Pixilated Holland

It's been a little gloomy out lately and Paul hasn't felt well, but I did finally get a picture of the Pixilated Holland wall hanging I finished about a week ago.

I started with a pattern by Karen Abrahamovich who has made patterns in various sizes for all 50 states and several countries.  Not being one to follow a pattern, I found this to be quite intense to work on.  So I decided to make simple borders, using pieces of old curtains.  I still have some other curtains left that I can use sometime.  Guess I'm a hoarder of Dutch fabric.  I used variegated blue thread for the quilting which was quite simple, too.

My to-do list is rather long but I did manage to do a little yard work last weekend.  I have more to do... eventually.  It's been chillly out - 40ish in the mornings, rising into the 60s later.  Paul came down with what appears to be a cold so we haven't been walking much.  I have taken a few walks around the neighborhood by myself., and I even met some new people two doors down.  Because of his illness (not sure what it is despite tests and a chest xray), we decided not to go to my 60th high school reunion this coming weekend.  I just didn't want to make the 12 hour drive down and back alone.  We can always go down to visit the specific people I want to see another time.  They've promised to take pictures which will be nice.

The "Bags of Love" people put out a call for small baby quilts, so I got out some house blocks from my rainbow scrap challenge bin, put them together, and started quilting this morning.  I got so involved that I almost missed my scheduled pedicure.  It's cute and I hope it will make some foster baby happy.

Took Modern Jane to guild

We had our first Heart of Vermont Quilt Guild meeting of the year on Tuesday night.  Lots of people showed tote bags they had made as part of a summer challenge.  I made two but gave both of them away - one to my SIL Linda and another to my brother to give to a friend who has been driving him around and visiting him at the rehab.

I did get to show my Modern Dear Jane quilt that I finished over the summer.  I think I posted a picture of it hanging over the fence out front, but not the whole thing...

This will definitely be "it" for me and Jane.  I am happy with the wider gray sashing and the many colors on various black and white backgrounds.  It was definitely fun to make.  I'll take it to the fall meeting of the Green Mountain Quilters Guild in October, and then it will go on the quilt rack my cousin's husband made me.

Another finish!

It felt so good Saturday to put the last stitches into the hanging sleeve of Pixilated Holland!  I added Dutch tile squares cut from my old kitchen curtains for the border and then quilted it in vertical straight lines with variegated blue thread.  I just went parallel to the seam lines, and I'm pleased with the result.  You can barely see the wobbly lines now that it's all done.  This was just the right size quilt for machine quilting on my Elna.  I'll take it to guild tomorrow night to get a good picture.

As is usual for me whenever I finish a big project, I took a break from quilting yesterday.  We went to Paul's sister's for brunch, I did a load of laundry, and then I sat down to read for the rest of the day.  I have a few ideas of what to work on next, but it does feel weird not to have anything hanging in the closet waiting to be finished.  

But I am not feeling smug about it since I have 18 items on my UFO list - projects mostly half done, including several project boxes whose contents might end up being small quilts.  I'll take a look today, especially at the box of log cabin blocks made in rainbow colors since Christmas.   Speaking of that holiday, I do have a tree skirt I want to make for the library's Light Up the Library display//raffle.  And what about those shopping bags I planned to make the library staff?  Oh, boy.  I really don't feel smug now!

25th "anniversary"

It's hard to believe 25 years have passed since the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were hit.   I was in Washington, DC on 9/11, meeting with other state library people and the feds when we got the news.  The feds all left, and we couldn't get hold of our families by phone for a long time.   We watched TV together for a long time, then decided to keep working.  Without the feds, we got a lot done.  But I'll never forget the quiet streets in a usually bustling city.  Almost nothing was open, but thankfully the hotel treated us with kindness and food.

The state library people bonded during the days we couldn't get out of DC.  That's me, second from the left.  We got our work done and then we just hung out together, all ten or eleven of us.   Nothing was open so we couldn't visit the Smithsonian or any other sites.  After a few days, stores and restaurants reopened.  I ran out of money because I used the time to shop for fabric and things for our B&B.  We couldn't fly out of DC, so each person had to figure out transportation home, by train, bus, rented automobile. 

With a suitcase heavier than when I arrived, I ended up taking the train home, a 14 hour trip through New York City.  It's usually about 12 hours but we sat on the train waiting to go through the city for two extra hours.  In December, when we met again, I took the train, too.  Because of our strong bond, many of us still get together every Monday afternoon via Zoom.  What an experience!

