a match made in... THE STASH??

Lists are effective. I'm not a list person, but I tried this past week and let me tell you – it's done what I had hoped. It's kept me on track. Is it silly that this is such a revelation to me?

I started the week with 3 big projects on my plate, plus a couple of smaller items to break up the days. I managed to finish 2 quilt tops (one of which was simply a matter of piecing 25 bee blocks together) in 2 days, and got quite a bit of footing on one other.

So, first on the priority list was getting together a baby quilt for friends of mine who recently had their first baby! The item on this list for Jan. week 1 literally reads, "work on Hopman quilt" with a continuation in Jan. week 2 reading "Hopman quilt top finish." I ended my day yesterday with this:

This not only allowed me to cross off week 1's list item, but to amend week 2 by crossing out "top finish" and replacing it with "quilting" (to read "Hopman quilt quilting")! Woo hoo! Ahead of the game, right?

Next on the list was to work on putting together the top for the Bliss circle of do.Good stitches November quilt as much as possible. As I've mentioned in previous posts, this was a first time stint for me in the role of "quilter" for the group, and I did give myself some challenges with this one, not having regular or uniformly sized blocks. I'm also still expecting a couple of more blocks to come in, but figured I should get moving on putting together what I do have.

There are still some gaps to fill in, but progress is progress, no?

This morning when I went to the studio I had both of those projects up on the design wall from the previous day. The plan was to pin baste the baby quilt, but first comes the issue of choosing the backing. As often happens when I am not working from a pattern, I didn't quite know the finished width of the quilt (I knew the length to be 52" only because of border strips), and wouldn't luck have it that it turned out to be just 40 1/2"!! My color inspiration for the background for this quilt was a piece of Valori Wells' "Fleurish" which I've had for a few years now

The fabric piece is approximately 43"x58". But then I looked over at the shelf where I had gotten this older piece and saw another possibility left over from my early days of quilting when I was WAY into Stack 'n' Whack quilts - a fabric piece that I have used here and there, but still have close to 3 yards untouched. I was holding it up to the design wall to see if it would be suitable as backing for the baby quilt (which it TOTALLY would have been!!!)

and something magical happened... I saw it up against the charity quilt. And what better to use for the backing of a charity quilt than a fun, beautiful fabric that's been on one's shelf for years simply because one might have changed course and moved away from that style over time?

And really, who can argue with kismet? That Valori Wells piece turned out to be the perfect size for my quilt, and honestly, I was choosing the sashing and background for the front with it in hand, so that should tell me something right?

That quilt is now basted, awaiting quilting, to be completed during January week 2. And here's real testimony to my blogging world - I forgot to photograph the other quilt top I completed this week! It's the green and brown spider web quilt I talked about last month here. it really looks very much like the photo of all of the blocks up on the design wall!

Okay, I notice I'm rambling, which means it is past my bedtime.