This is so much fun!

Wednesday nights are almost always spent with our daughter and son-in-law. We go to dinner and then either play games, watch a movie, or watch our beloved Mariners during baseball season. Tonight was no exception, but I did manage to piece two more string blocks. I'm having so much fun doing this! But my string pile is growing and expanding! I guess I had really crammed them in there. Two baskets full have now become two overflowing baskets of pressed strings, another big pile of pressed strings, and a giant pile of unpressed strings. When they are all pressed they will take up at least 5-6 times as much space as they did before. I think I have enough strings for at least a couple queen size quilts!

Revisiting these fabrics from quilts made log ago is lots of fun too - even all the tiny calicos. I had so many of these because I had a doll and teddy bear making business for 7 years when my kids were in grade school, and they all had dresses, aprons hats, etc. made out of calicos. When I got tired of the business and went back to teaching my remaining fabric inventory - which was large even then - got renamed my "quilting stash". There are even some scraps from dresses I made my daughter and granny dresses and maternity smocks I made myself. What fun memories! I'm having so much fun that I've almost reached the point of deciding to take all these baskets with me to the retreat next week and focus on making strippy blocks. I can appliqué in between machine sewing sessions.

I can hardly wait - the last week before retreat is always the hardest. I only get to see these quilty internet friends from all over Washington and Oregon twice each year when we get together for a retreat. Isn't the internet wonderful! There are so many wonderful quilters that I never would have met - both in "virtual" and in person quilting sessions - without it!