Busy, busy

It's been a busy week, and this coming one looks like it will be similarly busy.  Monday was our usual monthly library board meeting, and Tuesday the monthly quilt guild meeting.  Our speaker, Sharon, at the latter came from Bennington, 2.5 hours south of us, and because I know her slightly, I offered to have her spend the night rather than driving home late.  I was not on the May guild "team," but so many of their members couldn't come that I arrived early to help Sarah, Marty and Betty set up chairs and tables.  Then we all met Sharon for a quick dinner across the street from the church.

Sharon's program on mini quilts was amazing because she showed a seemingly endless array of minis she has made.  I estimate about 75 came out of her suitcase, and we spread them out on tables around the room.  I had made a mini for the paint chip challenge which was one part of the show and tell, too.  The colors I drew were royal blue, light blue, and lime green, and the night we drew the colors, a floral in the same colors happened to be on the "free" table.  I just had to use it.

After the program, Sharon came home with me and we had a great chat about all sorts of quilting things.  She isn't a fan of the Studio 180 approach to quilting (sew it bigger and cut it precisely using specialized rulers) either.   She shared some hints for paper piecing and gave me a nice schoolhouse pattern.  I do think I should make more minis but somehow my quilts always end up so large.

Later in the week, I worked on my "convergence" quilt, begun after the Ricky Tims Luminarium.  The top was hanging on the design wall, waiting to be sandwiched, and I noticed it was crooked.  So I cut the borders off and squared it up again.  Then I added a new border and quilted it Friday.  It looks good.  I finished sewing the binding down to the back on Saturday at my other, smaller guild meeting where we do handwork while chatting.  Very relaxing and often very informative.

Also on Friday, I started pin-basting a sampler quilt made of blocks from an exchange with an online group, Moda "Blockheads" weekly blocks, and other miscellaneous blocks.  There were so many colors in the blocks that I sashed them with a black print which has a green vine with red dots.  I have the binding all cut and ready to put on whenever I finish quilting.  But I took a couple of days basting because, when I use the bed in the guest room, I need to bend over and, thus, was taking care of my back.  It's only 62" x 72" so will end up a nice throw.

This week:  house cleaning! emergency library board meeting!  more quilting!