A good day for quilting?

It's raining! I know for some people that's a problem, but we've had more than 100 days of temperatures over 90 this year, and, after a fairly rainy early summer, we've had only one day of rain in the last month or so. So a nice, soft steady rain is just the thing.

I have come to the conclusion – a no-brainer, really – that if I am going to do many large quilts I will have to come up with a bigger ironing and pinning area. Fortunately my current setup, a regular ironing board and small dining room table set on bed risers, work for the wall hangings and throw to twin size quilts I usually do. But this queen size Triple Star is like wrestling an elephant. All of my sewing time yesterday went to prepping and pinning, and I am down to the last couple of sections, so today I should be able to actually quilt. It should be a good workout!

I sewed the binding on Cool Jazz Friday night and started the hand-sewing while we watched a movie. I'll say one thing about my binding/sleeve sewing marathon lately. I haven't had to look far for a hand-sewing project to work on while watching TV!

I was looking at one of my favorite online fabric sites yesterday, Connecting Threads. Drooling over the new batiks, to be exact. I noticed that they have a section with free patterns and tutorials that I hadn't seen before. I spent a while looking through and found some really cute things. There's a Christmas tree pincushion, and a peppermint candy pincushion that would be great stocking stuffers for quilting friends. There are some pretty wall hangings/table runners/table toppers, designed to use their fabric of course, but could be used with other fabrics as well. And a really nice selection of ideas/patterns for English Paper Piecing. I may have to try the little Christmas ornaments. It's worth some browsing time. Just go to the site, choose patterns, then free patterns.

Time to get busy, more later.