I did have plans. All the doll and community quilt tops that I made from the leftover bin were finished. After I counted them, I thought that if I quilted one doll quilt and one community quilt a week, they would be complete by the end of September. I could also quilt at least one of the larger quilts every month. It was a great plan. If only, I had stayed with it. Quilting doll quilts was quick and easy. Instead of alternating with the community quilts, I quilted all the doll quilts. They have all been bound.

The community quilts take longer to baste. Some don’t seem large enough and are asking for another border. The sewing room is not calling me right now. I may set the community quilts aside for a while and then go back to them later. Maybe, I’ll just baste them on the basting frame while sitting in the shade in the back yard. Then, they will be ready when the mood hits.

Some of the doll quilts.

I found The Colorblind Quilter blog. It is an awesome blog. Last March, Tom started a Series of videos on “This is How You Quilt.” The older videos are still available. He teaches walking foot quilting. Our lessons are on 10″ squares. Later on, we will bind them and put them in a book. It starts simple and, probably will be more complex as we do our lessons. He not only shows you how to quilt a piece, but also shows quilts using the quilting pattern. His video on procrastination was informative.

#1 straight lines

#2 shattered glass

#3 starburst

I thought that it would be fun to quilt a small piece with every new design. I had made a small easy peasy mystery quilt and quilted it with disign #1.

The gardens need work. Some of my perennials didn’t make it through the winter. Others need pruning. The raspberries look good this year. I spent a few days at York Beach and the weeds grew fast while I was gone. York Beach is one of my favorite places. I love poking around in the stores. Saltwater Taffy from the Goldenrod is a must.

It’s time to go outside into the gardens, so—

have a great day and happy quilting.

It is so good to be back to sewing and quilting. There wasn’t time in the day to be in the sewing room for the last few weeks. I did do some sewing though. My sewing machine was on the dining room table along with friend’s machines. We worked on the guild raffle quilt, The top is finished, and it is stunning. After it is quilted, I’ll get it back to sew the binding around the edge. Then we’ll have a sewing bee to hand tack it down. It’s fun to quilt with others.

Then, there were meetings, a cookout, coffee and doughnuts at the office parking lot and lots of other activities that took time. The gardens are finally in order and doing well. They just need maintaining with a little weeding now and again.

The flowers are beautiful this year.

The doll quilts and charity quilts tops have been organized. I had made fourteen of each type from the bin of scraps and leftovers. There is still a small baggie with leftovers including the flamingo fabric. I’ll get to that after all the tops are quilted. The doll quilts will be quicker to finish, so I’ve been working on them first.

These are ready to sew the bindings down.

The Guild had a quilt retreat in May. Everyone worked on their own project. It was a time of fellowship and good food. I really didn’t need to start another bed quilt, but I did. I had the pattern for years and finally decided to make it. It was either that or put together all the 1 1/2″ squares that I’ve accumulated. I’ll save that for another time. Originally, I was going to make the quilt with Japanese fabric, but I changed my mind and used some of the Jinny Beyer fabric that I bought on her final sale. It is almost finished. I’m making a piano key border with leftover pieces. It should be ready to go to the long arm quilter soon.

The long arm quilter has finished a quilt. It’s ready to bind. I have enough hand work for a while.

Have a great day and happy quilting.