What I’m Working On….

Yes, I am still working on the wedding quilt. It’s been hectic here but I’ve squeezed in every drop of time that I could…let’s just say this:

1-The end is in sight.
2-It’s a good thing I love Kalissa and Craig.
3-It’s a good thing Hubby is patient with me.
4-It’s a good thing Kelli is willing to save me when I need saving.

So you might remember that I injured both my shoulder and my ankle. Some things have been harder for me because of it so Kelli has taken pity on me and volunteered to help. Cutting is the thing that’s hardest for me so Kelli to the rescue.

I’ve been doing good. Last week my task was to try to finish the blocks for the outer border and to start sewing things together. I got the outer blocks sewn and then Kalissa took the project and passed it along to Kelli with the intentions that Kelli would start laying it out. Well that didn’t happen as Kelli’s schedule is crazy now too.

Fast forward to Friday. Kelli came home and as soon as the childcare kiddos left we went upstairs to assemble the top. By now we knew we’d likely have to both sew on it to get it completed and regardless of what people say, I am completing it by the wedding. I know she’ll understand and all that but I want it done. I want to move onto a new project…so I a persevering!

Kelli started laying things out and UGH. We didn’t realize we need another kind of block for the border so back to work we went. More blocks to cut…more blocks to sew. As Kelli cut I started sewing center blocks together. Then once the blocks were cut I sewed and she ironed. The blocks went together fast..but we still had a whole top to assemble. We sewed until 11pm.

I was up the next day and sewing again…a bit later Kelli was up and pinning rows together. We were doing pretty good. I had 15 of the 30 rows sewn together and Kelli continued to pin. Then the quilt curse struck again. We were short blocks. We were back to making more quilt blocks…just as we were finishing the blocks up Kalissa came and she wanted “wedding work day” to commence. So we stopped with the quilt and started in with decorations for the wedding. (I’ll write more about all that in another post).

As evening came, we had other plans. There was a Fire Truck Parade of Lights in town. Hubby, Kalissa and Craig are all involved with the our community EMS so we wanted to join in the fun with them. (More about this later too)

As the parade was going by Kelli continued to pin quilt rows together determined to leave me in the best possible shape with the quilt…it wasn’t long before she discovered yet again, we needed more blocks. By now Kelli and were both baffled. How could we be so wrong? Kelli told me to just sew until row 26 and then I’d see what blocks were needed…okay…sew Jo-sew.

Sunday morning comes and I sew and sew, skipping church because Hubby had to work and I opted to work on the quilt just to get it finished. I had a couple distractions (More on this later too) but finally…finally got to row 26 suddenly realizing I hadn’t ever really looked at the blocks that were sewn. UGH. Was a block twisted…nope they were okay. I took the top downstairs to lay out on the floor and realized that there on the floor was a row labeled #20?!?!? WHAT?!?!? I was sure I had #20 already in the quilt. I laid the quilt out and checked and rechecked.

The conclusion I came to is this…Kelli had stopped and started pinning. I think she quit on row #20 to come back and thought she needed to start on row #20. In the end #20 was already finished. Well I was okay once the panic was over. I didn’t need to make new blocks!!

So back to sewing and now I have this… a completed quilt top.

I also have this…left over blocks as still ended up with too many.

Most important…the top is finished. The backing is finished.

Kelli has plans to be home today. She is taking care of the kiddos while I load the quilt and get a start on it. I am hoping I’ll get far enough along that I’ll be able to finish it on Tuesday after childcare. I have so many other things to do this week that it sure would be nice to have it done by then…we’ll see. No mater..I am in striking distance!!

To see what others are working on check out Patchwork Times.