The thing I hate the most about quilting is .......

course of applique.

I paint myself into that sort of corner sometimes too. A while back I had put together a fishy quilt top and decided Os or bubbles would be just perfect for the quilting. True but oh my golly what a long, long time it took to go O O O. Leslie, I feel your pain. Polly

"Leslie & The Furbabies in MO." When I finally finish the quilt top, get it sandwiched and basted and ready to quilt I am all excited and enthusiastic to start the machine quilting. The first two or three blocks get quilted to death. Then I run out of time or just want it DONE and I start cussing myself for starting out with such a huge amount of dense quilting because I have to continue that standard in the remainder of the quilt. grrr!

Yep. I'm in that "what the heck was I thinking that not one square

1/4 in. should be without quilting stitches???" right now. And I need this quilt to be finished- like now. Or by Sunday.

Roberta -- I know you will be cursing the very idea of water before your pr= oject is done, but I love the idea of a quilt with the names of the Earth's= rivers all over it. Photos???? Please???? I really can't wait to see it. = What's the design of the blocks?? Very exciting.

Sunny

This is the project that has occupied my time for the past 5 weeks. Our organization's annual friendship quilt to be raffled next March for charity. Therefore I did not make the blocks myself (big heavy sigh here for some of those blocks, god love 'em!) It's my job to find a way to put it all together. This year's theme was Sweet Water: the organization is in the middle of a fundraising project to collect at least $80,000 for building wells in Cambodia. (info here -click on Target project:

You can see photos of past friendship quilts here: For this year's quilt, I decided to inset all the blocks into a wholecloth piece. This gives variable "sashing" of blue background fabric between the blocks. I filled in some of the gaps with a silver outline of a little Cambodian girl next to a well. the quilting is going OK, although I need a long break after 30 minutes. Would be much easier on a longarm! It's tough to do "handwriting" all the way down the middle, and I can't do it in other directions and still be legible :-) enough whining, time to get back to work!

And sorry, no photos yet. I h>Roberta -- I know you will be cursing the very idea of water before your

project is done, but I love the idea of a quilt with the names of the Earth's rivers all over it. Photos???? Please???? I really can't wait to see it. What's the design of the blocks?? Very exciting.