Early holiday season prep

I spent most of yesterday updating the mailing list for the Friends of the Library's annual Light Up the Library fundraiser.  We write to merchants, clubs, and individuals, asking for decorated holiday items and gifts to display for two weeks before we raffle them off.   Judy and I added some names and deleted others that hadn't participated in the five years we've been doing it.  Because Paul and I have a couple of trips planned this fall, I'm trying to get all of the paperwork done sooner than in the past.  Or is it really sooner?   I do hope to have the initial mailing ready by the end of September. 

In between that chore, I did a little bit more quilting on the Pixilated Holland quilt.  Even though there are wobbles in the straight lines I'm doing with variegated thread, when I look at the quilt as a whole, it looks pretty good.  I have only a few lines left to do and then I can square the piece up and bind it.  The question now is:  flanged binding or no?  I'll do a little test before I cut the strips.  The quilt is only about 42 x 49" so it won't take much fabric either way.

I was pleased to get a call last night from my sister in law Linda who had received the origami bag I made and sent to her.  I wish I had taken a picture of it.  Just forgot!  I admired a similar bag made by a quilter I met at the Vermont Quilt Show in June.  She showed me how to fold a rectangle of pre-quilted fabric to make such a bag, and I still have the little piece of paper she folded to show me.  I had tried to make one before but gave up as the folding was a mystery to me.   I will hang onto the little paper pattern and the link as I'd like to make one or two more sometime.  Quilters are the nicest, most helpful people.

Rainbow baby quilt

The sun was shining brightly yesterday so we finally managed to get a photo of the finished quilt.  It's going to be a boy, so little Daley will be a big brother.  They had a gender reveal party over the weekend - amazing how American activities have slipped over the Atlantic to the Netherlands.

I love the striped binding and was happy to find the stripes slanted on the bias.  In pawing through my stash in search of something fun, I noticed several other striped fabrics just waiting to be cut into  binding.  Since I have several rainbow scrap challenge quilts on the slow go, I'm sure I'll be using them soon.

The back was made of a bunch of 10" squares my former neighbor Carol gave me as she was packing to move.  She was sorry to be so drastically downsizing, and I hope her new place has more room than she thought so she can build a new stash there.  I arranged the squares as a nine patch initially and then cut them, disappearing nine patch style.  I like the way the quilting stands out.

Happy Labor Day!  I hope to get out and do a little shopping.  We need some new sheets for the guest bed (we're still using some from our B&B days), and I want to get some mum plants for the front (actually the planters in the driveway).   Then I'm going to make some chili - there is definitely a touch of fall in the air every morning here.

The end of a busy week

It's Saturday!  A day to catch up on things like laundry, vacuuming, and a little cooking.   If I'm lucky, I'll get a little sewing in.  The rainbow baby quilt is all quilted and bound, but it's going to be gloomy and rainy today, so I won't take a picture until the sun comes out.  

After finishing the quilt, I got sidetracked this week hemming some jeans for Paul and doing a few other mending chores.  I put off picking up the two quilts Marie finished quilting until this Thursday - I was feeling overwhelmed by the mess in the quilting room when she told me they are ready.  Maybe I'll even get the bindings cut before I pick them up.  

I took a little time this week to organize things and made a plan to finish the blue and white Netherlands quilt I started earlier this year.  I'll add a couple of borders and then decide how to quilt the wallhanging-sized piece.  The pattern for the country was created by a Vermont quilter, Karen Abrahamovich, who also created one of this state.  I have an early version of that pattern which I intend to make... someday!

Before I work on the Netherlands, I'll turn my attention to the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  This month's color is purple which is great for me since I have a lot.  For that I am working on several quilts and try to make:  five log cabin blocks, two Traffic Stop blocks (a Pat Sloan pattern), two flowering snowball blocks, and one improv house.  That's a lot of UFOs, I know, but I plan to keep some of them going into the winter.  The log cabins will probably be put together before the end of the year.

We don't have any Labor Day weekend plans which is nice.  I hope to catch up on some reading, too, and may even clean up the gardens a little.  Hope your holiday is a relaxing one!

Quilting the rainbow

I sandwiched the rainbow baby quilt yesterday and started to quilt it.  Earlier in the day I bought the batt at the local quilt shop.  I needed a 60" x 60" batt fpr this little quilt which  measures about 49" square.  While I was there, I also found a fun striped fabric with many of the colors in it which I may use for the binding.  If not for this quilt, then for another.

