It must be my day!

Wait a minute.  It is my day.  My birthday (well before midnight it was)....and things just hadda go right for a change.  :-D

Firstly....I actually had my camera with me today.  And there was the heron.  Isn't he/she gorgeous! (click for detail)

And tonight!......   Pardon me while I jump up and down and do cartwheels!!! (Quietly of course....the rest of the household is sleeping.) :-) Wheeeeee! Looky, looky!!!! The center of the quilt is togetherrrrrrrr! Swoon!

My bee met again at my house on Tuesday and I have to thank them for all their excellent suggestions on how to fit this puzzle together. The final result is in - I had cut down the background behind the baskets 1/2" all around. Then the basket weave units fit and as it turned out the flying geese strips fit perfectly. Yessss! One of the bee ladies had a clever fix to make the flying geese strips longer if need be.  Sigh....that would have been easy. (well I guess I could've if I'd wanted to add something on the inner side of them...that might have been a good look) Now I'm going to have to figure out what to add on the outside of them to make the center section fit the big outside corner units as they are about two inches too big. Gulp!

The center applique is all done. Once my hands recovered from all the tracing and cutting of flowers, the sewing turned out to be fun! I had the BEST time using the rainbow of Isacord threads. (The display in the store makes me drool.) And building the speed limiter for the Juki helped immensely.

It took most of yesterday afternoon and evening to get the basket handles sewn on properly. Nothing worked! It took until five o'clock....when the lightbulb finally came on and I realized stabilizer was probably the answer. Duh. No matter what stitch or thread I used it looked bad. Really bad. I am now the frogging queen!! One of those handles was ripped off three times! And another one twice. (Banging. My. Head. On. The. Sewing. Machine. Table.) I had to rush out to the LQS just before it closed for stabilizer and thread. But it's done! Done, done done! *happy dance*

Tomorrow I have to figure out how to fit the corners on. Then I'll lay out the rest of the flowers and get them appliqued. Phew! I'm so excited I don't know how I'll sleep! LOL

Tell me. Does one of the fabrics in the center pinwheel bother you too? Where has my seam ripper got to..........