Mail Call!

Late in January I learned that my name had been drawn for one of the grand prizes for SewCalGal's 2012 Free Motion Quilting Challenge.  Late today the UPS truck came lumbering up the driveway, and lo and behold a box from June Tailor, Inc. containing these goodies was placed in my hands!

The Shape Cut and Twist 'n Stitch rulers look especially intriguing as I've not used a slotted ruler previously.  I just finished watching June Tailor's demo video for the Shape Cut on their website, and this tool looks like it will be extremely useful for a variety of cutting jobs, especially strippy scrappy quilts.  I can see using the continuous line quilting templates especially for some of the baby donation quilts our guild makes each month.  Thanks so much to SewCalGal and to June Tailor for this great prize package!

On the sewing front, I took a break from the Tropical Sunrise quilt to do some freehand FMQ on my current donation quilt.  The FMQ was completed yesterday and now the quilt has been squared and binding attached to the front, with hand stitching the back of the binding to begin later this morning.
Here's what it looked like directly after FMQ before the edges were squared and trimmed.

And the back.  I think the continuous feather border is a bit more visible on this side.

Today it's back to Tropical Sunrise and quilting what seems like hundreds of free motion ferns, and in the evening hand quilting continues on the setting triangles on the Biblical Blocks quilt.

Last, but certainly not least, there are just a few more days left to help support Pam Stahl's efforts to raise funds for the Blood-Water Mission to build a well in an African village that will supply clean pure drinking water to people who have never known that luxury.  Your donation will also give you a chance to win a gorgeous king-size quilt created and hand quilted by Pam!  You can read the story of her Living Water Quilt by clicking on the link in the sidebar to the right.    The drawing takes place on Easter Sunday.    As Pam said in her last blog post, the quilt is just a prop.  But, wouldn't it be a wonderful thing if the winner(s) of the Living Water Quilt allowed it to warm their home for a time and then continued its story by adding another chapter, a new mission and sending it forward to begin again, and then again.   The possibilities are endless, and this intrigues me.   Quilters can dream.