I know, I know...

Well so much for keeping the blog up to date! Main reason is I've been on a bit of a downer recently and have no inspiration for quilting at all. I've also had to scrap running as the more observant will have spotted by my side bar.

Then the computer broke and had to go to the computer hospital to be mended and I lost all my favourite websites, passwords and saved documents and photos. It was like starting again with a new PC!

And finally to add to my woes, I had a phone calle from Dr G at hospital to say I need to repeat my Radio iodine treatment as my last test has come back positive for the thyroglobulin markers. This indicates there is still some thyroid tissue floating around in my body somewhere which because of the cancer before has a higher than normal chance of being cancerous so they need to re-zap me.

All in all not a good few weeks! I'll post again when I have some pictures and something more cheerful to say.

Another quilt show

This time in England.

We got home from the US on Friday afternoon, I can't believe it took longer to drive from Heathrow than it did to fly from Boston! Nose to tail with cars all the way down from Bristol. I saw quite a few cars pulled in on the hard shoulder with bonnets flung open, so I'm guessing lots over heated in the queues. We picked up the children from Exeter on the Sunday. I was really excited to see them after our break away, but that only lasted about as long as it took to load the washing machine with the first of many laundry loads.

The following weekend, August 22nd, it was the Plym Piecemakers' trip to the Festival of Quilts at Birmingham. We had to be at the carpark for the coach leaving at 6am. EEK!! I was still jet lagged, and I never sleep well if I've got an early start...fear of over sleeping means I wake every hour. We got there on time and a quick 4 1/2 hour journey and we'd arrived.

I decided to take Mike's approach for viewing the quilts and Pat, Margaret and I all dutifully trooped up and down the first section of the exhibition. We managed to view this side in about 2 hours, and I was confident we'd seen all the work on the left hand side of the entrance hall by the time we split up and started heading fot the vendors!! I had a budget, but once again it was a very generous one. Of course, I'd not really planned anything to buy, but had a few ideas of what I fancied.



So here we have some vegetable FQs, a couple of yards of gingko fabric for the corners of the Japanese snowball quilt, a 6 yard piece of dark brown and blue for backings, a couple of half yard pieces of kimono fabric, a new rotary cutter, bobbins, a stitch in the ditch foot and fancy threads bobbin case and a double DVD from Patsy Thompson about free motion quilting.

I feel that I've been in a bit of a rut with my quilting recently but haven't known how to break out of it. I'm not finding as many challenges as I used to in my work, and so I was looking to the FoQ to inspire me anew. I let my photographs dictate what I wanted to buy for future projects...looks like it's art quilts on a smaller scale rather than bed quilts. Having decided that, I bought a couple of books as well.



I'm looking forward to trying some of the landscapes, the author has broken down the technique into manageable steps, and it seems quite do-able. As for the Art Quilts book, I've flicked through it a couple of times, but really need to spend more with some fabric and the machine and work through some of the things they suggest. I'm also thinking of reserving Quilting Arts magazine for more inspiration.

Now behind the stash pictures and the books, can you see what else I bought? It's a portable design wall! The first time I put it up, it took less than 10 minutes and there were no problems at all. It's made from a flannel fabric so my blocks just stick onto it with no pinning!! It's great!!

Only a couple more posts to go and I'll be all up to date. I've got quite a few photos of what I've been working on since returning from Birmingham...naturally lots started but nothing completed yet!

Haul from the Lowell Quilt Show

We had to walk a fair distance from the Lowell train station to find the New England Quilt Museum, but it was definitely worth it in the end. Although I couldn't take photos there was a small exhibition upstairs at the museum and a bigger shop downstairs. We yomped over to the ice hockey arena to see the vendors before heading back to the museum to meet up with my friend Sue. We've quizzed online against each other for a few years, and she only lives 10 minutes drive from Lowell, so we arranged to meet for lunch. She was as easy to chat to in real life as she has been online and there were none of the awkward silences that you sometimes get when meeting someone for the first time. I forgot to take photos though. Silly me!

After lunch we strolled back to the hockey arena for a look around the quilts on show. There were some great pieces there, I especially liked the slice quilt where a group had each worked on a section then the quilt owner assembled the final piece.



There was also a few Baltimore style quilts, more than I would have expected in a similar sized show in England.



