Moda new sampler box

Last week Jackie at Canton Village had a give away and one of her prizes was the newest of the Moda Bake Shop Sampler boxes of 2010 fabrics .  I believe there are 500  2 1/2 inch blocks  in the box.  I decided right then and there if I didn’t win I would order the box as soon as it became available!  Well I didn’t win – but I placed my order today!  Included in the box are some ideas for charm quilts and the history of them.  Yes I know when will I make another quilt – I will – now that I am almost done with my first Dear Jane things will start moving I hope!   I have made several charm quilts one of them was a postage stamp quilt (1 1/2 inch squares) – boy was that fun trying to make sure I didn’t use a fabric twice and that was from scraps – going through hundreds of pieces from my own stash and other peoples as well.  I also have a star quilt that is charm – I collected that fabric from a world wide exchange and have fabric from all over the world in it.  And last but not least of course the Dear Jane quilt that I am working on the binding for.  Making quilts while not repeating a fabric twice can be fun – but trying!

I did get started quilting on the Christmas Baltimore Album last night and worked on it this morning as well.  Here are some photos of the beginnings of the quilting.  Right now I am quilting around the applique and then on the grid lines.  It is possible that I will quilt on some of the applique as there are large sections.  I might do a little outline stitch between the petals or something like that.  It is always a little harder to do the quilting on top of the applique but sometimes you need to because of the size of it.

I don't know how good the stitches will show up in the photo's as I am not washing out the blue marks until I am done with the quilt. If I get any of it wet it will spread out into the other areas and "erase" my other marks.

some of the greenery

these photo's are all from the very bottom of the quilt on the border

I have two sides of the binding sewn down on “Insanity” and I plan on working on it more this evening while I am watching tv – I believe CSI is on tonight and this quilt will be my tv companion for the evening.  It is a little hard of course going through all of those layers including the double fold bias binding so I am having to resort to a thimble.  I don’t usually use one all that much but for cases like this I use my open nail thimble.  I ordered mine from Connecting Threads – if you click on the link you see the one I mean.

A lot of my readers are also readers of Mary of Quilting in Oz, Mary has COPD and needs to carry her oxygen around with her all the time.  Mary went and got the swine flu and was in the hospital for several days, she is at home now trying to get better – lets all send her a big group hug to get better.  Mary we are all thinking of you and hope you get well soon!

I know there are other quilters getting the flu also I am hoping everyone recovers soon!