Delivered!

Well dad's finally received his finished quilt. It only took what, 20 years to finish? I washed in gently, too, and dried it outside. It dried in remarkably little time. Of course, I neglected to take any pictures of it all finished and spruced up, but there you go.

Next two projects are a lap quilt for my daughter with a yellow background and this pattern. I have only recently come to appreciate antique quilts with yellow backgrounds and now find them bright and cheery, not dingy and cheap-looking as I used to. Like this one. It's difficult to find pictures of beautiful antique yellow-background quilts. At least I find it difficult. But I digress. I thought I had enough of one yellow that I bought at a yard sale in Ithaca, N.Y., 20 years ago, but turns out I don't. I'm now up to using 4 different yellows that I've collected over the years. And I'm using some new and old fabrics for the block pieces.

I went on a HST sewing rampage and then was somewhat discouraged when I saw the big pile. Let me explain. I have found that for whatever reason, I have trouble creating hsts when starting with squares of the proper size. For example. to end up with 2" hsts one is supposed to begin with a 3" square. If I start with a 3" square, my 2" hst may end up being slightly short somehow, or not quite right in some other way. So to avoid this, I added 2 inches to the finished hst size instead of 1 and ended up with huge hst patches that all need to be cut down to 2.5". Lots of cutting, but hey, isn't that part of what quilting is all about? I just wish I or my machine were more accurate - that way I could use 3" squares and not have to do as much cutting and I wouldn't be wasting as much either. Oh well.

The other project is my mother's quilt. The quilt-as-you-go quilt she began the year before she died. I would really like to have that on our bed this winter and it will only take some hand sewing so it is definitely doable.

Another quilt store closed here in Toronto. It's depressing. I have only bought one thing online from a quilt store as I prefer to go to the stores to browse and soak up the ambiance, but there is now only one store that I can get to within one hour. Pretty sad for such a huge city, I think.

Oh well, pip, pip.

Keep your foot on the dogs.