It Feels Good To Be Making Progress On Something

I actually managed to get quite a bit done in spite of the fact that we had a busy, busy Easter weekend! I went ahead and added a very small coping border between the main part of A-Tisket-A-Tasket and the red hst border. 

A-Tisket-A-Tasket getting a border or two

I'm pretty sure there will only be one more border, of much larger red and gold hst units. It's all cut out and ready for sewing, just need to find the time. Super happy with how it's turning out though. That lighter yellow/gold just made everything shine! So weird because I had dismissed the idea earlier thinking that color would fade into the bottom part of the baskets too much and totally ruin the look. 

It's the whole kit and kaboodle. 61" square

I also managed to keep working on Country Stars. It was sooo tempting to put it up for a good long sleep, but I was not too sure that it might never see the light of day again once that happened. And I do want to get it finished up and gifted sometime this year!

It doesn't look like much, but it makes the quilt look better

I took the larger leaves in the middle of the applique and cut into them again. This time making into flowers with a red bud. It's all so much better now. Then I went ahead with the little stacks of berries, mixing up the colors. Red didn't look right and neither did pink, so I combined the two. It's still not a fabulous top, but overall I'm satisfied. Especially after all the applique was finished up {I thought} and on a whim, decided to sew the darker brown cross circle over the center compass block. 

It's applique and that's important sometimes, to
some people...

It just finished it off in a way that I can quit stressing about now. And I'm sure our friend will love all the little details eventually. It's really not easy to work on a quilt where the connection was never really there in the first place. But I did it. Got all the hand work done and dusted. Now I just need to take a deep breath and find time here this coming summer to get it sandwiched and pinned, ready for quilting!

Getting ready to hand sew the binding

Got all the hand quilting finished up on the AHIQ Hourglass quilt. Would have been done sooner, but the backing fabric was a heavier, tighter weave than I normally work with, something my aunt gave me awhile back. I love all the freebies, but occasionally it's nice to use something that wants to work better with a needle!

Almost ready for the hoop!

Next quilt in the hoop is the HaHa quilt. So crazy, it's been almost four years since this has been a completed quilt top! This one has been such a very long time getting in the hoop. It took over two years to even make quilt top stage. Some quilt tops are just plodders I guess. I don't know what to say except that I've just had very mixed feelings about this quilt from the beginning.

I really do like these words on the quilt

Love it and I well, worry about it. It's been too solid fabric-ish, too white, too many disparate elements, too much, too much. And I had zero ideas about how to hand quilt it until a couple months ago.

The ric-rac borders around the blocks are still a fave too

When I suddenly thought about stitching scallops over the center part. Huh. Maybe that will be the thing to make sort of 'make sense'. I went with the cardboard, make-it-yourself template since the plastic template sheets are so expensive these days. Didn't want to ruin a whole sheet experimenting. Anyway... It's not gonna be perfect and you're gonna see where I adjust, adjust, adjust the design. 

Home-made template for the win

Which might actually make me like it better. There's just something about it not being absolutely perfect that sorta calms me down and puts a smile on my face. Onward ho!

These girls.....

And here's a recent picture of our granddaughters. We had an enormous amount of fun getting to spend Easter weekend with them. I mean, we are The Easters, so it's always been a special holiday.*wink  Loving how chunky little Ellie is getting and how chill she was with us even though it's been months since we've got to squeeze on her. Like my father-in-law always said, if we'd have known how much fun grandkids were, we would have been sure to have them first.....