Slow and Steady Progress

I finally finished sewing the blocks for RRCB this week! Christine and I got together one evening and worked away on our blocks. I finished off 8 that night and started another few. The next night, I had 12 done.

When this mystery was first posted on Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville website a year ago, I thought her colour choices were a bit odd--double pinks, brown, green and red with neutrals. Now, I love how these colours play together in these blocks!  Most of the browns and all of the double pinks I used in these blocks were fabrics from a kit I bought at People, Places and Quilts in Charleston, SC several years ago when my family was there on vacation. I never got around to making the kit quilt so I decided to use the fabrics in this quilt.

Friday night and Saturday morning, I was bound and determined to finish off the last 8 blocks before taking my sewing machine in for its annual overhaul (actually a year overdue for the annual checkup!).  I sewed all of the rest of the HST's together into strips of 5 units and then I had a small problem...

I was one HST short. I had made 599 HST's instead of 600!  I dug out some red and neutral fabric and cut one more out with my easy angle ruler.

Soon, I was done the last 8 blocks and my machine was packed up and ready to go.

Today, I trimmed up my string blocks so that they are all the same size as these blocks and I started to sew some blocks together. I am using my mother's old Kenmore sewing machine. The last time I used it was two years ago when my Janome was in for its checkup. My mother was not really interested in sewing but when I was around 10 or 11, I talked her into taking sewing lessons so that she would get a new machine that I could use!  The Kenmore was the machine she bought. It is a heavy brute--all mechanical--no computerized parts on this machine!  It came to live at my house after my mother died a few years ago. After some liberal doses of oil on all the moving parts and some cleaning, it works as good as it ever did.
This afternoon, I made 3 pillowcases for our London Friendship Quilters' Guild charity project.

I also made myself a pillowcase from some quilting fabric...

I have to make a postcard and a  couple of placemats before our meeting this week. I found some orphan blocks that I will use for the placemats. They will be donated to Meals on Wheels where they will be given to shut in seniors for Christmas. I will post pictures of these later this week. In the meantime, I will keep working on getting my blocks together for Roll Roll Cotton Boll.

Have a good week!