The Quilters Dream batt is 100% cotton, and what a difference it is from the 80-20 batts I'm used to using.  It's much flatter and more solid which works well so far.  I started by using white thread on the top and cream on the bottom - so far so good, with no cream peeking through to the tp.  When I get to the various colors, I'll switch thread colors, although I will probably use cream for the yellow since I don't have any yellow thread.  I'm just stitching 1/2" from each seam.

I'll continue quilting with the white today before we head to the neighborhood annual summer picnic.  We have 18 people coming today for barbecued chicken catered by Randy the Racin' Chef.  Last year only two men came, but this year there will be four.  Most of the women are the same ones who come to the monthly women's lunches, and I'm disappointed that none of the newer neighbors are coming.  Summer is a busy time, and now that school has started again, everyone is getting their final gatherings and trips in before fall foliage season.  

Back in "business"

Our internet, TV, and landline were all down for three days last week.  It wasn't a total tragedy because my cell phone is on a different carrier.  But it was an inconvenience.  Spectrum was "upgrading" the system, but I was still able to get email and play New York Times games on my phone.  We have a TV with a digital antenna in the basement, so we only missed Jeopardy one night, much to our relief.  But it all recalled days gone by when our homes were quiet and our lives less distracted.  Not a bad thing!

I got some sewing done, too, this past week.  I finished the Rainbow baby quilt top and hung it up in the closet to wait for quilting.  I have a bunch of beige squares that I got from my neighbor Carol that I'll sew together somehow for the back.  The parents to be requested a beige quilt with the previous baby, so I'll do the same this time - bright back, beige (ugh!) front.

Meanwhile, I got out a box marked HSTs and sifted through all the cut-offs and leftover half square triangles.  The tiny ones, mostly likely from a long ago Bonnie Hunter mystery, were thrown out which I should have done ages ago.  If I still had a dog, I might have used them to stuff a dog bed.  But I know I'll never do anything with them, as there were potential HSTs in larger sizes.  I'm not sure where I'm going with the ones I sewed together, but I now have a collection of 9 patch blocks made of HSTs.

Then I turned my attention to starting a new row-by-row quilt, my 2026-27 guild row robin project.  My theme this year is "Fall" which includes colors I don't usually use together.  But my stash holds quite a few oranges, browns, beiges, greens, etc. to use up.  I'm telling the other quilters not to focus on Halloween, so I left out any fabrics directly related to that "holiday."

It's really difficult to take a photo of something so long and skinny, but you get the idea.  My initial row turned out to be 48.5" long.  The blocks were 6" baskets set on point, making the row is about 9" high.  I could have made maple leaves, but I thought I'd leave that for someone else to make.  I also made a small strip of 2.5" yellow HSTs (from the aforementioned box) that I will save for another row when the row robin return to me.   One of the members of the group wants people to attach their rows as her quilt moves along, but I'm asking everyone not to do that with mine.  I'd rather put the rows together myself, maybe with a bit of sashing in between the rows.

A touch of fall in the air

Yesterday our neighbor came over for dinner wearing a sweatshirt.  It was a bit too chilly to sit outside while Paul and he grilled the brats, Wisconsin style.   Rich is from the midwest so he was coaching lifelong New Englander Paul on the finer points.  They turned out delicious and went well with my potato salad and baked beans.  At any rate, I'm sure we'll have some warmer days going forward, but we did enjoy the cooler evening.  "Good sleeping weather," as the former TV weather lady always said.

Fall is just about everyone's favorite season here, and I now have a hankering for cider donuts, chili, and apple pie.  But there are plenty of summer things we haven't done yet, including walking up to the Grand Lookout (at left), visiting the Shelburne Museum, and more. Where does the time go?

I spent yesterday morning hemming a curtain for another neighbor's front door.  I had been worrying about it because home sewing is just not what I do.  To begin the project, I cleaned my machine thoroughly and changed to a 70/10 needle with white thread.  I also measured against the former curtain several times to make sure I'd end up with the proper length.  And it all worked out great, and my neighbor was pleased.  

I did sew another white round on the rainbow baby quilt, and today I'll tackle the blue scrappy round.  I continue, albeit slowly, to knit on the purple scarf.  I'd like to finish it so i can get back to knitting a few more hats for foster kids through Bags of Love.  I use bigger needles for those so they get done faster.

I'm reading an interesting mystery for my book group, Murder by Degrees, set in 1873.  It tells the story of a woman doctor who discovers during an autopsy that a supposed suicide is really murder.  So far it's very atmospheric and full of medical details.  This is a bit of a departure for me, but I'm enjoying it.

