Glorious Weekend!

I just came back from our second semi-annual quilters retreat weekend. It was perfect except for the fact that it was far too short. A few more days would have been heaven.

I finished up the scrap quilt and discovered a new groove in my machine quilting. It was amazing. Something about the third time was magic. My friend Becca agreed it was the same for her. Neither one of us could say what it was but number three just seems to click. It was so much more even with a smoother motion. I still have tons to learn and lots more practice to go before I can ever be considered good but I feel like I’m on my way.

When I said goodbye to the big boy on Friday, he said I could make him an animal quilt while I was gone. The dinosaur quilt is just not cutting it for him (grr). I admit I pushed the dinosaurs because I just hadn’t found any animals that I liked and that I thought he would continue to like until he was at least ten or so. There’s tons of cute animals for the little ones but I needed a “big boy” look. As luck would have it I found an animal print that I liked on one of our stops. At another stop I found lots of animal print scraps in the 25¢ remnant bin. And so begins the animal lap quilt. I also brought home two pillowcases with the animals so I had something to show them.

But knowing my boy, I predicted he would want more animals, all the animals. And sure enough, he said he wanted all the animals on the entire Earth, not just the savannah. Mom. I think we’ll just start with the savannah and see how that goes.

My Spring to Finish 2 finishes are the Purple Fancy, the scrap quilt and a block exchange. My sister-in-law’s quilt is ready at the machine quilter, but that won’t make the May cutoff. But it’s good to get some things done because those new project ideas keep coming.