Sunday report

We're having a beautiful weekend on the coast - but this morning started out really grey and threatening ... now it's sunny and 51! Sometimes I think I'm back in Nebraska with the changeable weather.

Last Monday I completed the Coast shop hop. DH drove me and we hit every kind of weather! It was amazing. It was icy underfoot when we left at 7:30 am. Rain started, then it cleared, we needed our sunglasses. But about 2 hours south we hit a snow shower that was almost a white-out! They got half an inch in 30 minutes! Then the rain, the sun again ... we spotted 4 rainbows that day and made it to the Brookings shop and back by sunset. 300+ miles! I didn't spot anything I had to have in the stores - like the first half; just bought a few 1/3 yards of blue batiks and the block kits from each store. Living out here may force me to change my quilting style - I've only been quilting with country scrappy colors for 35 years!!! Oh dear, did I hear friends saying they'll believe it when they see it??? When I finished a kaleidoscope quilt years ago, I'd been working on it 10 years and a friend told me "only you would still be working in the same colors for 10 years!" Well, believe it or not - I'm eerily drawn to batiks lately!!!

I finished hand piecing 13 album patches for my Oregon Sesquicentennial wall quilt. [Boy, was I born in the right century!] I've enjoyed hand piecing - but I have to admit I was setback when I realized I'd have to hand piece the sashings too, I knew I'd quilt it by hand, but sew the binding on by hand!!! YIKES! Good thing it's small!

Yesterday I decided I needed to sew at least 15 minutes. I haven't gotten out my machine lately. Pulled the cutting mat from under the bed. And I cranked up Prairie Home Companion on the internet - we can't get an NPR station in our condo - concrete walls to withstand the coast weather. But I keep forgetting that I can listen to PHC anytime on the computer. I ended up sewing for 4 hours! It was just what I needed!

I sewed top and bottom borders to leftover Yellow Brick Road [YBR] blocks; pieced the back together; cut the batting; framed it and pin basted it. Then I machine quilted the block lines - now I need to decide how I'll quilt inside the blocks. But I won't wait too long - I've been procrastinating on this quilt for months! No, I don't know why either!

I sewed down the binding on a charity quilt I picked up at the guild meeting.

I figured out which sashing to use for the album patch - hope to mark it this afternoon before I head to Portland to babysit for two days. Although - I don't ever get anything done up there - when they are napping, I'm napping too! Nanas can do that! LOL!

Hopefully, pictures of the finished YBR quilt next week - it all depends on whether I'll bring Miss P home with me so momma can have a break!