I think they liked their quilts.

This year the boys received a between gift.   For two of them it was between the birthday and Christmas.   For the one in blue – today IS his birthday, so it wasn’t a late birthday and early Christmas like the other two boys.   They had told me their favorite colors this past summer and seemed genuinely pleased with them.  They should have a good time with them as they can make a list of everything on the quilt or one can call out something and the other can find it.   I’m sure they are imaginative enough to have fun with them.

Tonight is a no-show.   I did work very hard to get the binding on a quilt that I want to mail Tuesday, so hopefully tomorrow it will be ready.

I spent most of the day on the quilt and ended up taking out part of the last row because I didn’t check tension after putting on a new spool of thread.    I am learning many things – like how to find positions after breaking thread, after running out of bobbin thread, out of running out of upper thread, and a myriad of other things.     I have people tell me that I am cheating using a computer with my quilting machine.   They have no idea how much learning that comes with it.

My goal is to get them bound and off in the Mail by Tuesday.

 Here is the quilt with quilting finished.   All that’s needed now is binding.  There were many hours of learning the program (and I’m sure many to come), and many hours spent on the phone with absolutely the most patience customer service people in this world.    Here is a closer up of the quilting.

 Later this week I will attempt another one and one of two things will happen.  Either it will go well, or there will be many new things to learn that I missed the first time.

The plan was to quilt one of the “I Spy quilts that needs to be mailed by Thanksgiving, but by the title above, you can guess that is not what I did.

We did a lot of run around errands including trying to get the jeweler to put a new battery in my watch.   Would you believe they take Mondays off?    So off to do the other chores and get a bite to eat – tostadas.   Yum.

Home by 2, I still could have started the quilt, but I was a bit side tracked by this Maywood Studio pattern, called Peppermint.    It was just too cute and only takes 1/8th of a yard of most of the fabrics.   Certain that I had at least that much of enough different fabrics, I cut out the body of the quilt and put it together.

Then I decided a wall hanging wouldn’t be as usable as a baby quilt and cut out 4 more blocks to add one to each row.   Perfect!   So I finished up the top and will clean off the cutting table tomorrow.

This pattern is often called the “rail fence” and is done in 3 different colors.   I like the take on this, making it more of a scrappy quilt, and will have to go through my smaller pieces and see if I can put it together in different colorways.    It is quick, easy, and would be great to have on hand for new babies.   The finished size will be 44 1/2″ square.

The other great thing about this pattern, is by doing what I did, it is easy to make larger or smaller.   I’m thinking with another row each way (row is 8″) it would be perfect for a lap or wheel chair quilt.  And if I changed the sizes of the blocks, I could make a doll quilt.   Oh, so many possibilities with this.

Tomorrow, I absolutely must quit this type of playing and get a quilt all the way to the finish line.