Another start

On Sunday afternoon, I decided to sort through all the catalogs and magazines that had been piling up in the living room.   The ones with clothing were all advertising stuff for spring and summer!  Consequently, almost all went into the recycling bin.  

But one of them went up to the sewing room with me.  It was a pamphlet with patterns for scrap quilts that came with my renewal of American Patchwork and Quilting magazine (sorry about the glare), and it showed a very do-able little quilt using pieces of the rainbow, arranged ROYGBIV style.

I have a new grandniece or -nephew coming this winter, so I thought I'd give it a whirl.   I'm sure the parents haven't decided on a color scheme for their little surprise, so I'll wait to create a back in a color(s) of their choosing.  (I hope it's not "neutral" like the last one I made them!)   I've made three rounds and hope to add the green round today.

I'm using a white dotted fabric for the strips in between.  The original pattern shows a light blue dotted fabric which is also nice, but I don't have enough of any color for that.  It's quite easy although it's important to square up everything after each round of color.  I don't want to end up with a parallelogram!

I'm heading to the quilt shop this morning with the Gumballs and purple Round Robin quilts.  I'll tell Marie there's no rush on the quilting.  Having just finished Dear Jane and Wensleydale, I am definitely not in a hurry to bind two more quilts.

I need to get some more thread as well as a new blade for my smaller rotary cutter.  I am hoping to make a Flowering Snowball quilt this fall also, and I find the smaller cutter is easier to use around the plastic templates.   I already took a small chunk out of one point the other day as I tried to cut some pieces ahead. 

Quilt pictures

 It was sunny and not too wet outside yesterday so I decided to take pictures of two quilts I finished recently.  First is my Modern Dear Jane, which I started 1/1/23 and finished 8/2/26.  Phew!  I love it and can't wait to put it on our bed.  That will have to wait until the cooler nights when we put two on.  I will enjoy looking at each little block.

I quilted this myself, in sections, and hand stitched the binding to the back.  Here's a close up.

And here's my Christmas Wensleydale which I started last winter and finished in the spring.  I had Marie quilt it with her long arm.  I machine stitched the binding.

I really don't need another Christmas quilt, but I had a lot of scraps.  I thought I could do the whole thing with the scraps in my stash, but found I needed more fabric, including the fabric for the border.  It's hard to see in the picture but that inner border is a soft blue to go with the floral outer border.  This will be fun to use during the holidays because there are some cute little motifs here and there.

Maple leaf blocks

For the sampler I'm designing for the state quilt guild, I made a couple of blocks that I really like this weekend.  One is a 12" maple leaf block and the other is a 12" block made of four 6" maple leaf blocks.  They will end up as the centerpieces of the sampler, I think.

I wish I had cropped the photos before downloading them from my phone!   I was just too eager.  I'll have to crop them before I write up the instructions.  Maybe I was thinking ahead to the yellow rainbow scrap challenge blocks I plan to make this week.  

I did make five log cabin blocks yesterday after I made a batch of nutella cookies and a large pan of brownies for library programs this week.  The kitchen got quite hot, but the cookies were delish.  

Our friend Fred is coming over for coffee on Friday morning, and I'd like to make something special to serve.   Will we have enough cookies left over or should I make something with blueberries?  That is the question!  And if the latter, shall it be bread pudding or muffins?  I guess I'll decide tomorrow...

A hot week coming up

The weather people are predicting a hot and humid week ahead except for today which I had already set aside for baking and, perhaps, jam making.  I promised cookies for library programs Wed. and Thurs., and our friend Fred is coming for coffee on Friday.  Luckily, we have a heat pump which offers air conditioning when we need it.  I'm going to try to do a little cooking ahead today.  Our blueberries are coming in fast and furious.  Peaches are ripening, too, for some blueberry peach jam.

Over the weekend, I worked on blocks for my planned Green Mountain Sampler, a compilation of blocks selected from the last 40 years of the state quilt guild's various raffles and challenges.  2009's block was a maple leaf, and I made a 12" and four 6" blocks.  Those were fairly easy.  

I've been thinking about how I'm going to put all the blocks together in a sampler with some fillers like checkerboards and flying geese.  This is a fun project for me as guild historian.  My goal is to have the written instructions and the finished throw-sized sampler quilt ready for the spring meeting.

