make time, make quilts

My dear friend and partner in craft is also embarking on a quilt project for her child. We are pushing each other and encouraging each other to actually complete the darn things. So, with all the best of intentions, we put a date on the calendar in early November. I think in our ideal world, the quilt tops were to be done before that date and we would visit her mother for advice on doing the actual quilting (it's all a bit fuzzy to me at this point).

Well, we all know we don't live in the ideal world. So needless to say, neither of us had our quilt tops done by the time the pre-planned Saturday rolled around. On top of that, we discovered the patterns we had been working from were for lap sized quilts. This is different (and smaller) from twin sized. So I was attempting to do math (shocker!) to figure out a revised pattern. And then there were many errors which I can only attribute to my beginner's lack of skill and dull math skills. So, in the end, my fabulous "extra" fabric was reduced to a mountain of not-measured-right and not-cut-right scraps.

However, real progress was made! I have everything cut out and I have started sewing the rows of squares together. I was sufficiently motivated to clean my art room and moved the quilt-on-the-floor down there. So I now I can show it to people and they can actually see what it will look like.

And – big bonus here – hubby helped me to figure out how to thread a bobbin on the 1948 Kenmore and I got started using my "new" sewing machine. I have to say it is going quite well, much better than expected. I kind of like the knee lean lever over the foot pedal.