Oops! This time I'm going to live with it just the way it is.

This entire quilt top is together now.  I finished the machine sewing this afternoon.  All that is left is to applique the large sunflower to the right of the scarecrow and embroider all the finishing  touches.

When I took the picture for the blog I realized my mistake.  Take a close look at the quilt top.

Now look at the picture on the front of the pattern.

I would prefer the red-orange star points, but I'm NOT going to rip it apart to change things.  Too many seams sewn with too small stitches.  It isn't awful the way I did it, but I think the colors would balance better if I had done it the way it was designed.  I'll always look at the quilt and think about how it is supposed to be, but I'm going to live with it the way it it.

Two days left in the month and I have many goals I didn't accomplish.  Of course, I didn't plan to be sick.  I also didn't plan to become addicted to the "Candy Crush" game on Facebook.  Anybody else play that?  I started playing about when I got sick, and have spent way too much time doing that.  I'm blaming my lack of posts on the game addiction.  I have it under control now, I think - I hope - time will tell.

I'm not going to do the hand stitching on this right now.  I'm heading out Friday afternoon for a knitting retreat that lasts until Sunday afternoon, and I'm going to take quilting handwork as well as knitting - including this project.  It won't be done by this fall, but certainly by 2014.

Another top done

I have finished watching the five X-Men movies I borrowed from my son-in-law.  I thoroughly enjoyed each  one, and wish I could have seen them before I saw Wolverine.  I discovered quickly that I had to watch the screen too much to allow for rotary cutting.  Safe rotary cutting.  So I started - and finished - the embroidered words on this eagle quilt top.

The designer stitched the name "Ann Hutton" on the left corner under the word "there".  I had never heard of Ann Hutton, but American history was never my best subject.   I tried to find out who she was, using "1797" as part of my Internet search string, but couldn't find anything about her at all.  So I researched the quote, and found many, many references to it.  Every one of them attributed the quote to Benjamin Franklin.  So used his name, shortening it to "Ben" Franklin as there wasn't enough room in the corner for anything longer.  I really like how this turned out.  It will definitely be finished in time to join my other patriotic decorations next Summer.

Murphy's Law

Yesterday I decided to finish "Jack at the Gate".  I'd given up on the missing border fabric ever arriving, so I searched my stash for something that would work.  I figured there must be something on those shelves full of plaids.  I found several yards of the orange and off-white fabric you see in the picture, which looked very similar to the picture of the original.  Even though the color was more

 orange than the red-orange pumpkins on the quilt I decided it would tie in beautifully with the rest of the fabrics in the quilt.  I cut strips, sewed half square triangles, and had the top almost finished before I went to bed.  All that was needed was to applique the five stars across the top, which I finished today. 

And what do you suppose showed up in today's mail?

I should have been patient a little bit longer.  Notice the original red plaid is very similar to what I used except for the color.  The red piece will go on my plaid shelves to be used eventually in a different quilt.  I'm certainly not going to change borders now, especially as the stars overlap the top border.

I will chance something though - something I didn't see until I looked at the picture after inserting it in this post.  Two triangles on the bottom right are turned incorrectly!  That I can't tolerate!  So I guess the top isn't quite finished after all!