Sew Time

Now that the queen-sized strippy quilt is a top and Big Blue is done (!) and ready to be gifted I've had time to sit and reflect a little. For the first time in over a year I don't have a project hot under the needle of my sewing machine. I've been looking at counted cross stitch and knitting... of all things. I'm resting, and it's very nice. I don't have that frantic 'So many quilts, so little time' feeling that comes in sometimes and grabs me by the throat.

So when I recently went to visit my long time friend Karen for a sew day, I was a little stumped. What should I sew? I went stash diving and unearthed a couple of yards of fabric for a blouse. I'd bought the fabric three years ago while shopping with Karen at her LQS during another summer visit. Therefore it seemed appropriate to make it up while with her again!

We talked and sewed and ate and talked and sewed. Maybe that's why I made so many mistakes. I cut the shoulder yoke in half, had to cut another one. I cut two left facings, had to cut a right facing. Sewed the collar around on three sides as directed, only to find they were the wrong three sides, had to cut another two collar pieces. You can see why I don't *do* a lot of clothing construction. :D

This is as far as I got that day. Asyou can see I still need to insert the sleeves, sew the side seams, do the hem and add buttons and buttonholes. I have no idea when I'll get back to it!

The colors don't show well on the screen but it's a beautiful combination of aqua, teal, navy and purple. The subtle touch of metallic gold makes the whole thing shimmer.

Karen's been working her way through a lot of UFO's lately. We were sewing in the front room and went into her sewing room for something and she said, "This box has the most recent finished tops in it. You've probably seen most of these..." and proceeded to pull out top after top that I *hadn't* seen, six or seven total. It was then that she realized it'd been too long since our last visit.

She worked on attaching the sawtooth border to another UFO.

What a sweet little quilt. The background is made up of all these fun conversational print reproductions. The blocks and top assembly had given her *fits* and it sat for a long time. But by the end of the day she had all the borders on it and fell in love with it again.

Don't cha just love it when that happens?

The day went too fast and I had to pack up and head home. But we promised each other... like was always do... not to wait so long between visits.