Mike insisted on us walking round in an organised way, which made me laugh, as normally I stroll round a bit haphazardly. This time, though, I was able to see all the quilts in a relatively short time...and have more time for spending ;-)



Some of this haul came from the show and some from Heartfelt Quilts on Cape Cod. The small pack with the baseball players on is a charm pack of 5" squares that I'm making into a cushion for Mike. I've snowballed them with red triangles (for the Red Sox naturally) and assembled the top so far. The Moda Pumpkin and Spice pack I've made into a table runner and used one of the autumnal FQs as triangle points at each end. I'm debating whether to add a 2" border all round it or not. The rest of the autumnal FQs I've got an idea for, but I'm not sure if it'll work out or not. I'd like to make a wall hanging with 3-D appliqued leaves, but I need to gather some more ideas first before I start on that.

Tha plaid came with a pattern, so I'll be making that up some time, the lobster fabric is going to be a lining for a grocery shopping bag and the rest of the fabric is for adding to my stash. The flower book is just because it was there!



Of this haul, the paper piecing paper was a replacement as I've used up most of my last pack. The bag pattern is an impulse buy at the Museum. I need to find some light fabric for it, but I think I'll use a brightly coloured lining. The bag of scraps was $5 and had pieces that are pretty close to a quarter yard as well as smaller pieces. The little ruler is for making triangle square quicker by drawing lines either side of the central channel, and the bundle of wools is to make a harvest candle holder.

We were lucky we didn't need to buy another suitcase to bring everything back home! I also bought 3 rolls of freezer paper as $2.50 each...quite a bit cheaper than the £5-6 I have to pay over here! If we had bought another bag, I'd have bought more freezer paper!!

Within a week of getting home, I was off to another quilt show, this time the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, and that's what's coming up next in the blog. nearly up to date!

Holiday to the US

Yes here's another post within minutes of the previous one. It's going to be a mini report on our Boston holiday. We'd printed an itinerary and knew lots of things we wanted to do, and managed to fit them all in, plus a couple of other things that we'd not planned at home. We left gaps in the schedule on purpose for this, so were really happy that we were able to fill our time without feeling rushed or that we were spending too much time just shopping (Is there really such as thing as too much time shopping? Discuss!)

So we had breakfast out every day:



Went to Plymouth:



Cape Cod:



Baseball:



Dinner Cruise:



Meals out:



Oh! And a quilt show:



More on the quilt show in my next post.

Working faster than I can keep up with...

The only thing with visiting a quilt show is this time I've come back with my bags stuffed with stash and my head stuffed with ideas. I got back a week ago, and have so far finished piecing the hexagon quilt, an autumn table runner and a charm pack cushion cover top. No photos as this is a quickie in between updates!

Next update...end of school term

The end of July brought the end of school term and the chance to give the baby quilts to Hannah's teachers. They were both delighted with them so I feel quite pleased that I had the chance to do something for both teachers.



I enjoyed doing the prairie points on them both, it adds a bit extra to an otherwise quite simple design. I used some pieces from the layer cake and jelly roll that I bought in Exeter for the right hand one, and have lots from both leftover to be able to make another couple at least.

Because I'd enjoyed the prairie points, I volunteered to teach some techniques to Plym at out "4 corners" meeting, which is an opportunity to see something new from some of the group. I demonstrated simple individual prairie points, how to do continuous ones, bi-coloured ones and then how to add them in construction seams as well as on borders. I had great fun showing what I'd tried out, even though some of the techniques weren't new, and not original, I hope the rest of the group that came to my table liked it as much as I did!

Now end of July only meant one thing this year...holiday coming up :-D

First update, and scavenger hunt stash

So as promised here's the first of a few mass updates which I'm planning to post in the next week or so to get the blog up to date again. The only thing is, I'm now so busy with more quilting, I'm going to be either blogging, or sewing non-stop for the rest of the month.

In one of my online groups, we had a scavenger hunt swap. Basically, we had a list of items and a budget (whatever that words means!) and were allocated a swap partner. Here's my box of goodies when it arrived in July:



How exciting does it all look, nestled in the blue tissue paper? (yes, I kept the paper as well, for wrapping other gifts later). In here I had lots of quilty loveliness: needle grabbers, gold fabric, a bracelet and thimble charm, notelets, plastic guides for wrapping fat quarters round, bias bars (my old set got a bit melted, so good timing!), wrist pin cushion, needlecase and needles and a miniature quilt made with tiny yo-yos. When I say tiny, they measure about 1cm across and are all hand sewn together! My swap partner has far more patience than I have, that's for sure!



