Twelve hours, and I didn't want to quit!!!

It was another 5AM alarm that eagerly roused me from bed (although I had been awake since about 4:30 again).  **sigh** I will miss this stress-free living once Thursday rolls around and I need to head back to school :\

Dishes, coffee, bagel... the same routine.

Kisses to Paul at 5:45...

and then, it was time to get RSC12 taken care of!!! (with the Missouri Quilt Company tutorials playing in the background).  I actually followed one of those YouTube ads to this 'station.'  Heaven knows I didn't need to really watch any of the tutorials, but... it was decent background noise.  

I kept looking at the picture of the design wall last night, and I really was becoming partial to the small diamondy alternating blocks.  BUT, I'm also a symmetrical person at heart, SO I started the day by making up two more string blocks:  light greens and light purples.

BUT, maybe you can figure out what was wrong with the plan of adding those blocks to the left end of row #2 and row #4....

I didn't even take a picture of the design wall, but.......

the plan in my head ..... well, it was broken :(  By adding those two blocks to the left end of #2 and #4, I created a big 12" gap in rows #1, 3, & 5.  

That was no good....

Ho hum, ho hum....

Well, at least I had 12 blocks now, SO, I simply put them in a 3x4 layout, and pieced 'em together!

I didn't use paper-backing for the string piecing;  rather I used some bleached muslin as the foundation. Now I understand when Bonnie mentions how heavy the tops become when using fabric as the foundation.  I clearly had to press the seams open for this entire quilt.

And then came time to play with border options.

Those lil' diamonds ended up working just about PERFECTLY as an outer border, but first, a small inner border was needed.

And dog-gone-it!  I figured I could use my design wall to "measure" out my border strips, but... that's one heavy quilt top!  And it kept falling to the floor.

Therefore, it was time to move the quilt to the floor for border treatments.

Only, there was one small problem...

My floor space was occupied with Christmas Goose.  It's been there...waiting ever so patiently for weeks.

Alright lil' quilt!  You deserved to be pieced!

Christmas Goose (72" x 91")

I'm not 100% sold yet on it being completely done.  There's something I like about having one final border to seal it all off.  But, .... then again, it's pretty cool the way it is.  What's the standard Queen size quilt measurements, anyway???

Pretty neat finish considering this is where it all began.  Men's shirts.  Thanks Bonnie!!!!!!

And before I went back to quilting work, 

I gave the basement carpet (aka: my design floor carpet) a good vacuuming.

Rainbow Diamonds (50" x 62")

Which meant I could lay out RSC14 -- Rainbow Diamonds without worry of loose strings or other debris!  

Do I like it?  You bet'cha!  I think it'll be FUN for a little girl!  Now... to find (or wait for) a recipient.

And then, Nancy jingled through Facebook Skype, and we spent an hour sewing together...

LOL -- Heya Nancy -- Guess I shoulda looked at the snapshot right away...

It took me awhile to figure out exactly what I wanted to work on.  

My design wall was empty.

I didn't want to work on any more floor layouts with Nancy piecing away in front of me.

So, pulled out my 2.5" scrap squares and organized them up a bit.

And pieced another couple of Jack in the Box blocks from the other part of my 2012 RSC.  

After seeing Andee's AMAZING completed Jack-in-the-Box top yesterday, I am newly motivated to have my other 2012 blocks see a finish!  But, I need more in order to make the quilt a desirable size.

And then, sadly, it was time for me to shut everything down in order to make dinner for the family.
Twelve hours total.  And I could STILL go for more.  Go-Go-Energizer bunny today for some reason :)

Happy Monday!

Oh, and BTW...remember I had been watching Missouri Quilt Co's YouTube station?  By the time I shut everything down, 59 tutorials had played.  And many, many, many more ideas of quilts are rambling in my head now.  Good golly!