Happy Thanksgiving!

Besides all the many blessings I have to be thankful for……

I finished my Fall Into a Quilt-A-Long quilt top yesterday!

Too late to enter for the grand prize that had a deadline of November 12th.  I already feel like I’m a winner because I love all the blocks and the designers have actually reached out to me and many of the other quilters to give advice.  It was a great experience and I learned a lot!

But, I’m kind of goal oriented and the deadline was November 12th and I really wanted to get done by then.

But there was a series of unfortunate events….

First I ran out of fabric, and although my favorite daughter-in-law offered to go to her quilt shop where I bought most of the fabrics and get me more—that quilt shop is in Bismarck, ND.  Not like it’s right around the corner.  And although I appreciated her offer, I actually found a yard of pretty orange fabric in my stash. Thank you Lauri! (Why do you insist on living in North Dakota????)

Then when I was ready to start sewing that border on the quilt top, I decided to clean out the machine first.  Quilting makes a lot of dust.  I clean my Baby Lock Unity a lot.  Cause you gotta respect the machine!  (and it skips stitches if I don’t keep it clean!)

And I cleaned it.

And was putting it back together.

And one of the screws fell into the deep depths of those areas beyond all hope of retrieving.  I dropped a screw one other time and was able to get it out with tweezers. I tried to get it out this time and even got Terry involved (magnets were used) but that screw went to places beyond our reach.

And then there was the festival that I talked about on Tuesday.  I had to face reality.  I was going to work from sun up to sun down for three days and I was not going to have a chance to be in that sewing room.

So.  I had to admit to myself that I was NOT going to make that deadline.

Last Friday Terry and I took my wounded Baby Lock to our new little quilting shop, Beyond the Stitches. The owner identified the problem, pulled the machine apart, found that screw, put it back together. (This shop has the nicest employees and owners in the world.  Terry even commented about how pleasant they were on our drive home.)

This week–I finished that quilt top!  Yippee!

I did it!  It’s done! And it is beautiful!

Next week, backing, basting, binding!

The Label for this Quilt (now I have to get it completely finished before November is over!)