My friend Ellie introduced me to our local Quilters Guild, the Citrus Belt Quilters. I wasn’t sure about a guild, but I enjoyed my guest visit last month, so I joined this month.  They are a very nice organization, full of members with a passion for quilting, and also service to the community.  They also have a little shop at the meetings, where I bought these fabrics for a song.  I think they are perfect for my quilty barn along blocks.  Don’t they look nice and homey drying out in the sun?  And Ellie knew I loved vintage, and gifted me with a bag of wonderful vintage lace and trims.  I think some of them belonged to her mother.  I especially like the little blue fish applique – oh, so many projects to use them in…

Choosing a design (or having a design chosen for me), choosing fabric, and piecing the quilt top together has been easy peasy.  Now, to actually quilt the three layers has been all together another matter.  Either 20 years ago, quilting was more straightforward, or I didn’t know what I was doing back then, and or there are too many options now.  I am having a bit of a “quilt block”  – as in “mental block”.  I am beginning to understand why so many of my fellow quilters are sending their quilts out to be professionally quilted.  But of course, I have to do everything myself… The first “block” was when I went to purchase the spray baste everyone seems to use, only to be told by the nice fabric store ladies that particular brand had recently been pulled off the shelves because the state of California deemed it hazardous to your health, cancer causing, yadda yadda yadda.  So, I thought, use an alternative spray adhesive? pin baste? hand baste? then, I stumbled on the “Elmer School Glue” basting method.  That sounded the least toxic/time consuming, so I will try that.  Then there was the ordering of the walking foot, and the free hand motion foot – I didn’t know my sewing machine needed so many feet! And last but not least, since no one seems to carry it, I am waiting on the delivery of my quilting pounce…  After it’s all said and done, I would probably have been better off sending it out to be professionally quilted, oh well.  So, I am plodding along…

This little cutie has nothing to do with my quilting efforts.  I just added her in because she is so cute, and she came in a lot of vintage dolls that I recently acquired: