Hello everyone,

it is so great to be back in the blogosphere!!

Of course I could wait ’til  weekend – had to post a quick lunch-time chat – yes I am one of the few working today, mostly “holding the fort” while most of my colleagues are off and feeding my cell cultures to survive the weekend. I could have taken the day off (boss offered!) but I am saving those days for the Quilt Show!

Speaking of Quilt Show – are you excited yet?! I am getting really excited to see all your entries, to work with so many of you and set-up another amazing Show, to mingle with all the visitors admiring our works,  to educate ones who want to know more, to showcase Alice’s quilts, to hold some great demonstrations of good quilting techniques, tips or gadgets and yes – to enjoy some serious retail therapy with all of the great vendors that will be there! And that is not even all that will be going on – there is more: mini-quilt auction, member boutique, basket raffles, Raffle Quilt 2012 on display….Who wouldn’t be excited!?

Now if I only get myself in gear and complete all of those entries I submitted – yeiks! But first things first – guess what? – Raffle Quilt is all quilted – YAY!!! Many thanks to Mari and Jeanette at Threads of Time for letting me use their long-arm machine and my best buddy Martha for being a great company while I quilted and stitching the binding on, once I finished! With all that, quilting the Raffle Quilt was truly my pleasure!

OK, and now without further delay – TA-DAH!!!!  – here it is:

I think it will be a great ticket-seller and as Mary Ellen said – I wouldn’t mind re-decorating my bedroom around it, he, he…Actually, I think it already looks pretty good in there – a little perk of being the one who quilted it – I “tested” how it looks on my bed! LOOK:

Who wouldn’t want to win this beauty!

So here is a little photo-journal on how quilting went:

             I started with some McTavishing in the appliqued border – both,  to get me going and “in the zone” with free-motion quilting, and to subtly distinguish the border from the rest of the quilt. My daughter (who was also a great sport to come and make me some good company), took this great shot – I love it!

Here you can see some of that McTavishing in the border and the start of doing the simple leaf vine in the sashings.

Oh, did I tell you that one is quilting in the “picture window” when at TOT – ha, ha! It is actually great for the natural light, monitoring the weather and life outside and pretending NOT to see the puzzled passers-by who were wondering what in the world I was doing….FUN! I think at this moment I was actually thinking which way to go, how to plan my “driving”…

Here is how it looked once I was done…

Martha basting the binding to the back, so we can take  some nice photos – we needed it to look good in a hurry, so that  Mary Ellen can put a nice picture on the cover of the Show program! 🙂 So, needles to say, final slip-stitching of the binding will be done later (volunteer anyone? 🙂   )

So here is just one of many photos I took in my living room in the early morning light:

 And bellow is another one – all I can say is: BRAVO AMHERST QUILTERS!! With Natalie Masker’s chairmanship, we made another timeless beauty!  I am sure it will be a great fund-raiser for Alice’s Dream Project and bring another museum-quality quilt into the permanent collection of quilts for our home-base, Buffalo Niagara Heritage Village (formerly, Amherst Museum )     🙂

Until the next blog post, wishing you all a Happy Easter and Passover and wonderful spring days ahead,

Marija