I always take a day off on or near my birthday, and this event came about last Friday. I devoted my three day weekend to completing an applique block and a small pieced border that is part of a quilt other guild members are making to give to a past member's great-grandson. Lorraine G. passed away recently, and guild members rallied to complete her projects during the past year or so. These were projects she had intended for her great-grandchildren. I was honored to be able to contribute this piece:
Lorraine had the fabrics selected, and in my case already cut and pressed to shaped. She even had the brown boat base on the fabric. You can't see the detail, but I added horizontal and vertical running stitches on the sails, per the pattern drawing. There are five brown 'flag' blocks, and three star blocks that will be added to my boat, once the organizers have cut it to size. Those are 3.5" block, and I took my time on them to get them to be the right size.
So my birthday weekend was great. I caught up on movies and TV as I hand sewed. I only found three small areas on the bubble batik quilt where the quilting didn't look good on the back, and I ripped those stitches out. I'll work on repairing those areas in the next week. Then I can quickly quilt the narrow black border, and prepare the binding. I may take that on a March retreat.
Before doing the boat block, I warmed up by completing the circle applique block for the sampler begun as part of the July Becky Goldsmith class I took. So I'll take those four sampler blocks with me on retreat too, and add wonky block sashing, layer, and quilt that.
I love having birthdays. Another reason to sew.
