Moving right along

On the top of my to-do list made last weekend was finishing the "Too Many Cats" quilt for Leslie. I've been chugging along with the quilting -- far from a stellar job, but adequate -- and got up this morning promising myself I would finish it today. It is finished ... [wee small voice: except for the label] Hurray!!! And the central panel of cats does have a symetrical balance, it just doesn't show in the cropped picture above.
Next on the agenda is tearing the paper off the back of the blue and white star quilt -- this is the unbeautiful back, partly with paper off, partly not. It's mindless work, I'm eager to get on with decided just what kind of borders it will have. Maybe this coming week that will happen .. but maybe not.

I've gotten sidetracked through no doing of my own. A large hole was made in my entry hall wall due to a leaking pipe behind it, which I was told was in my neighbor's kitchen but as it turns out it went on upstairs a few more stories. So the building's plumbers had a big job and I've had that hole for 10 days plus a smaller one that appeared later. All this means moving the set of bookcases lining the entry hall. Stuffed! Books and magazines and things I didn't think I could part with. But with much of it strewn about, I decided to see what could go. A lot, really. I'm sorting [and dusting] at the moment and not putting anything back where it was without considering why I have it.

Among the things I have is a collection of Quilters Newsletter Magazines back to the early '80s. My how their editorial has changed!! I really must flip through every one to see if there are gems I want to keep. I just found one with an article about a very young Ruth McDowell [young mother with cute kid] and many of her early quilts. I'm goiing to tuck that article into one of her rrecent books. Even in 19822 her designs pop right out with genius. Great color, great design, bold conceptions. She was clearly headed for quilit world stardom. Fascinating.

By the way if anyone reads this and has a hankering for historic quilt magazines, let me know, for the price of postage or a swap of fabric I'll send them by the dozen. I'd love them to have good homes. My current plan is to take them by handfuls to my quilt guild meetings [what I can easily carry] where they will be sold for 25 cents each by the library committee. But that waill take months yet. I'd love to give them a deserving home.