Today, it's back to quilting

No walk among the magnolias for me yesterday. I find that I like going for my walk in the late afternoon and yesterday, it began raining around 1:30 and developed into a horrific thunderstorm by 4 pm. I even thought I heard hail falling, but I guess it was the sound of the raindrops pounding as it came down. Fortunately, no tornadoes in this area as there were in nearby LA.  All over by 6:30 or so and an uneventful evening, but all that storminess meant that I stayed in the house.

Today we had planned on wandering over to Pensacola FL for the day but that's not going to happen. I've been awake for several hours and there's no sign that the heavy fog will be lifting soon. So we switched to plan B and will move our trip to Friday instead.  Today I'll be back at the sewing machine.

But first, an update on my embroidery project, Among the Pines.  I finished the sailboat block, number 5 of the eight 6 inch blocks.  It's soaking in the bathroom sink to dissolve the sticky stuff that I'm using to transfer the design.

After I finished the sailboat, I immediately moved on to Block 6, the brown bear.  This is as far as I've gone to date. This block doesn't have all the tiny trees in the background that some of the blocks do. What a relief!  I just now realized that I need to get a move on getting this done. In addition to the 8 square blocks, there are 4 rectangular blocks to stitch up. And then all the framing up and quilting.  Yikes!  Will I get it finished by April 1?   Of course I will. I may have to forfeit many hours of sleep, but I'll get 'er done!

Before I work on the embroidery, I need to continue on Jo's T shirt quilt. I have about a third of it done so far and should be able to finish up the quilt center today.  Here are the blocks I've been able to put together and there's one more row that will fit on the right side.  Two of the blocks in that row need to be framed up before they're stitched together. 

I like all the shirts Jo chose for this quilt, and many of them are from her days in the Peace Corps in Kyrgyzstan and Bulgaria.  My favorite by far is the one below. I chose this for the center square and I surrounded it with Flying Geese blocks, appropriate for DaVinci's quote:  

              "and once you have tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, 

                                   for there you have been, and there you long to return." 

That describes Jo perfectly--her experience living in 2 other countries has changed her completely and she longs to see the world.

When I've finished assembling the quilt center, I'll have to find some fabric for the border, and for that I need to get the A&E Drug Store in Pensacola on Friday.

If the weather clears later today, I'll try to get out for a walk, but first, I'm concentrating on Jo's quilt.