Detoured...

With the day off again, I was looking forward to actually wrapping up the Scrappy Irish Chain to clear up some floor space. I had sewn a few rows together last night, in fact, after laying out the PKD (Perkiomen Daydreams) blocks.

Sitting at the breakfast table with the girls and my mother, she got to talking about my cousin Jean and her son. Jean is trying to coax him into sleeping in his own room--I guess he has the habit of sneaking in with mom and dad everynight. He's in Kindergarten. Anyway, Jean is redecorating his bedroom with fish (HIS choice). She is making up some curtains, painting the room a light green, with brown; the whole nine yards. Anyway, my mom is his Godmother, and mom mentioned a new quilt for his bed, but Jean turned that idea down since he has a nice quilt. So that suggestion then turned into a wall-hanging. I think my mom had the idea in her mind that she was going to attempt it, but.......at the same time I think she KNEW that if she got to talking with me, I would GLADLY jump on board and help out (or do it all)....

Well.....lo-n-behold! My mother picked up fabric on the way up to the house yesterday. Hmmmm.......she MUST have had the idea that we (I) would be working on it this weekend. *chuckle* Sneaky bird!

Anyway...I threw the fabrics in the washer and grabbed a huge stack of quilting magazines to find an idea. But the time I moved the fabrics to the drier, I was half way through the stack of magazines and had two ideas picked out already. Once the fabrics were dry, I had three total ideas.......narrowing it down wasn't that easy, either! However, sailboats seemed to make the most sense to go along with fish fabric.

My mom bought the fish fabric and the brown fabric. I pulled the rest from my stash.......This baby was going to go together FAST! Simple HST's and rectangles!

While mindlessly chain-sewing some pieces, I allowed my mind to wander. I came to realize that while "yes," I found this pattern in a magazine, I must be advancing to a new level of quilting skills because I didn't even bother reading any of the directions. I simply looked at the picture, grabbed my EZ Angle ruler, cut and sewed away. I also have come to realize that we can alter designs as we see fit----the projects are ours afterall! I sized down the overall dimensions from a Twin down to a 38"x42" wall size.

I started cutting and piecing at 11:00 AM. By 2:00, the top section (minus the borders) was pieced. After a short break, I was back at it, putting the borders on. By 4:00, I was choosing backings. By 5:00, the sandwich was basted. The girls played with Grandma for most of the day, but Candace came down by me while I was pin-basting the quilt sandwich. She grabbed my camera and was trying to take pictures--she had a problem with holding down the button long enough for the picture to be taken. However, she did get this silly shot of me......
.....Then, she said...."Momma take picture of me?" She's in the midst of a cold bug right now and her nose is a faucet. Her cheeks also took on the "red look" today with the cold.





I was back downstairs at 7:00 after dinner to get to the quilting. I stippled the background and did my new-found "ripple" in the borders. The brown vertical strips were channeled a quarter of inch inside the seam. The binding is on and will be hand-sewed tomorrow.

So.....today took me through a slight "detour" from my other quilting projects. I think I'll call this one "Smooth Sailing".