Friday Night Sew-In Progress

It's not as far as I would have liked to have gotten (hey, I HAD to go to Happy Hour) , but it's something.....

As you can see, I decided on the first Drunkard's layout. I just liked the pattern created by the dark brown.

And then I commenced stitching 64 blocks together. For the most part, it wasn't so bad aligning the one curved line of stitching from block to block, but some of the blocks were a little testy being lined up after that stitch because of how good a job I did (or didn't do) sewing together the pie and the wedge, so there was quite a bit of ripping that went on and swapping out this block for that block so that one block wasn't a quarter inch shorter than the block it was sewn to.

But it's done, and now I'm avoiding stitching those 8 rows of 8 blocks together and aligning all the seams, which I shall get to as soon as I turn on the iron and press their seams in the proper direction.

To assist in my habitual procrastination, my neighbor accompanied me on a whirlwind tour of three local quilt shops that began at 10 this morning and ended at 4, with a stop for lunch and a dash into a new bakery we found to inquire about wedding cakes.

Shop 1 was my source for some backing, sashing and binding fabric to make the Jeweled Forest batik Christmas tree pattern from the Nov/Dec 2009 issue of McCalls Quilting. I was lamenting to the salesperson that the quilt was only wall hanging size and that I had seen a much larger throw size quilt at one of the local shows. She smiled, walked over to the pattern wall and came back with this pattern:

which I bought...though it's  not the quilt I saw at the show. I think that person took the original pattern and just resized it to come up with this:

Onward and upward to Shop 2, where I was excited to find 2 things I'd been looking for.....Print & Fuse (fusible web for applique that you can run through your printer so you don't have to trace), an honest to goodness piece of silk Matka to use on a woofelt/embroidery project, and yet another pattern for some organizers that I'm going to make to hold my applique and woolfelt projects and supplies (I was spurred on by the fact that I've got a stash of Timtex, and a drawer full of vintage zippers, which are needed for these bags...and really, who doesn't have fabric...so I'm ready to go with this project.

We also learned how to transfer color to fabric for embroidery purposes -- which involved crayons and irons and was pretty neat. My neighbor thought it would be a great way to make a quilt label.

After a stop for lunch, we headed off to Shop 3. My neighbor hadn't seen a longarm, so I took her to my Bernina dealer who also sells the Handi Quilter Avante. And I was tempted by the new Bernina B580 coming in September.  Or maybe I'd rather make a sweet deal on their floor model 830 (they're running the 830LE now in the shop).

 Decisions, decisions.......

Maybe I should stop daydreaming about expensive equipment and concentrate on turning on the iron and getting back to work on Drunkard's Path. There's new projects to be started that can't begin until we finish the old..

Enjoy the weekend!