Neexxttt....

This one is for a teaching co-worker who retired. It was a big project to take on at the time and those of us involved thought we had an extra year, but she decided to retire a year earlier than planned. What?!?!
It has taken a long time to get the blocks from her friends and family. As a result, I kept pushing other projects (for other people) in front of it. Now we have all the blocks and the top is pieced. Some blocks are pieced, some appliqued, some made with fabric markers and/or paint, some are embroidered by machine, some embroidered by hand, some have special elements like sequins or beads or trapunto-like stuffing, some printed on special fabric for ink jet printers. The blocks that are printed on fabric (Colorfast fabric sheets for ink jet printers) are stiff and any stitching holes remain - so no mistakes!
I had decided simple quilting in just the sashing and borders would be best so that the blocks would stand on their own and the special elements would not be disturbed.
I was going to machine quilt it on the frame - easy, fast. HA.
I had not gone far when I realized that would not work - or at least not look well when finished. The stiffer blocks were bunching up and there was going to be puckering on the back.
Off the frame it came, stitching removed and it is now on my floor frame and I am hand quilting in the ditch around each block and will quilt around some elements in each individual block.

I have quilted around Curious George's kite, the heart in the block above George, and a line in the music in the block above that. I am also quilting an X in the corner stones.

 This is my block. It represents her love of children and country. At some point in her day her class sang songs, often patriotic ones.

This is the center panel before it was completed. She often said "Kindergarten is, you know, the garden where the kinder grow". The flowers at the bottom are thumb prints of the students who were in kindergarten her final year. The sun and clouds are thumb prints of students she taught in 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade her final year.

I think she will love it, but I need to go work on it and get it finished.

Monday...

...again. I don't know how the weeks get away from me, but they do.

I have been busy!

I worked my way through a pile of mending - patching jeans, a couple of lines of stitching in my quilt apron to make a smaller pocket for the seam ripper, taking up 3 shirts so they fit better in the underarm area. Seems I don't have quite enough to fill in the top part of most shirts when I buy the size that fits my middle parts making them gap in that area.

And, then there is the quilting.

I finished this T-shirt quilt for my co-worker. Her daughter is graduating high school this year.

My co-worker loved it! 

Then I decided to work on the 365 Challenge. The challenge is going again this year and most of the blocks are the same. But, I am so far behind I am being lapped. 

This is the unit for April 1st - 2016.

Not this year's, LAST year's. Oh, well. I really think I want to finish this. 

It just might take me ... forever.

I like to cut pieces for 10 days at a time. 

I find it easier to pick up a day and make a block quickly.

 

I think part of the reason I am struggling with this project is that for some of the blocks 

I chose fabric that doesn't have enough contrast. I plan to remake them.

Quilt Retreat was 2 weeks ago, but I failed to take photos of what 

I did there so I will save that for another post.

Go to Judy's page to see what other quilters are working on.