W.I.P. - finally underway

Yesterday I started a quilt. It has been a long time coming - aprons to sew, a trip to NYC, being sick, the every day 'stuff'. This is going to be quilt #1 for my daughter's dorm room. It is LAKESIDE CHARM from McCall's Quick Quilts July 2008. I bought the magazine with a different project in mind but as I was flipping through it, my daughter spotted this beauty and fell in love with it. She wanted it with the exact same fabrics, Two Young Street by Prints Charming - Marcus Fabrics. I was excited that she was excited and I got busy figuring out where I could buy all the prints that we needed. We added one more print from the line that the magazine did not show.

The order was placed and the fabric arrived when it was still winter. WINTER! After a day like today I wish that I would have worked on it in the winter. Here are all the pretty fabrics before I started cutting - 180 4 1/2 x 4 1/2 squares.

And below you can see all of those squares. This fabric has a very unique feel to it, almost brushed since it is so soft but at the same time it is crisp. The designers even talk about it on their site.

I stayed up way too late, figuring out how to start a blog ;), woke up way too early to meet my friend for our workout (if she wasn't waiting for me I probably would just skip it!). Then after some housework, some lunch and waiting for my hubby to get my pictures onto the computer (yeah, yeah, yeah...someday I will figure that out) to see if they turned out alright I started laying out the blocks into the pattern. My daughter came in to help tweak it and the picture doesn't show all of it. I had the side borders on the floor, two bottom rows on my sewing table and the top and bottom borders in various places. Oh yeah, did I mention how HOT it was today? Did I mention how HOT it gets in my sewing room in the summer? Did I mention that I could not have ANY windows open because it was pretty breezy out and I did not even want to imagine those pieces flying around the room.

At this point, the family is off to VBS and I needed to take a little break. Back at it at 6:15. I started sewing the blocks together. I tried to chain stitch them but they would twist as they went off the back of the machine and I was getting confused as to which order they were supposed to be in. So it was slower going than I counted on. Did I mention how HOT it was in the sewing room?? I put some praise music on and stuck to the task. Sew a row, iron a row, sew a row into blocks, iron the blocks, label and stack. Something out the window caught my eye...
Just passing through.

My family got home about 9:30 and came to check on me. I had 1.5 rows to go!! My daughter was pretty impressed. They mentioned how HOT it was in the room. I was sweating more than I had this morning at the gym! So does this count for an aerobic workout?? I sure wish I would have left my pedometer on. I was back and forth from the sewing macine to the table to the ironing board. Over and over and over again. Maybe I can give up the gym and just sew quilts on hot days. Here are all my blocks, sewed, ironed, labeled & pinned.

Next step - iron and cut out the white fabric for 'lattice'. After that it will be sewing the lattice and blocks together. Saturday is supposed to be hot, Sunday is supposed to be hotter and Monday is supposed to be even hotter (96!). We shall see when I get to the next step. I'll keep you posted.

Today I have been praying for: 'Ipswitch' a young All-Star baseball playing friend that hurt his neck yesterday. My SIL, who is recovering from surgery. My friend and two of her children who are on a mission trip in Mexico (where it is supposedley very HOT!).