Monthly Accounting and a Word About Batting

So, it's been a long time since I've made a list like this. I'm glad to say that most of the items from my last monthly accounting are truly finished, although one still sits waiting to be quilted.

Quilts tops that need basting, quilting and finishing:

Chocolate Covered Cherries (shown with its red backing fabric)

Sherwood Forest Romance

Briners' Picnic (yes, still)


WIPS that need piecing:

Hunter's Star (I pieced together the blocks I'd made and I love it but it needs to be bigger.

Green and white chain quilt (chain blocks are made, I need to cut the white blocks and piece them together)


It's not as big a list as usual. Maybe I've gotten better at narrowing my focus? I have other unfinished things that have been in a holding pattern for a while. But since I have no plan for them they don't make the list. Obviously there's a lot of quilting in my future.

I have the batting and backing for Chocolate Covered Cherries and Briners' Picnic so there's no reason I couldn't get serious about layering them this month. When I get the chain quilt pieced its going to make it to the top of the list since I"m making it as a gift for a friend. I don't know yet how big it's going to finish. Once I know for sure I'll be ordering the battings I need. I used a wool batting in Flying Rose and I love it! It's more expensive than the Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 which is what I have been using for the past several years but wool is LOVELY to work with and the finished quilt feels wonderful. As hubby says, $20 more per batting is a really a small fraction of the cost of the quilt. Sometimes I really love how he thinks

My New Cutting Board

I don't think I mentioned this to you before, but hubby gave me a mega cutting mat for Christmas. Someday I will have a dedicated cutting table and this will cover it nicely, in the meantime, it is the perfect size for covering either my dining room or kitchen tables. I LOVE it. He gave it to me rolled up pretty tight in a long box. Getting it unrolled in the first place was interesting. It's been lying out with coffee table books on it for about a week now, and it's finally relaxed enough to use, although it might be a bit of time before it's truly flat.

I'm a patient woman. Good things come to those who wait.

Tropical Storm

Many years ago, when we were still newyweds hubby fell in love with stack and whack quilts. They were not (and still aren't) my favorite pattern, and I told him that if he wanted one, he'd better sign up for a class and make one because it was WAAAAYYYYY the heck at the bottom of my list. (Before you get on me about this, please understand that at that time, I was working on a queen size mainer's compass medallion quilt for him.)

So you know what he did? He took himself down to the LQS and signed us both up for a stack and whack quilt, and then we went shopping. He chose a wild tropical print, and I chose a soft colored large floral print. His background was kona cotton black, mine was a white printed with pale green. He made a HUGE number of blocks, I made a moderate number of blocks. His got sewn into a quilt top that is king size, mine got sewn into a queen size top.

Last year, in the big UFO cleanout, I came across these two tops again. We sat down together with my friend Melinda who agreed to custom quilt his top. They talked at length about what kind of motifs were desirable and what we would need to buy in way of backing and batting. It took me a long time to get around to placing the required orders and getting the pieces to Melinda, but she did take them off my hands and on Christmas eve, she delivered the quilt to me in a secret meeting, because hubby did not know that the deed had been done. Of course it was not bound, but he was pleased, nonetheless to see the beautiful work that Melidna had done, and to realize that his quilt was all but finished.

And what has happened with my quilt top? Well. I hated the setting. So I took it apart. I removed all the borders and sashing, and squared up the blocks again. They are sitting in a neat stack in the fabric room waiting for their turn on my design wall. Now that I've taken "Ramblin' Rose" down, I will get them up soon. And so begins the process, again, of choosing a setting. I can't wait.