A Finish

I finished one small thing this week,
this 25 inch square table topper. The center block is the Circle of Geese" Paper pieced block that we learned last week at our retreat. I was relieved when it all came together nicely with the Birds in the Air blocks I made a couple of weeks ago.




Most of the quilting is in the ditch with come echo type quilting in the center and straight lines in the birds and the air blocks where the non pieced side of the blocks comes together to make rows.
I backed it with a piece of fabric I cut from a cotton sheet. I have been rethinking my ideas about using sheets for backing. They are good quality cotton and they come in a variety of colors and prints. I see no reason to back something with $10 -$12 quilting fabric if it will hang on the wall or is meant to lay on a table with the back side down and not seen.







I am not making much progress on my Scrappy Trip around the World blocks. I am not sure why I am finding them tedious. It could be that I know I am stealing time from what needs to be done. 

When I get to this stage I begin to question my choices. this looks insipid to me. That second row from the bottom is a pale yellow green not yellow.




Once I get the block finished it has all come together much better.

I have only 4 finished blocks but I have 4 more that I have sewed in strips and sliced and unstitched and rearranged and ready to sew into blocks.


I think the sewing all the blocks in the same color order of blue,yellow, orange, yellow, green,  yellow, was a mistake. It is too predictable I am gong to mix it up a little more. I will still keep the long diagonal line in the blue color family,(blue, blue green, purple etc) and at least 2 yellow strips.  I think I will order some fat quarters to mix it up some more. I like a little surprise and even though I have a pretty good idea what the fabrics look like when I see them "in person" they are always a bit different.

Maybe tomorrow I will have my 8 finished  blocks to show.

Maybe not

Maybe I will have more.

We'll see!

Friday and Saturday Retreat

Well our group from church didn't go out of town and we went home on Friday night to sleep in our own beds but we got together Friday evening for a pot luck dinner and then a paperpiecing lesson and we came back on Saturday to polish up our new skill. Everyone in our church group was there and some of us brought along a few friends. There were 15 of us when everyone was there.

We had a long distance member come to visit us on Saturday, Jamie, shown here with the big smile is a new bride. She got married last month on our quilt meeting day. We came in the morning to our meeting and then at the appointed time were walked down the hall to the sanctuary and went to the wedding ceremony and afterward to the Cupcake reception. Jamie came this weekend from New Jersey. Somehow they missed most of the bad weather and she made good progress on her rail fence quilt.

Most of these photos were taken late in the day on Saturday several of the ladies had already left. I was working diligently to finished my Circle of Geese and didn't realize some people were leaving until they were packed and ready to go so no photos of their projects. I see only one block that isn't finished here and she was soon to be finished. Some ladies had started a second block or some border blocks. Beth,in the top right of the photo below was quilting hers.

Everyone seems to have and idea or a plan for what they will do with their blocks and there was a long of enthusiasm.




I am not fast; I might be faster if I taped my mouth closed. My own personal  goal was to finish my Circle of Geese block and I would have been happy with that. However, I finished my block and I had enough time to add my Birds in the Air border blocks that I had made a week or 12 days ago. I think this top is finished and ready to layer and quilt. It is about 24 inches square and that is a good table topper size.
Mine does not have the  bold graphic look than most of the others have and is reminiscent of many of my quilts that I did during my color wash period.
I expect to see some finishes at our meeting next month so keep watching for them.