Happy St. Patrick's Day

Got your green on? I do and it is hard to miss green shamrock socks, LOL. Around our house it is also known as the anniversary of our first kiss. 30 years ago today DJ kissed me in the parking lot of Long John Silvers in Bloomington, IL. We were not even dating at that point but my boyfriend at the time had transferred to a job in Pittsburg, PA. I was wearing a "Kiss Me, I'm Irish" pin and not only did DJ collect but so did the co-worker he was having lunch with. We were not total strangers at the point, I might add--he was a friend who later got promoted to No. 1 sweetie when that long distant romance ended.

I have been a quiting maniac the last two and half weeks trying like anything to get all the donation quilts done and be caught up for a change. At left, you see most of the quilts I quilted spread out at our meeting place. 11 in the shot but I have done 4 more since that time.

The Belles and I had a binding party last Tuesday. Linda C, Aline and Jane all took some of them home with them to finish up. In fact, Linda C met me in town this morning with three of them done and requested a couple more! Bless you! Meanwhile I haven't done one more stitch in the intervening time in my challenge quilt --it's there on the end. Maybe this afternoon.

I have just one more donation top to quilt---oh, so close to reaching my goal!! Eric the Red, my trusty Viking that I use to machine quilt decided otherwise. Right in the middle of #13 quilt it was no go. I think just wore "him" out. Well, it is time for it to be serviced though I did what I could to clean it out, changed the needle, re-threaded and all that. I can quilt on my Brother Inno-vis 450 so was able to finish up the quilt I was working on at the time though I was not happy with how the borders turned out. My mom has that one back to see if she can salvage them. I quilted #14 on the Brother and started #15 but hated the results and had to un-quilt 4 long vertical lines. UGH!!! Not an experience I would care to repeat anytime soon.

Over the weekend when a yahoo group was having an online retreat I did quilt one more with regular thread, SID, on a donation top that I didn't much care for and got the job done. This was a top that was given to us from an estate sale that Theramae took apart to make two tops. It is not very well done, I'm afraid. I have the other half here at home as well that needs some seams re-joined. I don't think that is happening. While it has some nice pieces of feedsack fabric in it, I would rather dismantle it to get the sack fabric and re-purpose it than quilt another ugly quilt. Fan blocks would be nice.

The two quilt pictures are anything but ugly. Jane and Sarah had teamed up on the modified scrappy nine patch before Sarah became ill. It has cool backing fabric too---some my mom sent from a Hancock's sale that looks like green and gold ink blot tests, LOL. The angel panel is one that Pat F turned in---cute with a soft yellow flannel backing. I'll get pictures of the three completed quilts when we meet again next week and I can hang them up as I normally do.

I have not gotten any further with my convergence quilt since I am still waiting for my fabric order. Not that I would have had time to work on it even it had been here. Saturday Marilyn and I ran up to Albertville (about 50 miles north of us) to take our machines in for service. On the way up the sirens sounded in a town about 30 miles up from home. Oh oh, turned out that there were tornado warnings almost straight west of our location at the time. I knew that I was going to stopping at a pet store in the strip mall near were we were at the time so we would just hold up there till the warnings were lifted. 30 minutes later we were on our way again.

So much rain had fallen in a short time that there was a fair amount of standing water in Gadsden. We had driven about 4 miles up the road and I just asked my friend "do you think we should turn around and just go back home?"-- the sirens sounded again. Tornado warnings for our home county. Nope, we best keep on going north rather than get back in that mess again! Fortunately, the weather did improve the further north we went. By lunch time it was no longer raining but remained overcast.

We stopped at the discount fabric store about 6 miles from our destination and then off to the sewing machine service center from there. We had lunch at a deli (yummy reuben sandwich and potato salad for me) and a stop Marilyn needed to make for her business. Then home by 2:30 once I dropped Marilyn off at her house.

About the only other thing I have accomplished in the sewing department lately is that I took off the sashing strips on that Pioneer Braid top that I had messed up in January. Read all about that debacle HERE. At that time Norma at Random Stitches suggested a solution when she had much the same problem. I cut the sections into squares as she did but I am using the sashing strips from the strippie I originally planned but trimmed down slightly and sewing the sections into blocks in groups of 4. (Click on the ed. note portion of my linked post to see how hers turned out--there is a link there that will take you straight to her post with the picture.) I have one row done as of last evening. It is not exactly tripping my trigger yet but it is bright, a child may like it better than me and the top is not going to go to waste. I AM afraid that I may not have enough fabric for the sashing part but I used the leftovers on a small wall hanging that is pinned but not yet quilted so it would be easy to un-pin that and substitute something else for backing.

Above you saw Pippi relaxing on DJ's bed for a change. There and his bathroom rug seemed to be her preferred spots the past few days though I know she was sitting on the (closed) toilet lid in my bathroom a good bit last night. LOL, I had to use DJ's facilities when I got up this morning as she was STILL sitting on it. Silly cat! Also a spoiled cat. She wanted up on the bookshelf of fabric so badly the other night that I removed three stacks from the three baskets just so she could climb on them. That used to be a favorite spot till I needed it for storage!

At left, DJ working on our shed. I had promised him last week that I would be caught up enough to help him with replacing the boards on the left side of the shed. Turns out he didn't need me after all. Can't say that it breaks my heart. I would do it because he asked but hey, someone else wants to do it instead?? The two guys that our neighbor had hired to paint/repair the exterior of his house saw DJ out looking at the damaged siding. He offered to do the work for a fairly nominal amount if DJ bought the materials. Plus they could get started that afternoon. Even better, they had a truck and could haul away the damaged siding and trim boards. DJ did the caulking and will finish up the painting. He was doing the prime coat in this picture. The crew is due back today to put on some gutters and downspouts to keep this from happening again.

Well, guess that's it for now. So what will it be--binding or sewing? I want to be say I finished something so I'll pick binding. It's half done at this point and I can sew later, right?