A Hard Day At The (Quilting) Coalface

Today is one of those days where I know life is good. I went out to my friend Janice's place ( a leisurely 15 minute drive into the country on a perfect late summer/early autumn day) and spent the day sewing. At 9 am this morning I still hadn't decided what I was going to do. It was a choice between sewing more blocks for a Single Irish Chain quilt or piecing a background for the Jacqui Karl class I am doing in May. So I loaded up the two fabrics and the already made blocks for the Irish Chain and a pile of fabric for the background. When I arrived at Janice's we started straight into the coffee (which was great since Janice has an espresso machine and mine died and has gone back to the shop. I am waiting for a replacement so I have been without decent coffee for over a week!)

After being coffee-ed up I decided I would work on the background. The idea was to make a piece to put a dragonfly onto. It needs to be already quilted before the class starts. My idea was to cut straight strips of uneven sizes from across the width of the fabric, sew them together and cut vertically, then sew them back together in a jagged fashion. Janice suggested I cut the strips in a free-form curved fashion and this is the result (none too flat I might add!)

Then I cut strips vertically and sewed them back together. I had to keep trimming bits off so the thing would lie flat. Not quite finished yet but I like what I have done. Guess what? It is not going to be a background for the dragonfly. I have decided it will be a quilt in it's own right.

Janice made a delicious lunch of chicken breast chunks and chickpea salad. Sitting on the table were a couple of mini bottles of wine and a bottle of non-alcoholic Bundeberg. I was allowed to choose so I had a lovely glass-sized bottle of Jacob's Creek Chardonnay. Janice had the other wine and the Bundeburg was left behind. She said (tongue in cheek) that she noticed I had NOT chosen the non-alcohol one. "No contest" says me. I don't often get offered wine at lunch. I know when I'm onto a good thing. Janice's excuse was that she was trying out the theory that free-motion quilting goes better after a glass of wine!

Here is the progress so far:

To round off the day nicely my friend Frances came to dinner (as she usually does on a Saturday night) and I sewed the rest of the binding of the second community quilt while she pieced together the log cabin blocks of her community quilt. So now both of mine are now done, already for club next week-wahoo!! Picture of the second community quilt tomorrow - I need to go to bed now after a hard day at the quilting coal-face :-)