11/9/18

Practically finished

I am practically finished with the tree quilt and with nearly a month to go until the wedding.  It took longer than I thought to finish it.  I had some time off work and decided to devote the day to it and see if I could get it done.  It took longer than I expected, probably because I was also trying to binge watch a series on TV and kept running over my line and having to stop, pick out a half dozen stitches and make a new start. 


There are a few errors.  Yesterday, I noticed that I picked up a fabric scrap off the table and it got quilted into the back.  I carefully cut it along the stitching and picked it out, but broke one quilting thread and will have to pick out a few inches and replace it, but that's easy work.  There is only one pucker in the back and I haven't looked into whether I can fix it...or whether I will just stitch it down so it's harder to see. 


Becky said she would probably use this "wind" pattern a lot and that stuck with me and when I was quilting, I realized just how often I have used it.  I use it all the time.  I've used it in two large quilts this year.  It's so easy once I built up a rhythm and a pattern in my head.  In my early quilting, I had made a plastic template of it and would mark quilts to use it.  Now, it's all free motion and a lot more loopy and round, but very effective in a quilt with a nature theme.

Now, it's just squaring and binding and giving it away.

We took Syd out for her first legal margarita on Monday night. 


A large part of our conversation was about alcohol.  Some of it, she had heard like never leave your drink unattended and then pick it back up; get a fresh one.  Don't mix alcohols, don't lose control, don't be a weepy drunk or an angry one.  Mixers and shots and alcohol contents and what to do if the situation ever gets out of control.  (CALL HOME!  On the landline because our cell phone ringers are off at night.) 

She joked that we made it sound like she was going to become a sudden alcoholic.  We replied that we've always shown her responsible drinking (never drive, never excess).  This was just an extension of that to give her more knowledge about alcohol.  Tuesday night, her friends took her to dinner and out dancing.  She got home the next morning and told me about it.  And, amazingly, she wasn't hung over.  And, while she'll never admit out loud that she listens to us, the way she described the evening and her experimentation with different types of alcohol and tasting other people's drinks was told in the same way and using some of the same terms that we had used Monday night when we were talking to her about it.  That seems like a good thing. 

Everybody have a great weekend.  I'm off to Cleveland next week for a few days, so I'll be prepping for that and trying to finish the tree quilt.  I was sick a few days last week and didn't feel like moving around and quilting, so I picked up a needlepoint UFO...I was so bored with daytime TV and election commercials.  Quilting takes my whole body and I didn't want to move off the couch.  But needlepoint is just moving one arm.  (that's a rationalization in case you're unsure.)  I didn't realize how close I was to completing that project, so hopefully, that will be another finish to show off soon. 

Be well!  Lane