Slow Sunday Stitching

Major league baseball games are great for binding quilts. So are audio books. And so are Instagram friends. Seems a strange combination of motivators, but I shall explain how all three helped me stitch the binding on Spring Dreams.

I quilted Spring Dreams on Thursday.

 

For some reason, I typically have a hard time maintaining my focus while binding. I will stitch a little while, then pick up the cell phone or go do some other stuff, and have to force myself to finish the stitching. That is why I try to have something else to do while stitching to keep me on task.

I made and applied binding on Friday.

Our baseball team, the Cleveland Indians, had games on Friday night' and Saturday afternoon.  I did LOTS of stitching. It felt good to get so much done while also enjoying the games.

The back is pieced; using from the stash.

 

When the games weren't on, I queued up my current audio book which is due back to the library in 3 days. I needed to finish this book! I still had at least the last third of the book to read. Perfect. I plugged into my earbuds and stitched for a good long time. I have just two chapters to go.

(From Goodreads.com)

And my most unique motivator came from Instagram. I have become good IG friends with a quilter from Texas who makes the prettiest quilts and small inspirational gifts like book marks, cards, and pouches. The way we came to "know" each other is that her name is spelled the same way as mine - Jayne - and we both sew on Bernina machines. While we haven't met face to face, I have come to know her as a sweet, caring lady, and I find her creativeness very inspiring. 

After I posted about binding, she responded that she also had a quilt to bind this weekend, so we decided to have a race to see who could finish first. I rarely feel competitive about anything, but this was just enough of a challenge to keep me on task.

Bound and ready for use!

It is worth noting that rare is the occasion when I plan, make, quilt, and finish a quilt all in the same calendar year. And this one! Why I didn't have an inkling that I would make it as of March! It was the sew along with Sharon and Dee that did it, by gosh. So there's another motivator! Sew alongs definitely get me going and (sometimes) keep me going. Read more about our sew along in tomorrow's post.

I will join up with the weekly Slow Sunday Stitching gals over at Kathy's Quilts. Stop on over to see what everyone has been doing.

Happy Quilting, Friends!