BLESSED SUNSHINE !

Hooray..........hooray.......what a beautiful DAY !  55 to 60 degrees, very little breeze, and pure clean sunshine..........what's that add up to?   Why, basting outside, of course !

I set the basting frame up in front of the trailer (this quilt was too big to use the front porch), and I combined pin-basting with thread-basting.  I used the pins as far as they would go, and then thread-basted down the center of each "T".  I also thread-basted around the perimeter of the quilt. 

        Gracie seems to be saying, "Are those jungle cats I see?"

I surely hope this holds it well while I try to machine-quilt.  Not sure what design I'll do yet.  I wish I had a little sample made up to practice on.  I do need to make up some of those quilted pads like they used in the bed in the nursing home, just to have on hand if hubby (or I) ever needed them.  I could practice on one of them, though it's still not like wrestling with a big quilt under the head of the machine.   That's why I usually just settle for straight-line quilting designs.

As I was reading through some of my favorite blogs, I ran across Janet talking about the spool blocks that so many people are making.  It spurred me to look up my little wall quilt that I made many years ago, and I was surprised to see that my blocks were so much bigger than hers.  

The second shot has Gracie giving you some idea of the size of this quilt.
I really love my spools, so I wanted to share the dimensions incase someone else wanted to do the larger ones. 

 Now that the quilt has shrunken, the individual blocks measure 4 5/8 inches, but I'm sure that I would have drafted it at 5 inches square.  The square in the middle started out to be 2 inches, finished, and the side pieces 1 1/2 inches , each, finished. 

I just love the way the plaids look all antique-ey.