A wonderful (and productive) three-day weekend

Steve and I had a great time at the beach house!  Good food, wine, long walks on the beach together; and I got quite a bit of sewing accomplished.  I had planned to work on a block for a quilting bee, but an error made me set it aside to deal with later at home.  I had printed off a paper piecing pattern from Quilter's Cache and made a test block, which came out great.  Then I changed my mind and decided to do a different block.  And because the first block printed out in the accurate size, I guess I just assumed that the second block would.  But -- no, it didn't.  Lesson learned.  But I did finish the top for this baby quilt (made with Heather Bailey Fresh Cut):

I love coin quilts.  Simple but very pretty.  And for once I planned ahead and made the back and prepared the binding:

The binding will be the pink jelly bean fabric.


I also finished sewing the pieces of the value quilt top together.  I had pretty much abandoned it on my temporary design wall (flannel sheet) hanging in my daughter's room, then realized that I needed to get it out of there before she came home from college at Christmas.  So -- I pinned each HST unit in place.  Not a bad idea, but then I took the sheet down and folded it up.  It seemed like an okay idea at the time, but as I folded it, I knew that it was not my brightest.  Here is what my lovely, careful constructed HST units looked like when the sheet was unfolded:

What a mess!  If you ever have a big project and need help making it harder than it has to be, give me a call.
In order to sew this mess together I had to unpin and then press each one.  I was worried that they might have stretched out some and was ready to square them up, but they were in surprisingly good shape and I stopped obsessively measuring them.  This may have slowed down my sewing, but I was in the beach house with a whole room dedicated to my sewing and a stack of old DVDs to watch, so I just decided to enjoy the process.

And it's done -- well, almost.  I decided that I want to add one more row at the top and bottom.  That way the large blue squares will be completed and not cut off.  I know -- No matter where I stop, some part of the design will be cut off as it just continues on....  But I just feel like it needs to be done.  I have a gorgeous green Kaffe Fassett fabric for the backing: Paisley Jungle.


In other news, Dee of Dee's Doodles (and one of the sweetest quilters on the internet) honored me with this award:

The Lemonade Stand Award is given out for bloggers that show great attitude and gratitude.  These are the rules of accepting the award:

Put the Lemonade logo on your blog or within your post.

Nominate at least 10 blogs with great attitude or gratitude.

Link the nominees within your post.

Let the nominees know they have received this award by commenting on their blog.

Share the love and link to the person from whom you received this award.

I can't believe how hard it was to only choose 10, although it helped that some people, like Dee and KT  (KT Quilts 4 Fun) and Penny (sewtakeahike), have already received an award.  Here are my nominees, chosen because of their great attitudes and generosity of spirit.  They have all answered my questions, offered resources, become online quilting friends, supported me in blogland, on Flickr, and even Facebook, and/or missed me when I neglected my blog.  They share their love of quilting with others and are always willing to lend a helping hand.

Alison -- Cardygirl

Allison Anderson --  Strandz

Amy Lobsiger -- Mrs. Schmenckman Quilts

Ayescha Baker -- Izzy Inspired

Cathy Underhill -- Cabbage Quilts

Janet Treen -- Quiltsalott

Jackie Kunkel -- Canton Village Quiltworks

Kathleen Levinson -- Magik Quilter

Sarah Fielke -- The Last Piece

Terri Wilhelm -- Terri's Notebook

Online quilters ROCK!

With wishes, true and kind -- Joan