Huge sigh of relief!

 It’s not perfect, but I feel like I did the best I could on the squirmy, wiggly tshirts that simply did not want to stay put!

The quilt is wonderfully soft, I fully appreciate making a tshirt quilt sans the interfacing, but I sure can’t recommend it!

As you can see, I did make it through this one today and only had to frog out stitches once, woohoo!  I think it might be easier to stitch in the ditch an entire quilt, honest!  Of course someone with more practice at tshirt quilts may not have struggled at all, but it surely challenged me.  I think the quilt won too!

I’m taking a much needed coffee break… did I mention I’ve managed to get myself addicted again, after being such a good girl for three whole years?  All it took was one teensy cup over the holidays when the kids were down… and really it was an itty bitty cup!  There’s something positively sublime about a rich cup of coffee… sigh.

I got both vacuum cleaners out, upstairs and downstairs, figuring that would be enough motivation to jump start some housework, but the darn things are just sitting there!

 I sure love that tie dyed backing fabric!

 Beans and rice for dinner tonight, a favorite summer dish for Jim and I when there’s plenty of fresh ripe tomatoes, lots of cheddar cheese and scallions, yummy! 

Holding my breath...

Crossing my fingers, toes, and probably my spine before I’m through, but here’s hoping to finish the tshirt quilt today without further frogging!

Perhaps I would do better to set aside the coffee this morning and instead set myself up with some shots of tequila?  Mmm… that could get downright dangerous, I’m an extreme lightweight!

All in all, it’s turning out well enough.  I can only quilt one handed on this… left handed at that, since the other hand has to remain free to keep taming the squirmy shirts, and old lefty just isn’t as talented as I’d like her to be!

I’m just doing some random swirls freehand, it feels so strange for me to work from the front of the machine as I rarely do!

I’m on a mission to use up all the Bali strips I have in my stash…. two quilts down and the next will be coming from a mix of blues and greens.

I was going to make another of the Sweet Menagerie Nine Patches with these, but I’ve enough of these colors to do something else… perhaps another Bali Sea Star like I made Jim last year? 

I finished binding the wacky log cabin yesterday, and got it washed and dried. I had originally planned to sell it, but as I was binding it I decided it would make a perfect Christmas present for my grandson this year.

When I finished the purple and green quilt in the post below, I think I’ll send it to my sister-in-law in Missouri, she’s recently opened an art gallery/gift shop and see if it sells.

Yep, I was lazy

I skipped the appliqué border idea and added the final white border, this top is ready to be quilted!

I wanted to get it done and up on a hanger so I could load the tie dyed backing and get the tshirt quilt ready to go… which is about halfway done now, but oooooohhhh mmyyyyyy gaaawwwddd!  Now I know why all the longarmers I asked told me not to take a tshirt quilt without interfacing on the back.  I had a test one to try on, and decided it wouldn’t be too hard to tackle, but it is.  It’s very, very difficult.  I’ve spent more time ripping than sewing.  I think today I’m going to give it a rest!

We have plenty of fresh tomatoes and basil in the garden now, so last night for dinner I whipped up some pizza crusts, and we topped them with garlic marinated in olive oil, red pepper flakes, lots of basil (it’s under the cheese so it won’t burn), fresh tomatoes and portabella mushrooms, pure bliss!

I think tonight we’re going to have BLT’s for dinner, I just started some whole wheat dough.

Maybe I’ll finish that final elephant block today?