Marathon Session

Friday, yesterday, was about as perfect a day as a quilter can have. My excellent friend Sharon took a personal day to spend at my house. What did we do? We quilted! Our marathon quilting is something we have done before, and we always wonder why we don't do it more often. That bond between best friends is so special, but when you add the love of quilting to that friendship, well, special hardly describes how wonderful the day was.

Sharon still works full time and is especially busy this year with new classes to teach in the high school and two evening classes at the university. Because of her grueling schedule, her desire was to sew without having to think about it. Her choice was to machine quilt a UFO (several years old, she said) - a wall hanging that she wants to put in her bedroom. Stitch-in-the-ditch doesn't really require much more than concentration to sew straight; so it perfectly fit her needs.

To finish her wall hanging, Sharon used masking tape to stitch straight line out to the edge. Again, requires very little thought. Here is her finished wall hanging. She thought she'd just pull the back round to the front to bind it, but decided she wouldn't be happy with the final look. There's just a hint of red in this quilt, and she really thinks the binding has to be red, as well.

So, that is what Sharon accomplished. Isn't it pretty? It's a blended quilt. Very floral and the red is striking in its placement.

My day was spent working on the Broken Dishes quilt by Kaffe Fassett - with Kaffe fabrics, of course. I had a bunch of quarter-square units prepared...

And I turmed them into these...

The pattern requires 42 inner blocks - smaller pieced broken dishes blocks. In the foreground my one border block shows how much larger those blocks will be- and simpler to make!

Lots more to do, but so, so, so glad to get to work on this with Sharon's company on a marathon day!