Yesterday's Sew Day was a roaring success -
and hopefully just the first of many! 

We all had great time, actually accomplishing a lot 'despite' helping each other out with their projects. And (naturally!) we ate extremely well at lunch.  

Marcie's sewing suite did a wonderful job of accommodating the six of us, 

though at times there was a wait <g> for the iron or the design wall.

('Heavens to Murgatroyd' is American in origin, popularized by the cartoon character Snagglepuss who was a regular on the Yogi Bear Show in the 1960s.)

I had done an experiment, driving over there with my boot on.  Turned out that the trickiest part wasn't using my left foot but just figuring out how to get my big fat booted right foot out of the way of the accelerator.  NO WAY I would risk it to drive anywhere else with the boot on, but since it's just 4 houses up the street it seemed silly to have to take off my boot for that short distance. 

Linda had made me a penguin at Build-a-Bear as a thank you for schlepping over to their house in April to reboot Rick's computer, so it supervised yesterday.

She also brought me a Busy Bee pattern that turned up from somewhere.  

It's adorable, and someday <g> it'll float to the top of the list!

Mary was the lucky winner of the gecko pattern Linda brought as a fun gift - and turns out to be highly appropriate for Mary because her son's business is named Gecko!  Despite taking 60 pictures yesterday (virtually all of which turned out) I did not get one of that pattern.  It sure was cute, though, and reminded me of Escher.

Naturally there was some Show & Tell.

Wanda's B/W & R quilt turned out lovely.  Notice her scrappy border.

And even I should be able to manage a quilting design like this, right?

Linda worked on handwork yesterday, but brought some blocks from another current project to show us. Each hand-embroidered flower is different, and will be appliqued onto a differently-colored circle before being appliqued onto a light gray circle (with the dark gray squares in-between the blocks.)

And this Sunbonnet Sue is also in line.

Eventually it was time to get to work.  Linda and I helped Mary with some decisions regarding the t-shirt quilt she's making for a friend (quilters are very free with their opinions....)  We made suggestions on how to arrange the strips of blocks, and what to use for her border.  After we 86-ed her original border fabrics idea, it was decided that she should use some of her backing fabric.

Then I used the design wall to audition the border strips (leftover from my scrap quilt) on my UFO Disappearing 4-patch quilt.  However they definitely do not work and will just have to wait for another project.  What does work?  This lovely fabric Mary is going to use for her border.  I was going to order some, but she has more than enough so insisted on gifting me a hunk, more than enough for my borders.

When I had the quilt up on the wall, the tucks were appallingly evident.  I dragged Marcie in to show her, knowing she'd cringe and just hoping she wouldn't faint from fright.  

Linda followed her in to see the disaster, and really wish I'd gotten a pic of her initial expression when she saw just how bad it was!

Then of course Perri and Wanda needed to come see how horrible it was.

There were numerous <g> 'suggestions' for me to take out the worst of the offending seams since most (in truth probably ALL!) of the ladies would take that route... not that any of them would have created a mess like that to begin with!  The good news is that in the intervening years I have definitely improved my skills.

But I'm not back-tracking since it's "just" going to be a quilt for me (I used my favorite colors.)  Of course Marcie made it a LOT better with her pressing and sizing (I knew she would, though I had stressed that there was no rush, I'd leave it with her over the summer... but she just had to get right on it!)

 Once Cindy works her magic quilting it there will be additional improvement.  And as we quilters often say, "At 30 yards on a galloping horse" no one will even notice the imperfections, right?

I was literally just getting ready to sew my first stitch when it was time for lunch.  Everyone did a spectacular job: everything (Caesar chicken salad, cowboy 'caviar', raspberry/pineapple, broccoli salad, deviled eggs,) was delicious, and nobody left the kitchen hungry!

After fueling up we got back to work.  Perri has been working on her project for some time, naturally interspersing it over time with other quilts.  

Of course the rest of us knew better than to bring something that difficult to a Sew Day, where it is tricky to concentrate with all the socializing going on.  Because Perri's sewing station was adjacent to mine, I did hear a "few" 4-letter words fall out of her mouth yesterday.  Luckily there was plenty of help available when she ran into a snag!

Wanda brought her blocks already made 

so all she had to do was join them together. :-)

I got into 'trouble' 

during one of the pressing steps when I noticed something on the back 

that I thought she might need to address.

Wanda made excellent progress -

and was happy to be taking home a completed top.

Marcie worked on her bargello quilt 

which used colorful strips from a happy jelly roll.

and despite thinking she didn't get as much done yesterday as she'd planned/hoped, 

she did finish up the top.

Linda "complains" that she never gets much done at group sewing 

because of too many distractions with all the socializing -

though she thoroughly enjoyed her day with "the girls", saying it was just what she needed.  And she did finish up her autumn wall-hanging yesterday.

Mary got started on another project before she left -

but wasn't gone long before she reappeared.  Luckily she hadn't driven too far before she realized she'd left the t-shirt quilt on a hanger in the design wall room.  Of course none of us laughed too hard <g> because we could all relate!

I made progress on my flying geese blocks. 

Even though after yesterday I'm extremely motivated to sew today

I'm not likely to get much done.  After the gym I'll be heading to the airport to pick up Alex (he called yesterday during lunch to see if that would work out) and once we get home there's irrigation to deal with - though maybe Alex will take care of that for me.

My plan is to take Brownie on a ride-along to the airport.  

He does seem to enjoy riding in the car.

 Not only will it be good practice for next month's long drive to Colorado, but may assuage some of the guilt I've been experiencing; his life has been somewhat boring since I am basically vegging out due to my foot issue.  

Alex was happy to hear that Brownie might be coming along - 

and I know Brownie will be thrilled to see his boy again!