Yesterday I tackled the 2019 block which was the center of a guild logo challenge based on the 12" APQS Vermont block which is paper pieced.   The result was disappointing to say the least.  I now remember doing this back then and finding it very difficult to make all the points match.  

I will have to do my sample over before I can publish it in the booklet/web page I'm planning.   I now remember making an 8" block based on Marcia Hohn's Vermont 2 block, also paper pieced.  I'll pay better attention to the colors as well when I get around to it.  I really don't like the way these colors are arranged.

But before I tackle a re-do of the Vermont block, I will work on this month's Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks:  log cabins, improv houses, and traffic jams.  The color is yellow - hooray!  My yellow/gold box is full of scraps.

Gumballs top

Even though I had a lot to do last week (Heritage Days, after all), I started a new quilt.  It's a scrappy one called Gumballs, a pattern I saw in another blog and which appeared in McCall's Quilting some years ago.  I decided to try to use up some blues and, unusual for me, cut all the pieces before sewing them into blocks.  I needed 120 nine patches and 120 half-square triangles, plus other fillers!  I can almost close my blue fabric tub now.  

Over the weekend I managed to get most of the blocks together and finished the 60" x 72" top yesterday.   I have some pieces of previous backs ready to put together today.  But I'm not all that thrilled with the whole thing.  Maybe I'll like it better once it's quilted.  At any rate, I'll take it to Marie for quilting when I have the back ready, and I'll probably give it to Bags of Love after that.  

Meanwhile, Dear Jane has been languishing on a chair, waiting to be bound, and I did get half-way around over the weekend.  Our perfect weather has come to an end, and it looks like I'll be indoors watching the rain for the rest of the week.  

Our blueberries are coming in strong right now, and I've already frozen several bags.  I want to bake another blueberry buckle for Friday (my birthday) so will try to get outside in between showers to pick two cups more.  We're planning to go out for Chinese on Friday with Chris and Paul's sister Pat.  I'm sure we'll be too full after dinner for cake, so I'll give them each a piece to take home afterwards.

And speaking of blue, I must be in a blue period as last week I also finished a blue tote bag for my brother Axel to give to a friend who has been driving him around.  It's hard to see, but both sides have a pocket between the handles.  I used pre-quilted fabric from "Connecting Threads" for this bag and another one I need to put a button on.

Yesterday I went to the quilt shop where they offer a discount of half my age around my birthday.  I bought about many yards of mostly neutrals, stocking up for the coming year.  Phew!  Had a nice, long awaited chat with Robin while she cut everything.  That in itself was a birthday gift as we don't get together often enough.

Favorites from Billings show

 I forgot to show photos of two quilts I really liked at the Billings Farm Museum show last weekend.  The first was called "Eclipse," and I loved its simplicity.

Next is my favorite of the show, perhaps because I met the quilter, Susan Damon Balch, a year or so ago at a meeting of the state quilt guild.  I forgot to write down the name of the quilt, but the use of monochrome gave it a peaceful feel and I liked that she blended in some traditional quilt blocks in the background.

Billings Farm Museum show

I spent yesterday in Woodstock at the Billings Farm Museum "Quilt Guild Day."  The Green Mountain Quilters Guild was the featured guild in an old barn set up just a little way from the main building where the annual Vermont Quilt Sampler exhibit is.  Five members of the statewide guild showed some of our work and demonstrated some techniques, including three ways of working with hexagons, hand quilting in a large hoop, Hawaiian quilting, and sashiko.   Several people asked how to get started in quilting which was fun to discuss.

It was a gloomy day, but morning and mid-day visitors to the grounds all stopped in to see what we were up to.  At around 2:00, the heavens opened up and it poured off and on for about an hour and a half.   We decided to pack up and go home at 3:30, even though we were scheduled to leave at 5 pm. 

We did sell about ten small quilts made by members which was good.   Several people wanted to buy my little landscape, but it was promised to a lady who had to visit the ATM first.  I love how the sky turned out in this one, and I have another hanging on the wall over my desk.

There was a distinctly "farm" smell throughout the barn perhaps due to the pigs and other critters in the barn next door.  Because it was a bit damp, I'' run all five of the quilts I brought with me through the dryer on "air" to freshen them up a bit.

I was also surprised that my bookshelf quilt received a lot of comments from visitors.  I made as a "row robin" several years ago with my international friendship swap group.  

I enjoyed looking at the quilts in the show, too.  This is the third year for the show, and the jury takes great pains to make sure there's a variety.  I was especially pleased to see quilts by three members of my local guild there.  All were deserving of note.  I didn't take too many pictures but the museum's website (link above) has several good shots.

