Weekend finishes

The weekend was sunny and warm - perfect summer weather.  I potted up lots of impatiens but still have some bare spots to cover in the yard.  Our lilies of the valley are blooming and looking fabulous with a backdrop of blue violets which will be removed as soon as they finish blooming.  Those violets always come back stronger each year.  Guess I'll be going out looking for plants tomorrow - hope there are some left!

I finished two guild challenges today.  First is the Asian panel everyone received this past fall.  I was going to cut it up in some way, but then I decided to use it to try "big stitch" quilting.   I found out that was not really for me.  It's hard to pull a big needle through the three layers of the sandwich.  

I did a little big stitch, and like the way the mountain looks.  For the tree I switched to regular quilting thread and a conventional stitch.  It really gave a lot of texture to the otherwise flat surface.  I also experimented a little with gold metallic thread, another difficult item to work with.  But I'm so pleased with the way the moon turned out that I'm calling this piece Moon Over Mt. Fuji.  

Mainly, I'm relieved to be finished!  And what will I do with this piece?  I'm not planning to hang it on a wall.   Maybe someone will need a gift sometime!  This will be shown at the June guild meeting, and I'm curious to see what others did with their panels.

After attending two talks about mini quilts this spring, I suggested a summer mini quilt challenge to the guild.   Even though I won't be showing my 10" square until September, I was anxious to give it a try.  And I thoroughly enjoyed myself.  

I used a paper pieced pattern from a friend, rotary cut the pinwheels, and paper pieced the flying geese from The Border Workbook.  A friend gave me a fat eighth of the print I used for the star points and outer border/facing.   I'm pleased with the way my Turquoise House Mini turned out. 

I noticed some people wearing name tags made of mini blocks at the state guild meeting, and this is something I'd really like to try this summer.

Next on my quilting agenda are a few blocks of the month that I haven't gotten around to along with more Dear Jane blocks.   After that, I hope to put the borders on the hankie quilt and start quilting it.   I have two empty project boxes but I don't want to start any more projects until I've cleared away some more UFOs.