Two Bindings and a Quilt

This week saw a lot of snatched time sewing a baby quilt that is winging its way to Finland as I write

I used my walking foot to quilt in the ditch and just continued on with the pattern on the white background.  I have just bought a book on free motion quilting and one day I hope to be more creative.  Until then, this will do nicely.  The magical plastic container full of thirties 1.5" strips seems to be as full as ever.  It featured when I posted about "Muffet's Way" a quilt with hundreds of thirties strips.  So it seems as if there is enough material for another project to emerge from this box soon.

If you look closely at the binding of this quilt, you may notice that it is 1" short.  At 11.30 last night I knew the quilt shop would be shut so I just went ahead and used a "different but similar" fabric.  This is a PATCHWORK quilt after all.

My husband refers to this part of the quilt as "the dog" - in a nice way.  He is in my good books even though he dropped my tin of  pins all over the floor.  As soon as it happened he raced off to his shed and returned with this

It is not an antenna, although I suppose it could double as one.  It has a magnetized end that quickly picked up the pins.  Not a new idea, I know, but I can't help but think I may be able to match Karen for nifty suggestions, by revealing that he bought it at a car parts shop!  And it was cheap.  Apparently men regularly drop screws and screwdrivers and other metallic bits down into the engine of their cars.

Finally, I come to the second binding.  I took the binding off  the old and loved quilt.  There has been lots of fading

I patched the damaged border and replaced the binding.  I even put on a label.

Progressing Backwards

Do you ever have periods where nothing feels right?  I have been making hexagons and my wrist doesn't like it.  I turned to the hexagons because my #2 Cherry Tree block is giving me a headache.   If you know the pattern, you're probably thinking I get headaches pretty easily.  It's a simple pattern and here is where I am up to:

I am going to undo some of the leaves to get a nicer join with the stem.  My fault.  I used freezer paper and decided it didn't matter which shaped leaf went where.  My red leaves on the right are too bulky at the stem junction compared with the green leaves below.  So I want to adjust them.  But not today.  Does that happen to you?  The disappointment of getting things wrong often pushes a current project into the cupboard.  Luckily Sharon set up a  blog and I won't put it in the cupboard for too long.  It won't be alone because it will be with #1

Here is something else that has made it into the temporary cupboard because of my bad mood

There are 3 borders on and the 4th will have to wait.  The photo isn't very good however I hope you have noticed that I lined up the pattern of the border nicely.  But it takes a good mood to get that right, so I'm not chancing it and mucking up the final border.  And so, into the cupboard.
I have a little project up on the design wall for a baby quilt required by next Saturday (ha!)

Do you recognize the little strips left over from a previous project?  I thought I would use them in log cabins but they will do nicely here.  And it's quick.  Here is a snap of the spiderweb quilt

I have named it "Muffet's Way".  I don't have a picture of the entire quilt.  It is taking a summer holiday away from home, but will return next year.

So this is a post with plenty of photos but not much progress.  I wondered whether I should share my bad mood with you but I do have a button on my sidebar declaring "I took the Process pledge"  and that process also includes backwards progress as well as forwards.  I know I will wake up tomorrow feeling better and I hope that includes my aching hand.