Doll Quilt Swap

Lori D of Humble Quilts recently put together her second doll quilt swap for interested people, using Civil War repro fabrics.  As that is right up my alley, I signed up.  It helps that it had a short window for completion and I had an appropriate small quilt almost ready.  Today I received mine:

31" x 24"

 And the quilt came with gifts--an 8 pointed pin cushion stuffed with crushed walnut shells and a sweet little "church doll"--I can just imagine a little girl being still and quiet in church as she plays with her "church" doll.  Thanks, Danice G, of Homespun Hannah.  Even more fun, Danice lives in Florence, AL, about 75 miles from here.

I sent my doll quilt to Lizzy of Gone to the Beach.  She will retrieve it from the post office today:

This was almost done, I only had to add some hand quilting in the perimeter triangles.  I hope it enjoys its' new home on the NY coast--I love the beach too so I'm glad it has a coastal home.  This was fun and easy--thanks, Lori!

My other completion is this String Swap Block quilt:

The 36 larger blocks in the center came from 6 members of the Education Team who come to work the Houston show.  The smaller blocks on the outside borders came from several members of my guild Quilt Show committee.  I practiced free motion quilting, I'm still not very good at all at that, but it's OK and at least I know what speed works best for me, moderately fast.  This will be a sample at Open Studio in Portland, OR in August then it will hang in the Education office in Houston this fall--hopefully, the other 6 people will get theirs done so we can have a good display.  It helps our big office look more inviting with a quilt display.  I've posted about the choices the others made here
and here.

My husband had some surgery last week and is surprised he's not feeling 100% yet.  He intended to go back to work today, but that's not happening.  I leave very early tomorrow morning for Spring Market in Minneapolis.  So our eldest son, Joshua Black Wilkins, came down from Nashville yesterday to stay a few days.  Today he got put to work cleaning the porch cleaning--a hot, dirty, wet job.  Thank goodness for sons who work cheap!  He is a photographer by day and a musician by night and we were just lucky we caught him at a good time, he is out of town a lot. 

Yesterday was Mother's Day and besides having my eldest here I received flowers from my grand girl to be, Stella LeAnne, and her terrific parents, my younger son Andy and his wife Lauren. 

My husband listened when I gushed about this beautiful dish garden at Lowe's last week and it appeared as my gift from him--so pretty!  I hope you all had an enjoyable Mother's Day too.

Off to pack for Market--I hope to blog some from there to show you what's new and exciting.

Let's Quilt!

Barbara