It's a Sewing Week!

It has been a full week here of sewing and sew-related activities! Phew! Tuesday I headed down to Utah County to visit Ella post-back surgery (ow!) to check in on her and have lunch. We didn't actually DO any sewing, but I consider it a sewing-related day when fabric passes hands! I hit one of my favorite Utah County fabric shops, the Quilting Cottage, to pick up a few more FQs of turquoise, orange, and green for my #Xplusalong blocks, as well as a few pink FQs for Ella--who adores all things pink!

Wednesday was an "official" sew day, taking me right back down to Utah County again. By now I think my car knows the way and they don't even ask for my passport anymore when I leave Salt Lake! April was having a few people over for a sew day, so I lugged my machine all the way down there and . . .  didn't sew a single stitch!! I did, however, cut fabric for my #Xplusalong blocks for the entire time! I optimistically set up my machine, ready to rumble, but it never got used. I cut and cut and cut, only to return home and realize I had STILL MORE CUTTING TO DO!! Sorry for raising my voice there, but since I made the questionable decision of making 7" blocks for a queen-sized quilt, I clearly have a lot of cutting of fabric still ahead of me! But great fun was had anyway, in addition to hanging with April and Marion, we met up with the oh-so talented Emily Herrick for lunch. I had been promised a trip to the infamous Gracie Lou's Quilt Shoppe, which has been described to me know for several years as the textile Mecca. As we pulled into the parking lot, we saw a large bus and joked that there must be a Shop Hop (a.k.a. a feral pack of fabric-hoarding women traveling en masse from fabric store to fabric store on a bus). It was no joke!! We walked in and there were 57 women crammed into that store! We decided to do lunch first and then return after the dust had settled from the Shop Hop storm. So crazy! You would have thought those women had been starved of fabric for a decade before being unleashed into that store!

Having done my time in Utah County, Utah County has now come to me!! My friend Sue (who STILL has no blog I can link to!) is up in SLC with her hubby for a few days, and while he's in a conference during the days, she's over at my house sewing!! It's like a mini-retreat. And boy did we sew yesterday, almost nonstop from 10 to 6! We tease Sue sometimes for not settling down to sew at retreats until hours into the retreat, but she was butt in chair within 5 minutes and sewing away!! You go girl!


I plugged away at my #Xplusalong blocks, and knocked off another 12 yesterday, so now I have 38 finished, and "only" 61 to go! Oy. I finally sat down yesterday and figured out how many blocks I would need once I included 6" borders and 2.5" sashing (thanks Karen and Sue!!), and while 9x11 block rows don't sound so bad to me, 99 blocks are a bit more intimidating!! But I will prevail and, in fact, have already lined up another 30 or so blocks all cut out and ready to sew today:

Don't they look all pretty and innocent lined up like that? Who would think I'd need so many of the pesky varmints! Once they're in this state, I can pretty much knock them out quickly, so I think I can get these 30 finished today, bringing my total up somewhere around 60 blocks, meaning I'll be 2/3 done. Yay!! I have realized, however, that my grey polka dots (seen above in the finished block) won't last me through the last third of the blocks. Sigh.