Nadine

My next project?  Finishing "Nadine" - a hand pieced, hand quilted leftovers improv project.

This summer, after attending a local quilt show where every quilt was machine pieced & quilted, I had a new 'need' to focus on making some quilts that were entirely hand-done (pieced, applique, quilting).

In August, I won some scraps from a give-away from Nadine at Quilted Bliss.   I fairly quickly cut that into 25 bits which I framed with yellow, red, green & blue   Kona solids.

By November, I'd moved on to adding a black borders.  From then through December, I made it through about 9 frames before I realized I didn't have as much black fabric as I though I had, since I'd used it all up on the black & white pinwheel.  The pieces I did use are random sizes and from at least 4 different batches of fabric.

I was working on this at Anna's house in December, where I appeared to have nicked that really long, thin needle.  It is 12mm longer than the applique needles that I buy (middle in the photo) and twice as long as the quilting needles that I use.

At least that's where I assume it came from since I know I didn't buy any that long.  Oooo, wait...maybe there are needle fairies that magically deliver to pincushions of good girls and boys....

I made an interesting observation as I was stitching today, that I normally load about 4 stitches at a time.  If I forced myself to pay attention (instead of auto-pilot) I could load 9 stitches at a time on the giant skinny needle.

It was a good day's work and I got 15 more blocks finished.  I was all excited to play with the layout...but discovered that I only have 24, not 25 blocks.  :(  I'll have to keep looking through all the project bags.

Oh...Anna...would you look in the cushions of the chair in your family room for the missing block?  If you find it, I'll trade you ... for a long applique needle perhaps.