Checking in

First of all, Happy Birthday to my Dad and my pal Helen--love to you both.

It is a cool windy blustery day that is more like March than April. Some of that cold wind is pushing down from Canada and we haven't even gotten out of the 40's today with dark clouds overhead. There is a chance of a freeze tonight which makes us wonder how badly the azaleas and lilac bush are going to get zapped tonight. Too bad as they are more in bloom then the picture I posted recently.

So what's been going on around here? In a word, binding, LOL. I took that last stitches in Judy's quilt that I was binding for her last night about 8. I had been stitching on it for three days off and on. Judy tends to neutrals and loves the blended quilt style, as you can see. Looks pretty good on my bed, I have to say but this will be be donated to the Salvation Army fund raiser for auction. The fabrics in it are more decorator weight than quilting weight though some of the prints at center are more typical quilting cottons. I am not sure what was used for backing but it was a very tight weave and hard to needle. My thumb, index and middle finger are all a little needle bruised at this point so I think the binding on my bargello quilt will wait a few days.

I took this picture to show Norma the panto that Becky used on it. Not sure what it is called but it has a kind of fleur de lis feel to it. The local quilt shop in Oxford has a long arm machine and the owner does most of the quilting from what I understand. I have not had occasion to use her services yet but my pals sort of rotate between three area quilters and seem satisfied with the results. I was on the last edge when I could not convince Skyler to stay off of it. He really was not wanting to have his napping disturbed at that point either. To accomodate the size and weight of the quilt I had taken my sewing machine out of the table and put the table I use when I quilt in front of it but facing the opposite direction in the room. I'll do the same when I get to my own quilt.

I had a few errands to run this morning and one of them was to get something to replace the skirt on my sewing/pressing table. Between the iron cord and my waist rubbing on it, I had worn through a good bit of the fabric at the mid section of the skirting on the long side of the table. The short side was fine as I rarely have to cut from that end but it all needed to match. I was sick of that pink, burgundy and plaid stuff anyway.

I found a plain 200 count flat sheet for 3 bucks at Wal-mart figuring that I couldn't find yardage that cheap. They don't match the curtains but you know how they change decorator colors anyway. The curtains were bought 11 years ago so what do you expect? Since the sheets have some polyester in there, maybe it would hold up to wear better?? I was able to cut it in 4 sections to get the width and lengths I wanted so that worked out well. A little hemming on the cut edge and some stitch witchery to hold the folded edge under was all that was needed. The velcro is stitched down so that is enough to hold things together at the top edge. I was even able to re-use some but not all of the loop tape from the old panels so I got the job done for about 9 bucks once you got tax added in. Woohoo!! Nice fresh look in here. Of course, Skyler is quite interested in these and has been hiding and playing underneath the panels. DJ, bless him, vacuumed both the sewing room and bedroom for me while I was gone. That vacuum kills my lower back so he has told me NOT to even use it----I hate to vacuum in the first place so you don't have to tell me twice!

Before I had started on the hand finishing on Judy's binding, I had stitched it on both of my projects---"Be Kind" and the almost queen sized bargello. I will get the little bit of stitching done on this tonight after supper so decided to take the picture of it to post now. I won't bore you with the shot of it on the wall on its hanger. Easter will be here soon enough but I figure we can enjoy it for the rest of April anyway.

Other sewing plans for the week? Norma and I are planning on another "move it forward" day this weekend. I have h0pes of getting my 4 patch posie assembly finished up this time. May get a jump start on that before Friday but I hope to cut out a "Cheap Trick/Two of a Kind" top from the 30's scraps sometime this week. Sheila was kind enough to share the pattern with me but I may still use the sizes from the similar Two of a Kind I found in the APQ magazine a few months back. I drew it up in EQ mainly to get a feel of the color tracking and of course to visualize how many rows etc were needed for full bed sized. My sketch is HERE in a previous post.

Well, enough goofing around for me. Time to head out to the kitchen and get things rolling in there for supper. I had hoped to grill the pork tenderloin but it is looking even worse than it was a few hours ago so oven it is. The rest of the meal needs to be cooked inside anyway.

Thanks for stopping by---------