Weekend Sew-In

This past weekend, my two sisters and I got together for a marathon quilting session in hopes of completing the top for our mom's 80th birthday this December. All of the family members had (awesomely) personalized their 6-1/2" squares, so it was time to piece the blocks... working from this plan I had drawn up as a possible layout:

After deciding our first choice of fabrics might be a bit too busy with all the decorative blocks, we ended up going with these:

(If you knew our mom, that pink rose print practically screams her name.)

We got busy right away on Saturday morning, cutting and prepping pieces for 35 blocks. My daughter, Kaitlin, helped out with the pressing (and yes, Kaitlin, if you're reading this, it was a LOT of help!)

My sisters pinned and chain-pieced the 280 points onto the sashing units, while I started to assemble the blocks...

Jan, please don't be mad at me for sharing this picture. (We're all a little camera shy. LoL)

The first block finished was this one for Dad...

Our quilting weekend was not without it's interruptions. The house was full of kids, teenagers, and dogs, and the three of us agreed that a private quilting retreat would have been much more relaxing! LoL Jan and I both had our three-year-old grandkids underfoot, but they did amazingly well under the circumstances, and really only got into tussles when they were ready for a nap. They're pretty good buddies. Here they are having a picnic in the kitchen with lentil soup and garlic bread. Yumm....

Despite the general chaos, we finished all 35 blocks by the end of day one! Here are just a few of them...

Beautiful!

We got a slower start the second day, due to my family singing at church for two services (there are four of us in the choir, so if we're not there, it's noticeable!), but eventually we got back to the quilt. Here's Shelley, working on the layout of the blocks:

And here's me, pinning, sewing, pinning, sewing...

Finally, the finished top (except for the border):

There were a few changes from the original design (one more row of blocks was added, and pink became the main color), but we stuck to the plan for the most part. The border will likely be a dark green, which will really frame it up nicely... I think my mom will love it!