And the weekend

 Saturday I did go to Sherman. The verdict: the bridge over the Red River isn't fun (they've taken away anything like shoulders on the bridge so you drive uncomfortably close to the railing, but at least it's short - the road over the dam looks like it would be a good bit longer). Went to JoAnn's and to Ulta, and then drove over to Brookshire's (it's farther, but it has better produce and a better cheese selection)

Today, I finished the blocks for the newest quilt top, but ran out of energy to try to lay them out. This is a much bigger job than sewing is; you need a large flat area to lay them out on. Usually I use my bed or the living room floor - but the floor would need to be swept, and I'd have to strip the bed, at least partially, in order to lay it out. 

A lot of people who do large amounts of piecing have "design walls - either an actual section of wall, or a very large piece of foamcore that is covered with flannel (so the quilt blocks will stay on via friction) so they can lay out the quilt without having to crawl around on a floor (which does kind of stink) and can also look at it from a distance to make sure everything is balanced.

I DID separate the blocks into different color families, so I might be able to draw up a diagram and just figure out the layout on paper, instead of having to do it in actuality - I did that once before with another quilt and it worked. (Or maybe sometimes I'm too fussy about the layout, though this one has the same print in a lot of colorways, and I want to try to space those out a bit so it's not a big blob of the same print on one part of it).

I'm contemplating "next quilt top" - I have some vaguely-70s-color and print-style fabrics that might work (two "charm packs") and a pattern they would work with, but not enough of the sashing I'd want to use, but I have a second fabric that I could use for the middle-most part....I think that would look okay. (I don't quite feel like going out to buy more/new fabric for this). 

I don't really have a single color or style I use for quilting; part of the fun of it for me is doing different things. But I admit the 70s-fabulous colors (that sort of bright cobalt blue, and an acid green, and a pinky purple) and prints (apples, mushrooms) make me a little nostalgic; I remember fabric like that from when I was a child.

I did also pull out the long-stalled hexagon quilt with the idea of packing it up and taking it with me to work on at my mom's - it's pretty good sized already but I want to make it maybe coverlet-sized. I'll probably have to consider handquilting it because it's handsewn and I'm not sure that would hold up to the pulling/tension of the machine. (My handsewing is not great. I know some handsewn tops do fine being machine quilted.)

I'm also slowly stitching down a quilt binding, but it takes a while. And I do have another one to make a binding for.