Almost there, still breathing

Breathe is off the long arm and has her binding sewn on the front. I will be spending some time stitching it down by hand and mending in the ends - there are a lot of ends from where threads broke or bobbins ran out. More organized folks mend them in as they go. Right now she feels fairly cardboardy from all that thread on the Essex linen borders, but I am fairly sure that a wash will fix that.



I did finally finish my spiderweb blocks for Clara for May in the Modern Stitching Bee. I try not to get behind on bee blocks, but I have to say that I really don't like making these blocks. The spiderweb quilts are amazing but I cannot imagine making a whole quilt of the blocks myself, so a perfect bee block.



Some thoughts if you were making a bunch. Get your strips sorted and cut to the right widths before you start. Piecing them into strip sets before one attached the first strip to the centre point would also make the process more friendly and faster too.

By the way, have you been to Flickr lately? They have done another upgrade and I like it much better than the just past version. I have to say that I love flickr, and I am glad to see it becoming a little more friendly to use again too.



These Bonnie Hunter's Boxy Stars are for Celeste in Always Bee Learning. She sent the fabrics already cut to size, so the blocks were a breeze to put together. Getting to the mail has been more difficult and it is on my list to mail both these sets of blocks off today.



My other Boxy Star. This is one of those blocks that I would like to play more with one day. I still have Anneliese's June bee blocks to get done in the next few days - they are each composed of 36 HSTs with my own fabrics so I am back to the scrap bins again.



I woke up to read the wonderful things that the Pink Chalk Fabrics folks wrote about my pattern on the Pink Chalk blog and then again here in their newsletter today. Thank you Kathy and Diana and all the Pink Chalk folks, you made my day! You can now purchase my Canvas pattern at Pink Chalk Fabrics too.



So now I want to finish these funky Canvas pillows. With Breathe off the long arm, I can put these pillows on it tonight - maybe its time for a version of Canvas with matchstick quilting.


There are a few things coming up here. It is the end of Q2 in the FAL this month, so I am checking my list to see if there is another finish I can manage in time. And I have to decide which quilt to enter for consideration for the Modern Quilt Showcase for the International Quilt Festival show in Houston as entries close tomorrow and clearly Breathe will not be finished in time.  Jess and I are, for sure, running our next instalment of Decipher Your Quilt next Thursday and I need to get my photos of how to make circles finished for that.

But for now, I am off to my day job. Which is a good thing, as I might have ordered yards and yards of Brambleberry Ridge - Violet Craft's new fabric line - last night.

Best,

Leanne