A new post, brought to you by the letter B

Finally, another post! I have two exciting things to share! One is that I finished row B! You can see the last three blocks I had to make pictured above. Two down, 11 to go (plus triangles). Still, it feels oh so good to be making progress!

Second is that I met Brenda Papadakis last weekend! Yes, the Brenda, the original Janiac! It turns out that she is good friends with a friend of mine from my LQS, so when Brenda came to town to give a lecture at the New England Quilt Museum, I had the opportunity to spend a little time with her. On Friday the 8th my friend had a quilters-only dinner party so we could meet Brenda. It was incredibly sweet! Quilters, cocktails, delicious summer food, and killer dessert! Plus I got Brenda to sign my book, and my blocks were passed around to much oohing and ahhing. I haven't really shown them to anyone except for Rob, so it was nice to get such positive feedback from other quilters! On Saturday my friend Melynn and I made the trip to Lowell for Brenda's talk, which was great, and then got to have lunch with her, our other LQS friend, and two of the curators from the museum. The whole thing was just lovely! Above is a picture of me with Brenda, taken after her talk on Saturday (and yes, that's a new dress, and yes, there will be a post forthcoming on that).

Anyway, with all this visiting going on, I fell even more behind in my block-making. Boo. I'm even further behind on my blogging, however, so here are some quick updates on row B. Above is block B10. I thought the patterned fabric would work well, but I think the scale is too big or there is too much white in the pattern because from afar the block just looks kind of messy. Oh well--it's done, and as Brenda says, "Finished is better than perfect!" I couldn't agree more.

Here is block B11. I didn't know how best to piece this one, so I appliquéd those curves onto the background pieces first, then pieced them in to the log cabin sashing around the center block. It was a little tricky sewing those areas where I had three fabrics instead of just two (I didn't trim out the background behind those curves), but other than that it worked just fine.

Block B12. I did regular appliqué, not reverse, for this. It is 5 pieces total, and for this block I did trim out the background behind the print. The center is a little bit wonky, but I must say that I'm quite pleased with the curves!

So, that completes row B! I've just finished my next block, which is in row C and which puts me at 41 blocks total. 128 to go, and then it's on to triangles! Also, I'd been wavering about putting on the scalloped border since I started this quilt. My rationale was always that it would just be too finicky and take too long. Over the weekend I realized how completely ridiculous that statement is, since it's already taking me years to complete this thing. So, yes, I am now resolved: I will do the scalloped border.