Ta-da!

I have a friend who teaches quilting classes and she insists that whenever anyone in her class finishes something, they have to hold it up and announce, "Ta-da!" to the whole class. I love that tradition of hers!

I did manage to get this put together over spring break, finally finishing the last stitch during the NASCAR race yesterday afternoon. All those flying geese! I know it's busy, but I'm loving it. I don't really know where I'm going with it after this, but I'm going to continue with borders around it until I run out of material. It's going to sit on my design wall until the next inspiration hits.



And, I finally got the binding sewn down on this batik quilt. I finished it Wednesday, but couldn't get a decent picture of it until today when the sun finally came out. I've shown this before, but I wanted to wait until it was completely finished before I talked about it. I started this years ago and put it away because I was disappointed in the way it turned out. I was trying to get the effect of late twilight on a summer evening when the fireflies come out. At the time, all I could find for the setting blocks was this blue fossil fern fabric. After I got it all together (and this is all hand sewn, so it was quite a job) I didn't like the blue--I thought I should have gone with a darker, more midnight blue.

So, the top has been sitting folded up in a bin of finished tops. I don't even know what made me take it to my longarmer after all this time.

When I got it back I was astonished at how well it turned out. I had always called it Twilight, but I think I'm changing its name to Tranquility.


Anita at Bloomin' Workshop is having a show and tell of work spaces today. I was going to play along, really I was. Then I took a look at the current state of my sewing room and decided I daren't expose my messy sewing room to the world, so you'll have to use your imagination. I do my machine sewing in a tiny attic bedroom which used to be my daughter's bedroom. She painted it dark blue back when she was in high school. I would like to repaint it a nice light, neutral color, but I can't imagine shifting all the boxes and bins and books and piles of fabric somewhere else while that happens. The best thing about the room is the light--it has a nice northwestern exposure, so sewing up there in the afternoons is very pleasant. If you can stand the mess. At some point I guess I will get around to organizing it, but it won't be this week!