S-U-C-C-E-S-S!

I remember the SUCCESS! cheer from my high school days as a Farmington Tiger.  And why is it that now I can't remember what I walked into the bedroom for?  Oh, the mind is a wonderful thing! Oh, and by the way, the above picture is not one of me in my younger years, but one I copied off the school blog.  Actually, I did cheer during my last two years in school, but I cheered for hockey--in wool shorts and wool jacket (which I still have)--knee high socks--on skates--outside!  Oh yes, we had some lively cheers--had to, to stay warm!

Well, I was cheering yesterday afternoon as I began working on the log cabin quilt again. First I rewound all 5 bobbins and then set out to see if that made a difference in the quilting. O. M. G. Yes it did!  The stitches were as close to perfect as they ever will be!  I went full speed ahead and got a tremendous amount of quilting done before it was time to come upstairs to start dinner.  It's amazing how much you can get done when you don't have to stop and unstitch all the time!

I actually laid the quilt out on the floor and counted blocks. There are 64 blocks in the quilt, and by my count, I have 16 left to go before I begin the second motif.  I also noticed 2 blocks that I'd stitched the day before and which really need to be unstitched and done again, with proper tension this time. I'll take care of them today before I move on to the other 16.

This quilt is so big I have a hard time taking any pics of it, and there isn't enough floor space in any room in the house to lay it out completely.  But here's how it looks, kind of laid out and kind of crumpled. on the floor of my sewing room.  

And a couple of the scrappy blue and white blocks. Actually, it's blue and "neutral" not white.

I threw in all sorts of scrappy blues and neutrals.  The lobsters came from a shop in Maine as did the blueberries on the left.

The neutral piece with writing on it at the top of the picture came from a shop hop I was on, and in red, it says, "Time to preserve yummie goodies and the American way" (WTH?) and the blue piece second from the bottom is Harry Potter fabric I picked up somewhere along the way.  I hope Dan and Erin will enjoy discovering all the things I've included in this quilt.

On the blue strips, I plan on simply quilting a wavy line in each log, and in some of them, I'm thinking of stitching words, like Love, Peace, Cherish, and so forth, since I made this quilt in honor of their marriage. I'll give it a try and see how it goes.

On a side note, as I looked for pics of the Farmington MN (my alma mater) cheerleaders, I happened upon their athletic blog. I was amazed at all the options available to girls in that school--and in all schools, I guess. Swimming, tennis, volleyball and basketball, cross country, and on and on. When I went to school in the early 60's, there were no girls' athletics what-so-ever!  We had the GAA--Girls Athletic Association--which was a group of girls who got together once a week or so to play basketball. That was it!  No training, no coaching, no teambuilding, no competition with other groups.  Things have changed so much for young women since my teen years. Thanks, Title IX!  I always wished I could have been on a team and now these girls don't think twice about it.  I'm so glad they have the opportunities my generation never had.  Go, Tigers!

Enough about this.  I need to do a couple of chores and then head to the sewing room to see if I can get the last 16 blocks knocked out.