Corinne's quilt hung, Janice's fish quilt

Good morning! I figure out so many things while I am trying to fall asleep at night! I made several decisions to implement Tuesday morning (12/27). So, on Monday I bought 9 containers at the dollar store for my scraps….brought them home, labeled them as to colors:red/pink, orange, yellow/gold, green, blue, purple, brown, gray, cream/white. I started to put scraps in them and find room on my metal shelves (these are scraps that end up littering my sewing tables because I have no where to put them as they are too big for my regular scrap baskets, but too small to put back into my ‘’yardage’’). I decided in bed last night that they were WAY TOO BIG, and took up way too much room on my shelves....what do I think I am….a scrap quilter????? So they will be returned sometime this week….I am only keeping one for those sort of scraps, so all colors will go together into that one container. And each time that one is full, I will take it into Scrap Happy Quilters and put them on the ''free'' table.

I also decided to abandon my plan for the green/gold squares I am currently sewing….remember, these are the ones I started to cut BEFORE refreshing my memory on how the pattern went that I wanted to do…then decided to cut them in half to kinda/sorta make what I originally wanted…..but it’s not working :~(. I will still sew them together as four patches and make 2 quilts (because of course....it worked out most efficiently to cut 2 quilts at once!)…but the real pattern I was going for will be re-created in 8-1/2 inch squares….hoping to figure out cutting directions today! I feel really good about both decisions!

I headed to the studio at 9:30 AM and decided it was time to tackle the 4th quilt that was donated to Scrap Happy…this quilt is a monster at 95’’ by 95’’, with 2 borders, the outside one being more than 8 inches wide :~(. Now, having dealt with this woman’s borders previously (added using the ‘’slap and sew’’ method), I know that the outside border is going to be a nightmare (WAY too much fabric….WAY too many ripples), so to make it a bit easier on myself, I decided to cut 4 inches off all the way around. Hopefully that will make it a bit more manageable. And it really is a little surprising because in all other respects, this woman’s work is impeccable. I worked on that and got it loaded:

and then dropped back to my 4 patches. They were all sewn together by dinnertime, but not yet pressed. Michael got a sleeve board cut and drilled for me so that we could hang my newest quilt...I LOVE where it is...I can see it from where I sit sewing....I can see it when I work on XENA....and I will see it every day as I leave the studio...don't those bottom circles/worlds look like they are floating above the quilt?:

Michael and I had our French Bread pizzas for dinner to use up some very old tomatoes, then he headed off to see the new AVATAR movie, while Susan came over and we watched a movie of our own….delightful!

Janice is currently in Connecticut....giving away the fish quilt....she went the extra step of making her binding out of different strips to match the background....the recipients LOVED it:

*** I don’t always go the extra mile…but when I do…it’s because I missed my exit!! ***