I am sure the recipients will treasure those. Hopefully you will be able to present them soon. With the signature blocks I bet those are a ton of work.

Those quilts certainly take a lot of thinking, planning, organizing and possibly some nagging for you to get all of the parts and pieces together .... congratulations on jobs well done, Lynne.

It is a shame that you couldn't have a retirement party for the retiring teachers this year; I certainly hope something is organized so that everyone gets to enjoy seeing your friends receive their gifts.

Your talent and patience to create and power thru is outstanding, and it shows it's true colors in the tree of life quilt.

Jo

Thanks Jo. I still need to do a few tweaks. I noticed that one of the triangles in the tree block is turned wrong and there are two that have the same fabric next to each other so I will be fixing those and then this can wait its turn for quilting. My plan is to have this complete by years end.

Thanks, Judy.  The construction was really easy since they were all just 6 inch blocks, but you are right--it did take a lot of thinking and planning.  I wanted the novelty blocks  to fit each person, so that did take some hunting and thinking. At least these will be my last ones.

DH went to Colorado alone this week and I took a few days to just indulge myself in sewing. You could say I have had a sewing retreat of one! I finished my mystery top (on my blog now). I decided some time ago to do an applique border around it and designed that and cut out all the stuff and arranged it, organized it carefully into a keeper box as a kit and have already assembled the flowers and cut out the applique birds (I used the same two birds I did on the last applique project because I like them and now that I have all the self drafted templates they were still sitting out).

I have been hand sewing the binding on the t-shirt quilt and hope to finish that this coming week. 

When I was going thru my sewing room I came across two sewing fails that I really liked but had fitting issues. I decided to get those finished. I had pretty much sewn a romper when my daughter was 1 year old and also made her a matching baby item. Well it never got hemmed.............wonder why it never got finished. I really love the fabric so I tried it on and it was a bit snug. I think that is why it never got finished. So just a little snug. I mulled over making it a summer dress but in the end that was way more work and I think it looks nice and age appropriate as is so I left the divided skirt. I unpicked the side seams and armhole facing around the armcyce and moved the seam over 1/4 inch, this added 1 inch to the bodice...........better. Then since it had princess seams I unpicked the bust area and moved the seam over 1/4 around the bust area and tapered back to the seam. Wow what a difference. So I added 2" in the bust area and about 1" in the upper bust area. It now looks petty cute...........a cream colored background in a corse linen like woven cotton with a delicate paisley patten in several shades of blue and a touch of fushia and rust. So I tackled that yesterday!

I also had a shirt upcycle project that had been abandoned about 10 years ago. After my DFIL passed I went thru his shirts and clothes, most got donated. There was on shirt that I loved the fabric of and I cut out sections for front and back keeping the button closure and made a sleeveless button up tank. I had used bias to finish the neck and armholes. It came out really nice but the armholes had a problem of too much fabric. I had unpicked the shoulder seams to add more of an angle and abandoned the project. Well I fixed all of the yesterday as well. The armholes no longer bow out in the back and it fits really nice.

Well that is two projects out of boxes yesterday and both things I can wear now in this warm weather (90 degrees in this dry air is a heat wave here...............I feel for you in that humidity or in the Valley of the Sunbaked Eggs On the Sidewalk!

Now I need to finish cleaning up my sewing area a bit.

I am planning on cutting out some clothes patterns this week and get a few things sewn up for Fall..............trying to use up fabric I have here on hand..........I have quite the clothes fabric stash.

I tried to follow all that, but mostly I got this "I...fixed...a shirt". LOL!!! :P 

I finally finished the baby quilt that is going to Japan and put it in the mail.  A simple drag around quilt since one of her grandmas is a quilter.  She can do the special ones.

Then I finished a panel quilt for charity and have quilted and am binding a third.  Here are pictures of the baby quilt that is a gift and the other that is complete.

ohh...like both of them.

The Christmas one is really neat

Looking good Cathy!