Tuesday, March 6, 2018

Woefully unprepared!

Last week, I visited St. Louis on a counselor visit to Washington University. 
The courthouse under the arch is where they tried the Dred Scott case - cool!
I left on Wednesday, well prepared with two books to read and six flowers worth of hexagons ready to baste and then sew together for my Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt...or so I thought.

I had finished one book and all my hexagons by Thursday evening. 
I did all the basting on the planes.  I use the mylar pop-out templates, not paper.


Oops!  Ran out of templates!  Gotta add the flowers to the main quilt to free up some more templates.

Oh well, my second book would get me through the flights home on Friday, I thought.  WRONG!  The nor'easter that battered the East Coast meant that all flights were cancelled, and they couldn't re-book me on a flight home until SUNDAY!!!  Luckily, Washington University was gracious about bringing me back to campus and providing me with a room for my extended stay, but what was a gal to do?  My second book was finished before bedtime on Friday.  Luckily, Washington University is situated next to Forest Park which has a zoo, a history museum and an art museum, all FREE to the public.  Saturday was a day of exploration!  I walked miles and miles, enjoying the park, the history museum and the art museum.  I ran out of steam before I made it to the zoo, got something to eat and went to bed ridiculously early.  Then, I bought another book at the airport on Sunday to help me make it through the day.

I made it back home on Sunday just in time for Sit Down Dinner duty and study hall duty.  It's a busy week here at school, exam time, so I don't have much time to sew, but I'm using every spare moment to sew these hexie flowers onto the quilt so I can free up some more of my templates.

(If you've not used the templates before, you pop them out once a hexie is completely surrounded by other hexies.  I have a combination of "Quilt Patis" and "Brandy's Mylar Pieces" - which has apparently gone out of business - but I've also made my own templates before with card stock and a hole punch.  I prefer this method over traditional English Paper Piecing where you actually baste onto the paper.) 
The backside of my quilt.  You can see there are only templates in the outside pieces.  I use that black "stick" to pop the templates out once a hexagon is completely surrounded by other hexagons.

But starting Saturday, I have TWO WHOLE WEEKS OFF!!!  Can you tell how I excited I am?  My own children will be in school (they had a week off in February, and will have another week off in April), so I am dreaming of spending all day, every day, creating!

And in April, when I have two more counselor visits scheduled (to Vanderbilt in Nashville, and then to six colleges in Ohio: Kenyon, Denison, Wittenberg, Ohio Wesleyan, College of Wooster and Oberlin), you can best believe I am going to bring more handwork than I think I can finish, just in case!

I am linking up with Oh Scrap and Monday Making.