I've made good use of the wrist pincushion so far and keep getting the gold fabric out to stroke! It was a really fun swap, and a nice challenge to try and keep within a relatively small budget for everything. If I was going to join in another one, I'd definitely make more use of my own stash rather than going and buying so many new things. I just need to keep an eye out on the online group for notice of the next one.

Also round about this time, I was back up and down to hospital for another battery of tests for my thyroid issues. This time it was a couple of injections, a radioactive injection followed by a whole body scan and culminated with a blood test at the end of the week. All went well until i got to hospital for the radio injection to be told the courier company had lost the isotope! A bit worrying, but eventually I was given the go-ahead to have a slightly different injection and proceed with the scan. This all came back as clear, which was great news to hear!! The blood test on the Friday came back with a slight positive reading for one of the tumour markers, so I'm repeating the injections an bloods at the end of September. If it's still raised, there's a possibility I'll have to repeat the radio-iodine and 3 day isolation, but I'm having to wait and see until then.

More quilty gossip coming up with my next update: I think I have a BOM, some baby quilts and the Plym project to cover.

Ooops! Long time with nothing to say

What can I say, I've done it again and gone 2 months without posting anything. My bad!!

Lots have been going on, as ever with us all, so againI'm going to break the next few posts down and back date them. With a bit of luck by the end of next week, I'll have updated everything that's happened to us all, posted lots of lovely photos and be back on schedule for regular blogging.

As a taster, I've been on holiday to the US, visited 2 quilt shows, one here and one there, bought vast amounts of stash, joined in a quilty scavanger swap, had another batch of tests for my thyroid cancer and been volunteered to organise a quilt show!

Photos and more sewing

At last here's the pic of the silk flower hanging for my mother in law! The dark blue border is some hand dye I bought in Birmingham last August and couldn't bear to use up, but I like the contrast between the two blues in the hanging.



I couldn't work out how to quilt it as I didn't want anything over the main vase, so I've just gone in the ditch around the border, and the gentle meanders around the outer border. There's hand applied beads and sequins on the flowers as well I think you can just about see them in this picture.

The other thing I've been working on recently is from this book:



I saw a link on someone's FaceBook page to a customer quilt that he was working on and absolutely loved the kaleidoscope effect on the quilt. I looked at it for ages and could kind of work out how to do it, but not totally. I'd got as far as layering 6 identical cuts of fabric, then slicing them into triangles, each pile of which would be identical, but couldn't see how I'd get them sewn together after that. Anyway,I took a gamble and bought some fabric at the same time as the book and crossed my fingers that it would be suitable, and enough!!



These are the semi-finished hexagons: I'm not going to say any more about piecing them as I think the author deserves more of us buying her books.



I could do with setting myself up with a design wall so I can place the hexagons and live with the arrangement for a while before finalising it, so until I get that sorted, I'm holding fire with the quilt. I love the variety of tones in the hexes, it's hard to believe they all came from the same piece of fabric!!

Another finish

This week's finish is the mini wall hanging for my mother in law. Debbie showed us the technique at Plym a couple of months ago and although I couldn't see myself using it for a piece for myself, I wanted to try it out. After all what's the point of going to a group meeting if you don't join in with what's being demo-ed? So I dutifully bought my bunch of silk flowers, ripped all the plastic off and started to place them on the background fabrics.

Both of them are some hand dyes that I did to try out the dye box I bought in Birmingham last summer, but didn't really have anything planned to make with the samples once I'd finished them. I like the way the pink of the vase is picked up by a swirl in the blue background. There's also hints of pink in the edges of some of the lilac flowers, so all in all the colours seem to have worked quite well.

I free hand cut the vase, then started placing flowers on to resemble a free style bouquet. Once I was happy with the flowers, I FMQ-ed them down using invisible thread. After I'd put the border on, it sat there in my box for a month as I'd run out of ideas!!

Eventually I decided not to do any more quilting on the main body of the wall hanging, but to go with some gentle curves around the outside border. Simples! I found some beads in my button box that looked like they came with a sparkly top, so used them in the centres of the flowers to add a hint of sparkle.

