It's been lovely to spend time in the studio today without being under a deadline to get a particular project finished. I've been working at clearing off the card table, which was set up to temporarily hold the pieces of the DWR and then became the catchall for everything that needed to be swept off the machine table. On top of the pile was a Super 9 Patch crib quilt that I had started working on back in July and had botched and needed the able application of a seam ripper. I finished that one this morning, stitching down the last of the binding while the PBS sewing programs were on. Then I got the second quilt in the set of 3 layered and started its quilting. I'm not doing anything fancy with these, just a simple diagonal grid. This is the second one, and it's 3/4 quilted, so tomorrow I should get the binding sewn on and get the hand stitching at least started.

Then I started working on the lessons for the Quilt University class I signed up for hoping that it would exercise my hands and brain in different ways. The class is called Bodacious Blossoms and it's taught by Leslie Lacika; the objective is to learn different ways of making dimensional flowers. Along the way we are to create a sampler of different techniques and a mini quilt with flowers in a vase.

These two pictures are my first efforts at making a bell-shaped flower with a gathered neck. The one on the left is made from a more or less square piece of fabric and has the top edge pinked and left open. The one on the right is made from a more rectangular piece and has the top stitched down. I decided they also needed leaves, so played with different ways of accomplishing them as well. Both are fussy-cut from printed fabric, but the one on the left is appliqued with the edges needle-turned, while the one on the right is fused.

My hope is that by the time the class is done I will have a bigger arsenal of tools and techniques to use to finish the Spring wall-hanging. I really do want to get that one off my list before the end of the year; it's been there far too long. In the mean time, I'm just having fun thinking in terms of finishing simple crib quilts and making tiny sampler squares.