What I Did on National Quilting Day

This sounds like a school report, doesn’t it?

There were great sales at the quilt shops.  Even though it was questionable if I should even step foot into a quilt shop, I received an e-mail which was simply too good — FQs were half off and if you bought 10, one was free.  Essentially, 11 for the price of  5.  So, earlier this week, I planned to go to my local quilt shop.  Since my young quilting friend was over for the weekend, I was going to take her.

When my sister heard my plans, she asked if she could go.  Certainly.  Then before we left, her daughter wanted to join us.  Or maybe her momma just wanted her along since my niece has recently gotten engaged and a wedding quilt was planned.  Either way, the four of us spent the day together — shopping, eating Chinese food and quilting.

I think my young quilting friend got the most of my purchases.  No pictures — she had it put up darn near before we got into the house. (She’s good that way.) Mostly red FQs since she’s planning a quilt for her aunt and my red stash is low — I haven’t replenished it since I made my sister’s wedding quilt.  This evening when we went back out she also  got some Spongebob fabric to make the quilt she’s working on for her cousin bigger and the backing fabric for it.

My niece has picked this quilt for her momma to make:

I just have to teach my sister how to make HST squares and QST squares – all nice basic quilting skills — the trick to this quilt is the color placement.  A design wall is going to be very necessary.

After they picked out the chain fabric, background fabrics, and 8 red FQs (see comment above), they raided my stash for green, turquoise and blue fabrics.  The pattern called for 32 FQs (each star is a different color), but each star only uses about 3 1/2″ x 13″. I think after we took this picture we substituted at least one fabric and there may be other substitutions before it’s finished.

So, what did I come home with?

10 FQs and a 1 yard piece which was on clearance.

As for the sewing — my young quilting friend made significant progress on her quilt.

She’s still assembling it and the borders need to be cut.

Before I pickup up my sister and niece, my sister worked on the quilt she started on Wednesday.  She made one block and thought it came out 1/2″ smaller than it should have and she couldn’t figure out why.  Turns out her ruler was 1/2″ bigger than she thought.  The blocks were the right size.  She is very relieved — and smart enough to stop after only making 1 1/2 blocks to figure out what was wrong.

As for my quilting, I still need to stitch two long seams and put the borders on my quilt.  But, with all the running around, all I got done was pinning the two bottom sections together so I know how they go together.

But bottom line, it was a great day filled with family and quilting.