another top finished up

Yesterday afternoon I finished up the top and bottom bands on the Pioneer Braid that the Belles and I had started last month. Strike through another of the May goals. The story behind it can be found a post from Friday Borders or Bust. Busting a little of everyone's stash on this one a little at time.

I had to laugh when I had it laid out one the floor at the church during the sew-in. Lois or Judy looked down on her way back from the pressing table "you know that you have one of those upside down?" I said it was by design since I was going to have 5 bands and could do an alternate direction thing. I hope I thanked them for checking first since I very well could have goofed. I see the outer band is bowed a bit--may have to do a slight trim.

Norma, see the plant and TV we spoke about off post? I gotta remember to move our little door stop before I take another picture, LOL. I would be interested in hearing how others take pictures of their quilts so they don't have hands, feet and household furniture in the way. Something temporary and collapsible would be great!

After I finished the top, I moved onto the tedious task of pressing miles of binding for 4 quilts. UGH--almost as bad as putting on borders, but necessary. I should not have procastinated that task so long because it just took twice as long and twice the tedium all at once.

From there I pulled out a quilt kit and started sewing a top for WTIL that will look something like this. Inside the frames will be some of Lois' machine embroidered blocks that I cut down to size. I have done one like this before but with squares. This time I wanted them to look more like a 5 x 7 photos. The blocks will not have that cornerstone though--I just took the easy way of drawing this up. I know that I intend to presash the most of the blocks on bottom and side rather than do long linear rows of sashing between the rows. Long have never worked for me when you try to line things up but pre-sashing like doing a Children's Delight block does. Of course, I thought I was so clever coming up with that idea and the next month it was published in a Fons and Porter magazine, LOL.

Sewing was a good way to pass the time while listening to the Cardinal-Royals baseball game on the computer. Pujols hit his 21st homer but Isringhausen was his usual scary self in the 9th giving the Royals a good chance to win it. I had intended to start quilting on my stack but it is fun to just stitch rather mindlessly. I may have another to pin come Tuesday translating to 2 more for the stack at this rate. That is the way it goes when we are in a push to get a certain number of quilts for the kids. Sometimes doing my part means quilting and other times, piecing.

Other than digging around the sewing room to find where I had put two sets of Pineapple Blossom blocks that are also on May goals and pulling out my old processor looking for and transferring some image/email files to CD, that's about it for me.

Hope you all are having a good weekend so far-----