crossroads quilt, which is next to be quilted, and one extra for whatever comes next. I started quilting on the pinwheels quilt. I decided to try to do something kind of curved and am drawing a pinwheel shape in each block. I'm not great at machine quilting yet, but I get a little better with each quilt. I is really nice to finally have a machine that will handle the free motion work without throwing a fit! I can still remember wrestling with my old machine as it ate up the quilt top, tangled the thread or made ugly tension knots.

A little quilting

Today is the last day of spring break and I celebrated by getting one last quilt basted and ready to go. Bernie is back in the shop for some sort of warranty repair on the door. When I took her in last week they said something was broken on the door and they would order a part. I was not aware of any problem with the door, but who am I to argue with the experts? So my dear husband dropped her off while I was away for my weekend with Mom and I can pick her up on Tuesday.

Since I was unable to actually start the quilting, I decided to audition a couple of quilting patterns instead. I tried Glad Press'n Seal and it worked great. It clung to the quilt and let me try out different designs. I was planning to do some sort of swirl in each pinwheel, but was having trouble transitioning from one block to the next. When I had Kurt look at it, he saw the broken dish block instead of the pinwheel and suggested using the same triangle design I have been using recently. He feels that the linear design of the quilt calls for an angular quilting design. I kind of liked the idea of doing a swirl in each of the blocks. I thought the curves contrasted nicely with the straight lines of the quilt blocks. The third option is straight line stitching in the ditch. Any votes?