Finishing Stuff is for the Birds!

It's been such a long time since I have posted!  Life has been crazy busy the past few weeks. Looking back at the end of April, I had a wonderful time at the AQS show in Paducah. I was a bit disappointed in how the show seems to be shrinking - while still a fantastic show, the number of vendors has clearly decreased due to the addition of all the new shows. I think the quality of quilts in the show will likely start to suffer, too.  It's nice that having all of these new shows allows more people to attend, I think it really detracts from what has been truly special about Paducah and Houston.

I was fortunate to be able to get into one of Edyta Sitar's classes while in Paducah.  She is absolutely fantastic!  She is an incredible teacher and is super sweet and extremely funny.  The class was definitely the highlight of the week for me.  Below is a picture of her explaining our lollipop kits.  She was so concerned about students not being able to get very far in a three hour class that she cut out a complete block for each of us. All we had to do was start sewing!

Edyta had lots of great tips to share with us.  Here she shows how half of a Dresden plate can be combined with applique to make a gorgeous flower block.  Wouldn't that be a beautiful quilt?

After Paducah was Hook-in St.Louis.  I managed to avoid getting into trouble there, although I did fall in love with a foot stool that I would love to make. The only problem is that it is HUGE!  Lots and lots of hooking.  I haven't committed to that one just yet...

Since returning from my travels I have been working frantically to finish things for the show. I should have some pictures to post next week - better to take them when the quilts are hanging.  I finished binding my TAS pineapple quilt (I can't wait to share a picture of that one!) and my little wool applique quilt (Lisa's Garden).  I put a sleeve on my Runaway Mystery quilt (that stinker is 100" square!) and have nearly finished binding (about 7" to go) my Carnival quilt.  I am hoping to finish that binding and get that sleeve on tonight.  I want to go back to not finishing things - the binding is killing me!  My hands are aching and my brain is numb.  I can't wait to sew something other than binding and sleeves!

I did manage to finish one of my homework blocks this month.  Unfortunately it was only one...I'm falling farther behind each month.

Last, but certainly not least on my list of accomplishments over the past month is my daughter's graduation.  I'm sure she doesn't consider this to be my accomplishment, but anyone who has lived through teenage daughters know exactly what I'm talking about! She's the one smiling at the camera...I've cropped and zoomed so much that she's a bit blurry...but she ran to the back and turned in her sashes before I could get any other pictures proving she was summa cum laude!

I'll be back next week with pictures of finished quilts.  So excited to mark a couple off of my list!