This and That on Thursday

I said it’s going to be a busy week, and it certainly has been. 

Tuesday morning, DH and I hit the road to go to Homestead Hearth, shopping for some more red for the connector hexies for my Martha Washington’s Flower Garden and for fabric for T#4’s spiral log cabin.  After a lot of search and a whole lot of help from the clerk, I found a couple of reds that aren’t perfect, but if I mix them up with my original red, they should be ok.  And I found fabrics for the log cabin … there was a whole lot of searching going on, especially after we discovered that a couple of the fat quarters I chose (I selected fat quarters as they were easier to carry around to compare) were the last of those fabrics in the shop, so we had to come up with other fabric choices or a mix of fat quarters.  I don’t think I could have come up with the fabrics without the help of the clerk … choosing fabrics is one of the most difficult parts of quilting for me.  My accountant’s OCD-ness rears its ugly head, and I really have to try to fight being too matchy-matchy.  She understood that a controlled scrappy is about as much as I am comfortable with, but she encouraged me to choose a few fabrics that I never would have chosen but that I think are going to be perfect!  I wish I had gotten her name … I would have loved to have written a note to the shop, letting them know what a HUGE help she was. Note:  not all of that is fabric I purchased yesterday … much is from my stash … there’s enough fabric there for probably 4, maybe 5 quilts.  I still need to press all that fabric and then start cutting so it will be ready to take to retreat.

We got home just in time to head to the first summer swim meet … they were able to get in 6 events before the storms came.  Everyone took shelter in the pavilions until the meet was cancelled.  There’s another meet this evening … and there are more storms that are supposed to be rolling in a couple of hours before the meet is scheduled to begin. 

This morning the gals I walk with and I went over to the Missouri Botanical Garden to see the Nature Connects Lego display.  It was amazing what they could do with Legos.If you click on the picture, you should be able to see close-ups.

When I got home, guess what I found had been delivered in the mail? Katy over at KatyQuilts stitched together 3 mug rugs from some leftover fabrics … she thought they were ugly, and I vehemently disagreed … and she graciously offered to send me the “ugly” mug rug of my choice.  Not only did she send me that adorable little mug rug but she sent along 3 bags of green tea!  Isn’t that just the sweetest thing? 

I spent the afternoon and a good bit of the evening in the sewing room … I now have 13 almost complete rows stitched together … only 4 more to go!  Of course, then I have to add that 17th block to each row, sew the rows together and then add the borders.  I even pressed the rows so they’re looking rather presentable  now (well, except for the random loose thread … when I had finished pressing that last row, I was ready to be done for the day).  Given how busy this week is going to be (including the weekend), I don’t expect to have the top together and ready for basting until the end of next week.  Which reminds me, I need to wash and dry the backing fabric, so at least when the time for basting gets here, I’ll be ready to go.

Have a fantastic Thursday!
Kathy