Just 3 days.......

......and I'll be in Lancaster!!!  WOOHOO!

I'm so excited, I can't stand it!

And I'm nearly all packed already, which is unheard of in our house!  We usually are packing at midnight the night before we leave for anything.....racing around, trying to find the shoes, or pants, or necklace that we MUST have!  LOL  This is totally groundbreaking for us!  Truly!  It must be that over-50 thing, working it's older/wiser magic on me!  Ha!  I'm liking it!  A LOT!

Let me just say right now a HUGE THANK YOU!!!!! to all of you who sent me more suggestions for our trip!  You are awesome in every way!   Eegads!  I can't wait!!!!!  This is going to be so much fun!!!!

Since it's been so dang long since my last post......I thought I'd share the latest quilt top with you!  I just finished it up 2 days ago!  (With all the travel clothes laid out on the spare bed, I had no where to take pics of it, until now!)

OMG!!!!!  I'm totally loving this quilt!!!!  LOL

Here are some close ups of some of the fun blocks!  It's completely made from recycled shirts, and I had the MOST fun making the blocks where 'anything goes'.......stripes heading off in different directions, random colors, reversed piece placement!  So much fun!!

And I'm so glad I have a hubby who shares his opinions with me!  He was such a huge help when it came to the alternate blocks.  I originally had a mix of the plaids and the stripes for the alternates, but when I got it all laid out, it was awful!  It was such a jumble, and chaotic; what a mess!  Then hubby said that the stripes were sending your eyes off in too many directions, and he was TOTALLY RIGHT!!!  So I removed all the stripes, and replaced them with all plaids, and now when you look at it, the alternates fall back and allow your eyes to see the pieced blocks.  Even though the plaids are busy, so many of them read as solids, that they give your eyes a chance to rest.  Yay!  I'm so happy with it!  :o)

And I've been working like crazy on the log cabins blocks, too!  I have 257 now......I just need 203 more!  Woot!  Past the half way mark!  Haha!

And while I've been making these churndashes and log cabins, I just couldn't stop myself from putting the littlest scraps together for 'made fabric'......and this is what I've come up with for that!......

I auditioned a bunch of fabrics for the background, and of course, cheddar won!  (Duh!)  I had thought maybe to alternate cheddar and red, but then it became stripes of alternate blocks, and I just don't know about that.  Still in the playing stage, so who knows what the end will be!  But then I thought it could use something more, so.......

I just might have to add a little wedge on the corner of each block, so they create a spinning star!  Yes!!  Because we all know that when it comes to piecing......more is better!  LOL

This is planned to be a wall hanging, about 30x40ish.  The blocks will finish at about 5", and I already have all 48 pieced strips done!  Woot!  Maybe it will get a red border......we'll see!

I think one of the best things about quilting to me is the 'playing, and see where it goes' part.  I rarely use a pattern, and when I do, it usually gets played with, too!  I love sketching an idea out, working it out on graph paper, and figuring as I go.  (I don't have the computer programs for designing......I'm totally happy with graph paper.)  Sometimes I don't even figure it out, but use what I have and let it determine what I'm doing.  For this scrappy quilt, I had a stack of 3x8 pieces of phone book pages, that were the trimmed off part from another project.  I just grabbed those, with no idea in mind, and started piecing the bits on them until they were covered.  I've seen some antique quilts on the net in this pattern (don't know the name....sorry!), and thought it would be fun in the shirt scraps!  :o)  I'm so glad I put those littlest of scraps to use!  (A lot of them were less than 1" square.)

It's so funny, when my friends give me little baggies of scraps, they roll their eyes, and I'm sure they're thinking, "What the hell is she going to do with those!?!  What a nut!"  :o)

Yep.....I'm a nut!  :o)

And since I have not really played with my new phone much, I don't think I'll be posting from Lancaster, but you can be sure I'll have plenty to post when I return!  :o)

Oh, and I almost forgot!  On Saturday, we were at a historical quilt lecture given by Kathy Kenny!  It was awesome!!!  From her brochure, it looks like she travels the New England area, with lectures on The Mill Girls of 1830's (that's the one we just heard!), Crazy Quilts 1880-1900, Feedsack and Fancy Work 1920's-1940's, and more.  Each lecture includes over 20 vintage quilts!  If you're in this region, and your guild is looking for a speaker, she would be an excellent choice!  Here's her site:  www.kathykennyquilts.net

Ok......I'm heading back to the machine, to get more log cabins made.....yay!  I hope you're getting some stitching done, too!

regan