Borders and Basting

Quilting gives me time to reflect, to listen to myself, to ask how things are going, to think about what was successful and what might have been challenging. My mind often needs to be pried open like a window to get the fresh air of inspiration.

Jake's holiday  international quilt is basted. As I thought, it needs to be hand quilted to make the best use of the different blocks in it. I couldn't see a way to do my usual grid machine quilting and have the lines work.

I headed into town to get more of the border print for my Sister's StarBurst Twist quilt. My concern that it was sold out proved to be true. Claudia said the fabric manufacture made only one run of this stunning fabric and had no plans to make more. She said it was gone. 

While she has a lot of fabrics, nothing in the store was going to work for the quilt, or for me. It is such an amazing print. As we talked, she asked how much I had and said it should be enough for the final border in spite of what the pattern called for. She said the extra yard was given for a directional print and this one would work. Sure enough, I measured after the first two borders went on and eight 5.5" cuts WOF were going to be enough with one more cut left. Whew. It is stunning. The circles with their sunray effects are such a complement to the center with its starburst effect. 

I spent more time talking with the two staff members and told them about my stash, discussed everyone's waning energies and asked for ideas for simple quilts that would still turn out nice. They suggested three options beyond the simple random square assembly I am considering: Log Cabin, Lover's Knot and the Twister. I have books for the first two and had the small Lil Twister tool. I bought the larger Twister but could not find the book for it. They also told me that picking apart the paper piecing quilt was going to make a huge task to finish.

Well, heck. Most of the day was successful. This paper piecing challenge was actually nothing new and while it is going slow, it is something that is happening.