Just need to pack it in tissue paper ready to send over with the children when they go to stay with her in August. Less than 2 months to go now!!

PS camera won't let me load photos on the laptop, or if it will I can't work out how to do it, so photos later when I can get them sorted out. It's worth the wait honest!

Short but sweet

Just a quickie before dinner time, here's my BQL monthly challenge for June. Can't believe I've finished it by the 2nd. I'm 4th in the photo gallery for the group too. Nice easy one this time, for the quilting, I used my walking foot and just did squiggly lines in a Madeira Lana thread I got in a goody bag at the FoQ last year.



The thread broke a few times, mainly when the machine was tying off at the start of lines, but the texture is lovely. I used a slightly longer stitch length and took it nice and slowly. I don't think I'd use this on a big machine project, but it would be fab for hand embroidery and it worked well in this small piece.

Quilt group tonight with a sale table from Janet so hoping to buy some green and some red from her. When I was in Exeter, I bought some Japanese charm pieces, and finally decided last night what I wasnted to make with them. Obviously a charm quilt, but I didn't want to go for just sewing them in rows. I found an old quilt I'd designed on EQ6 with snowballs and think it'll work well with these squares and the green/red borders.

Thyroid update and a bit whiny

Sorry, this is going to be a totally self indulgent whine. I'm waiting for a week of injections, blood tests and scans to determine if the radio iodine treatment I had in January has worked. It's coming up next week, and frankly I'm terrified of what they might find. Work has been pretty quiet so every time I have nothing to do my mind has been drifting to what's coming up. I ended up making loads of stupid mistakes and forgettng to double check what I have done, so I've had my manager on my back, yelling across the office at me and on one occasion across the main corridor. I was on my mobile to the hospital trying to sort appointment dates and put it down the second a customer came in the shop.

I'm struggling to make simple decisions (what to make for tea, what colours to use in a quilt, what to wear for a run) and panicking about stupid things. Because I've been so scared about what they might find and that I might have to go through radio again, it's been coming out as anger, and I've been veering between bursting into tears and snapping people's heads off. I eventually went to see my GP who has signed me off with stress for a couple of weeks which has given me a breathing space, and I'm going to see him again this afternoon to see if he'll extend it till after next week's tests. I'm also going to ask about anti depressants. Hubby phoned the nuclear medicine to check how long I'd be waiting for the results, and it seems that I should get the in the middle of the week after.

Some photos to make up for the whine, I've been following the Carol Doak scenic block of the month, here's some of the blocks so far.

Lots to say

What a busy few days I've had. Sunday was the Plymouth Half Marathon. We were up really late as next door decided 9:30pm was a great time to set fire to a vast pile of cardboard, and were still burning it at nearly midnight! Managed to get some sleep and set off in tme for the race. It was incredibly hot, warmest day of the year so far, so my plans of walking the drink stations and run-walking the hills looked to be a good one. What I'd not banked on was a) needing so much water at the stations that my walk lasted longer than I'd anticipated b) the later stations running out of water completely and c) just taking so much longer because of the heat. Still I finished it, so that's my first Half since my operations done. Next one is 21st June in Torbay.

About 4 miles



Relaxing in the Athletes' Village



No blisters anywhere, my worst problem seems to be a really sore toe nail, feels like it's been bashed against the end of my running shoe. So after the race, the next day was Bank Holiday, and I'd decided to bake!!

Apricot and Almond Cake:



Not much left of it now, except the plate!

My finish for this week's quilting was the ballet raffle quilt. I'd had a major crisis of confidence and ended up sitting in front of my machine for ages just gazing at it and not having any clue how I was going to quilt this one. This in spite of planing it weeks ago in my head. For some reason what I'd planned just wouldn't come through. Eventually, I did a small bit of FMQ on some scrap fabric, weeded and pruned the flowerbed, hoovered (I know that's how desperate I was!) and about 2 hours later made a very tentative start. I like how it's turned out, but I hated feeling so helpless in my sewing. Anyway, FMQ-ed in lop-de-loop with frequent heart meanders throughout the top, in a sugar pink thread. I bought the binding fabric from Janet a month or so ago, and I have to admit I love the way the bias stripes have worked. I'd have preferred more pink/white, but this pink/multi gives a definite "end" to the quilt and makes quite a statement. The corners I cut using a side plate for the curves!

Another race, another quilt!