What I do on Mondays

 

For the past few years, I've been Zooming with old friends from my work life on Monday afternoons.  These are all people who worked for their state libraries and collected data about public library use.  We were mostly all together in Washington, DC, on 9/11/2001 when the twin towers were hit.  We spent some tense days then and really bonded.  All retired now, we talk of books, movies, politics, and anything else that comes to mind.  States represented are Colorado, Georgia (now living in FL), South Carolina, Minnesota, and Massachusetts (now living in Chicago).  Quite a spread!

A trip and a finish

First, the finish!  Another small hat for a child going into foster care.  I've only been knitting this for a few weeks although I probably would have finished sooner if I'd stuck to it and sewed it together right after I finished knitting.  Instead, it languished as usual.

I love the "Hawthorne" yarn that Knit Picks sells and have made a few other hats using it.  I still have enough of this yarn left to make most of another hat, but I think I'm going to concentrate on finishing the purple scarf I started months ago.  It uses smaller needles so is taking me a while to finish.

We went to Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, for a long weekend and returned this morning after spending the night in Glens Falls, NY.  It's about a 10 hour drive to NOTL, which I could do if I felt like it.  But we decided to break this trip up into two days each way to give ourselves a chance to relax.  We are, after all, retired with no real place we have to be.  Going back and forth over the border was easy, which was a relief.

NOTL is a charming village on Lake Ontario, just over the border into Canada.  Every summer, they hold a series of plays and musicals in a festival honoring playwright George Bernard Shaw.  Two summers ago, we were wowed by My Fair Lady.  This year's offerings included the musical Funny Girl and a wacky play about Jeeves and Wooster.  Both were very enjoyable, and we're glad we went. 

NOTL is a real tourist destination with lovely shops and plenty of nice places to eat.  Walking down the street, one hears all sorts of languages, and one needs to be careful not to photobomb anyone.  My favorite view was a whole window full of red and white pajamas in a maple leaf print.  Wish I'd gotten a picture.  The Sunset Grill saw us twice - once for lunch and the next day for breakfast - so it was obviously a hit.   We noshed on great ice cream cones while people watching in the city park which is beautifully landscaped, and we splurged on a Thai dinner complete with fried bananas Sunday.  Our room at an older inn was conveniently located and comfortable albeit tiny.  A perfect minivacation!

Two finishes!

Last week I picked up the Wensleydale quilt from Marie, the long arm quilter, and had it all bound by machine on Sunday.  She quilted it rather loosely in a snowflake pattern which looks a bit like a large stipple.  I like its puffiness and am glad it's done.   Foundation paper piecing made it easy to put together.

I realize that blue isn't considered a Christmas color, but it is used in most winter ones, so I chose the light blue stop border because the outer border includes blue.  I used the same outer border fabric for the binding because the inner part of the quilt is busy enough!  Of course, the holidays are plenty busy.

I may take this quilt to the library to hand on the wall during the holidays along with another quilt I often use with the auction items during "Light Up the Library."  When I get a chance, my plan to is make shopping bags for all the members of the library staff for Christmas.  Right now, I'm looking for a pattern that's easy and folds in or rolls into itself without snaps, buttons, or elastic.  

Over the weekend, I also got all the quilted pieces of my Modern Jane quilt together, bordered, and partly bound.  That was a lot of work, hauling the sections around and squaring them up together.  I was amazed that I had made almost the perfect lengths of piano key borders.  Sometimes things work like a charm and other times they are a pain.   The corners were duplicate DJ blocks that I made by accident during the three years I made them.  I lost track here and there along the way.

The spirit of Jane Stickle was with me on this quilt, I guess.  Besides the almost perfect length of borders, I found I needed to create about a foot more binding to get all the way around neatly, which used up all of one black/white fabric in my stash.   I had plenty more other b/w fabric but didn't want the binding to be scrappy.  I now face the task of sewing the binding down by hand, and I'll do that in spurts.

To give myself a break, I've been working on the July Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks.  Why - oh why? - did I decide to make three different quilts this year?  The color of the month is Bonnie Hunter's favorite - aqua.   Unfortunately, I have very little of what I consider to be that color, so I have expanded it to be what I consider to be teal which I have a lot of.  Five log cabin blocks are in the bin and put away already.  The "traffic stop" blocks are well on their way to completion, and today I'll start on the improv houses.