Thanksgiving Three-peat

How to spend a long week-end when Himself is at sea and the fam-jam is away? Quilting, of course! And I managed to have sew days with quilt-y pals three days in a row. Talk about a three-peat!

Saturday had been a scheduled Q-Squared day for a while, but other commitments reared their ugly heads for Q-A and Q-B. The upside was that Q-D and I had more room to spread out!

I struggled to decide what to work on this week-end. I opted to quilt a piece that had been around for a bit. I needed a consult with at least one of the Squares to get things going. Though it was free-motion, I wanted to keep my lines of stitching running more or less vertical. Out came the masking tape! I've been using this trick for ages! 

The goal was to make it look like raindrops. Thankfully, raindrops don't have to be consistent or any particular shape. Here's another shot of the quilting... I'm saving the money shot for another post. You'll have to be patient!

Q-D had similar issues with indecision this week. She brought a pile of stuff to choose from. When she got her with all her bags, it looked like she was moving in!

Q-D found a pin of this lovely tree quilt a while back, and, rather than just doing the tutorial given on the blog, decided to make her own paper piecing pattern for it. She brought it along this week-end and we got to joking that I should pebble quilt it. Q-D's a little obsessed with my pebble quilting since I made this...

We kept joking and then.... I grabbed that sucker and got to work. It took the rest of Saturday evening and Sunday morning to quilt it, but Q-D seemed to think it was worth it!

 And here she is all done but for the binding...

The pebbling really makes the trees puff out. I quilted a little surprise in there for Q-D. I wonder if she's found it yet. I think Q-D should make me one in exchange. Just the top - I'd quilt it myself!

While I quilted one of her quilts, Q-D plugged away on another. This quilt was the first project she ever brought to a Q-Squared day.... it's been around for a while! Yes, those are paper pieced mittens. And yes, they are tiny! 

Once Q-D hit the road to join her family for Thanksgiving dinner, I knocked out a block for Global Stash Bee, an on-line bee hosted on Flickr. So far, I'm not loving this one as much as ModQImprov Canada. I think it's because it's on Flickr... I'm just not that into it. This month's Queen Bee requested any block at all in Christmas colours (though not necessarily Christmas prints). I chose Megan's Star from Modern Blocks.

I'd kind of forgot about this book, but when I needed some solo block inspiration it was perfect. I even found a block for a future ModQImprov Canada request!

And then today! Ade from Chezzetcook Modern Quilts finally made it here for a sew day. She's been under the weather... just read her blog post from last week-end for the gory details!

I kept on plugging away on my Toes in the Sand blocks. This is a little problematic when there's someone else quilting with me. They're challenging (the blocks, that is) and sometimes I have to talk to them to make sense of it all. Embarrassing, non?

It took me forever to finish the cutting for Block 7. It has 43 pieces! Yes, I said 43!!! in each block. And I made two. I was afraid of the partial seams on Block 4. Clearly, my fear was misplaced.

 There was a lot of referring to the book on this one!

I did it! Block 7 - Pebble Beach - is done! I think it was a good decision to do these in order. Otherwise, I'd have skipped this one and had it to do at the end!

Things got a little chaotic on Ade's table! She too had project indecision for this visit. Must have been something in the water this week. You can see the blocks she received in ModQImprov Canada, as well as those lovely Amy Butler and Heather Bailey prints she used for her postage stamp quilt. Not visible (behind the blue bag) is the block Ade's working on for me for ModQImprov Canada. I blogged about it  here. N.B. She tidied up mere seconds after this pic was snapped. Honest!

My table stayed a little more streamlined today. Those Toes in the Sand blocks are tricky enough. I didn't need any visual clutter!

One more down! Block 8 - Santa Monica.

I have just four more sets of blocks to make and I'll done. Well, done the blocks anyway! 

And before she left, Ade gave me this! Isn't it cool? It's an orb. I can't believe she just gave it to me... saying it was just going to become a pillow anyway. I'm tempted to turn in into a mini-quilt/wall hanging for my bare studio walls. In exchange, I gave Ade back a book that's been on my shelf for easily...hmmm... let's say, 8 years. I couldn't get rid of it - it wasn't mine!

So what am I grateful for on this Thanksgiving week-end? There are many things - Himself (of course) and the rest of my family, to be born in such an amazing country as Canada with so many advantages, to have health, wealth (at least some) and happiness (most days!). But as I write, I'm thankful for the quilt-y friends that filled up what might have been a long (and not in a good way) week-end all on my own.

What if we woke up tomorrow with only what we were grateful for today? That's my deep thought for today!

Hope you found some sewing time around the pumpkin pie and turkey!