So last Saturday evening was the return of the Ivybridge 10K. I did it last year in my slowest ever time, so I had a date with that big hill going towards the viaduct. You do about a mile, then the second one is vertical! I just took it easy and didn't try to run the whole hill, but I ran a fair lot of it doing run/walk. I'd been timing myself and the K that the hill was in was a full minute slower than every other K in the race. My unofficial time was 50 seconds slower than 7 minutes per kilometre, so I know exactly where I have to make time up next year!



This shot is of the club before the start, and



This one is of me with less than 150 yards to go.

Still nothing with both feet off the ground!

And today I've been working hard on finishing my block of the month from my online group. It was a machine trapunto block, so I was keen to have another go at the technique. I loved doing it, but on reflection, the quilting pattern has mad my fabric look a bit like lizard skin. Ooops



My other finish this week is the next of the Plym Piecemakers Round Robin. No sneaky peek yet, as I've got to press the blocks for a final time, then another close close-up so the person it's for can't tell what it is.

I'd love to know what mine's looking like...as long as there's no Sunbonnet Sue, I'll be thrilled with it. I put the lime green fabric in my bag in the end, so each row will have some of it in there.

This time next week, I'll have run my 3rd Plymouth Half, and my 5th Half Marathon ever!

Log cabin paradise

What a fabulous day it is here in sunny Devon!! Mayday Bank Holiday weekend, and lots planned. It's funny before we got the car, I'd not even thought about day trips out to the Moors, but tomorrow, we're all piling in for a trip out to the wilds of Dartmoor. Must remember the camera! Tonight, me and Mike are off out to a Jazz festival in the Barbican, and then on Monday they're holding a New Orleans style umbrella parade through the streets, so we're all going down for that. More camera opportunities.

I've finished piecing the log cabin quilt for H's ballet group, and know exactly how it's being quilted, after practicing it on the April challenge quiltlet. Loop de loops with random hearts thrown in for good measure. I took the top to ballet this morning to shown them and they all seem to like it, so with luck they'll raise lots of money for this year's charity.



My other recent finish is the wallhanging for my mother in law. I've finished sewing round all the silk flowers to hold them in place, and have to admit it's looking better than I expected! I've found some gorgeous hand dyed fabrics that I bought in Birmingham last year and haven't used yet, and one of them's the exact shade of blue I was thinking of using for the border. I'm going to play with widths this afternoon. I'm thinking about 2" would look good.



The vase and background are from fabric I dyed myself last summer and didn't quite know what to do with them afterwards.

April challenge completed!

This is my April challenge quiltlet from the BQL online group. Paper pieced handbags, hand embellished and machine quilted with random loop de loop squiggles and hearts. Although I didn't particularly enjoy the hand embellishing, the final piece is OK. I'm waiting now for the password for next month's piece...hope I feel more inspired than I have been with this one!

The reason for the particular FMQ design was I've just finished piecing the pink and white log cabin quilt for H's ballet group raffle in June. I'll be quilting it using the same FMQ idea, and hopefully using a pale pink thread.

This weekend I'll be working on a small wallhanging which will be going to my mother in law in August as a thank you for looking after B and H while Mike and I are in Boston. Win, win both ways, I get to try a new technique that's not really "me", and give a gift to Margaret, and if she doesn't find it to her taste either, she only has to hang it if we visit her!

And I got my number for the Plymouth Half last night...eeek!

April quilt progress

I've finally got back from holiday. This time it was a week long narrowboat trip between Alvechurch and Stratford on Avon up in the midlands. We had a fab time, very relaxing, and even managed to get through the locks without too much trouble. By day 3 we'd realised that if you wait a bit longer than you think you really need to, anyone can open the gates.



I even managed to get a few snaps of some paintwork that will go into my inspirations file for possible trapunto or applique designs:





Once we got back, I knew I had to put a lot of work in on the outstanding projects so I can have time to do some paid sewing work. On Sunday I pieced the Jacob's Ladder blocks. Originally I was going to make them into a baby quilt but not for anyone in particular, so they've been made into a table runner instead. There's a couple of spare blocks that I'll make into pot stands.



