Day spent quilting

Like lots of other people employed (or "technically" employed) by the government, I had today off.

(They do encourage people to go and do some public-service projects. I didn't; I'm still fighting this cold a little bit - my throat was worse when I got up this morning. And I think the public service is actually more aimed at the students, anyway).

I spent most of the day working on quilt projects, as I often do when I have a bigger chunk of time.

I did some hand quilting (and will probably do more, this evening).



I'm down to two more "triangle" blocks (plus this one in-progress), one of the "big" blocks (the red and white 16-patch next to the one I'm quilting on), and the borders. I'm beginning to get excited about this project again because it's nearly done. That's how I always am with projects: excited about them at the beginning, then I hit a wall somewhere in the middle and just have to keep pushing along to get to the point where it's nearly done, where I then get excited about it again.

I have binding put aside - a plain yellow that I think will pick up the yellow flowers in that red print, which makes up much of the quilt.

I've decided that my "next quilt" in this frame is going to be this one:



For one thing, it will be fairly fast - I think I'm going to do an "x" in each square block and then some kind of little cable design in the one wide border - but also because I really like all the novelty prints in it and want to quilt it up. (And I have a fun backing for it, too).

I also worked some on one of the quilt tops I had started and had kind of not worked on all fall long, when I was so busy.



It's still not done yet; there are (I think) five more of the print strips to attach (with their sashing), and then wide borders of the white fabric that go around the outside. The pattern is called "Flower Show," it is from the Spring 2010 "Quilts and More" (which is a Better Homes and Gardens imprint).

I think one of my goals this spring is to piece more tops, and to get in and go through all my stacks of "fabrics I want to use together" and start putting them together into tops. Even if I wind up "leaving behind" a lot of unquilted tops - or even if I wind up donating a bunch to somewhere that will quilt or tie them to be used for various good works. One thing I realized when trying to deal with the mouse issue is that I have a rather shocking amount of fabric.

So rather than "saving" fabric for "just the perfect pattern," I'm going to focus more on finding patterns I want to sew, and then just using fabric out of my stash for them.