Sunday, January 15, 2012

It was a cold morning, but Pat and I went out to the SeaWalk right after breakfast. If we had waited for the day to warm up we would have gotten involved in other things and probably wouldn’t have gone out at all. We were bundled up and I really shouldn’t be complaining about the cold. But it was -3!

After our walk, I headed up to my studio to start quilting my Bench Cover. After a few false starts and a bit of ripping I got the first few lines stitched. Quilting is still a slow process for me, and I don’t enjoy it very much. Perhaps with more practice I’ll feel better, but I see my mistakes and assume everyone else will as well. I don’t have much experience on large pieces, and this one is about a twin-bed size. At the end of the afternoon I had the piece anchored securely, and I had the blocks on the two ends fully quilted.

Since I didn’t have enough light in my studio to continue I made some design decisions about the rest of the quilt. There are a lot of straight lines in the blocks and I am tempted just to follow those lines. But this is meant to be a sampler piece so I feel I should do a few different free motion designs.

It will probably take me most of the week to complete. I don’t like to quilt in public so taking it to the bee on Tuesday is out (it wasn’t that long ago that I wouldn’t even sew in public). It will be a lovely feeling to have it finished as it has been waiting to be quilted for several months. I already have another piece ready for quilting and my Mystery Quilt should be ready in a couple of weeks.

We watched the hockey game tonight and, during period breaks, we watched a couple of travel shows on Italy. I’m not sure a month will be long enough!