General progress

My eldest son (Thing 1) was true to his word--when we went over to his place for a visit (I played Beat Saber on his VR device), he had 3 zigzag cams for me! He'd made them on his 3D printer from different types of filament, each having its own advantage. This one fit best right away (and even better once I scraped a little out of the middle).

I'm a happy camper now with a plain zigzag stitch at my fingertips!

Per Caroline's suggestion, I asked the leader of the Community First! Quilters whether Dios de los Muertos (DdlM) fabric would be offensive to the sponsors of the Community First! Village (Mobile Loaves and Fishes). While I waited for a response, I pulled some 'just in case' fabrics for alternative borders.

I asked The Loud and Thing 2 for their opinions, and it was unanimous: we all preferred these to the DdlM fabric I had considered originally. (The official stance on the DdlM fabric is that it's perfectly okay with everyone involved.)

Once the red border was on, however, the harder I crunched the numbers the clearer it became that the blue fabric was going to be short by a few inches. I considered using two blue fabrics, but I was so close with this one and I wanted to use it all the way up somehow. My solution was to create corners from a third fabric, a gold that would give a nod to the stars in the border . . .

 . . . and the various golds throughout the top. Here's the result:

It's a big-un so I've only shown a quarter of the top here. By the end of the day, I had mere scraps left of the blue, and I'm quite satisfied!

Today I started quilting the latest basted quilt, and finally had the presence of mind to build up the area to the left of the table. The bulk of the quilt kept hanging off that edge, making it hard to maneuver. A few boxes later, I was a much happier quilter.

Eventually I'll create a permanent solution, but for now this does the trick. (I use a binder clip to lift the right side bulk, clipping it to the edge of the cutting table.)

Yesterday morning was devoted to determining a layout for Celia's Kaffe Fassett project. I'm currently sewing the black borders on the final full diamond block (bottom row, blue center), so I need to plan the half blocks that will fill in the bottom and side edges, and the quarter blocks for the corners.

Lots of black border overlapping happening here so I could fit everything on the design wall. There are really two lines of black hexagons between each block.

After several hours of pinning and arranging I was content with this layout and have selected pairings for some of the half blocks. Once those are complete and added to this mix, I'll figure out the final pairings. Based on my sewing rate of 2 months to complete a full block, I should be revisiting this in another 6 months.

Oh yeah! I also sold this. The buyer was so excited to have a fix-it project that she paid me $40 for it!