I did some work on the Plympiecemakers Round Robin. Not too much detail in case the person I'm making for reads this:



Finally, I went round to a friend's house last night, and accidentally came home with 5 metres of fabric OOOPS!!!! I've not started stealing people's stashes, she sells it. Her workroom/stockroom was amazing, lined on one wall with bolts of fabric sorted by colour, then boxes under counters with pre cut FQs, more with threads, but these could have been her own, and rolls of wadding hanging on wooden poles from the ceiling. Talk about envious!! Here's my haul:



The cream is just for stash enhancement, you can never have enough light neutrals. The pink stripe is for the binding on the raffle quilt for Hannah's ballet group and the hand dye look alike is for the stash.

Why I've not blogged recently

I've been getting the bathroom and kitchen refitted and it's all just been too, too traumatic!



Bathroom before



Bathroom after



Kitchen before



Kitchen after.

The sharper eyed amongst you may have spotted the floor in the kitchen isn't down yet and there's no oven. Despite ordering it in January, it's still not arrived. Guess how thrilled I am about that? Should be here tomorrow, but I'm not holding my breath. We're off on holiday soon, so no floor until we're back.

I've also done a race. Teignbridge 10 (miles) which even though I've not been training fully, I managed to take 6 minutes off my previous best time for the distance. Luckily no photographic evidence of this as I went up with a workmate. No medal but a handy T shirt which will double as a tent should we decide to camp while we're away!

Thyroid update

Sorry no nice photos for this one. I really should get some done of my neck scars to illustrate these posts!

It was my first three monthly check up on Thursday. My bloods have come back well within expected limits, although she didn't explain how they'd fallen from what they were a month ago. I'm guessing it's because I've increased my activity levels, but I've not found anything scientific to support this. Anyway, she poked my neck - they all do, but at least she didn't get me to repeatedly dry swallow which I hate - and pronounced it fine.

I asked her about my lack of taste (not my clothes or husband!) and it seems there's no clear cut answer, I'll start getting taste back slowly. I knew this as I can taste things like blue cheese and other strongly flavoured foods.

Bit of a bombshell that the nuclear medicine consultant wants me to have a repeat scan. Mike insists I was told this in January, but I really don't remember it. I asked about coming off thyroxine and she said something about injections but they'd have to be at Derriford. I was getting confused, and she was making moves that she needed to go, so we left to come home.

Big session of googling later and I was more confused than ever. Thank goodness for nuclear medicine! Mike phoned as I had to get to work, and once the consultant was free, he phoned back and spent quite some time discussing everything with Mike. How cool is that?? We've now got a much clearer picture of what needs to happen, and why.

Regime is Day 1: injection at Derriford, bring ampoule of stuff home & keep in fridge. D2: injection at GP to save me having to get back to Derriford. D3: RAI injection at nuclear medicine. D4: scan. D5: Back to GP for blood test. I'll need to be on the low iodine diet for a month. No fish enriched olive oil this time, honest!! I'll also need to stop my thyroxine tablets for the week, but the injections will counter the effect of that.

I'm waiting for a letter from nuclear med with all the info and dates in. He said he's happy for us to change dates if they clash with "important family things". I've checked with work, and the very end of June is looking good for staffing levels, and by amazing coincidence it also fits in well with Half marathons (June 21st) and starting training for the full one I'm planning in October. I just want to clarify how long the hypo effdects will last afterwards, as obviously I don't want to be sleepy for the Boston trip.

I'm planning a buying trip to La Senza for new scanties ready for the injections! ;¬)

Back racing!

Sunday was my first race since having my thyroidectomy. I've been training half heartedly throughout all the treatment, but was finding it really difficult to be enthusiastic about it. I'd booked in for two other races before now, the first one should have been on January 4th, but this was the day before I had the radio iodine, so I'd been off all medication for 2 weeks, and was sleeping for nearly 18 hours every day. Not the best conditions for running a 10K race! The second was even worse timing...the morning after the Christmas party from work. I still maintain I wasn't hungover, I was just tired, but either way, we didn't make it to the race.

No excuses for this time however, it started less than 3 miles from home. I'd planned to jog round and just enjoy being racing again. It was a glorious spring morning so I was more enthusiastic than I'd expected, and I trotted round in 1:12. Not my fastest time, but not my slowest either.



I've got a 10 miler in 2 weeks!

Baby quilt news...I've finished one and only have hand sewing left to do on the other one. I'm thrilled with how they're looking. I've enjoyed doing the prairie point finish on the border. I think this is one I'll be using again.