MIA

So I've been out of the loop for almost a week. Four consecutive all-day's at work plus my thesis deadline (Friday) have kept me busy and without much energy for quilting. I have decoratively hand quilted several more 'portals' on the NICU donation quilt I'm calling "Portals on Arabia." There are two left to go.
I tweaked the color to try and make the quilting show up better but the metallic threads in the linen just obscures it in the photo.

I turned a stack of 42 10" layer cake pieces into 42 of these 9.5" (plus sashing makes them 11.5") blocks over the last few days. I decided that I need to finish something or else I'm going to lose my quilting momentum; I haven't had a finish since the Whirligig quilt and all my current major projects are stalled due to factors beyond my control. I had already decided the I wanted to mimic this quilt with the Plume layer cake that I absolutely couldn't resist. It's not my normal style but I chose it because the Plume fabrics have such beautiful, large motifs I didn't want to chop it up. Plus it'll be a really quick finish and it will be nice to hold a freshly washed, completed quilt again.

The sashing is fine ribbed corduroy. I made sure that the ribbing runs long ways on all the strips so that it feels nice to pet. This is going to make a twin size quilt for a little girl and should be finished within the next week or so.

Wilson has been taken off crinkly ball probation and is enjoying his reward, as you can see.

PS- I wanted to share this post I ran across on Quilterblogs about a great thread and odd-and-ends storage system. I immediately made a trip to Walmart and found these double-sided plastic carry-alls in the hotwheels section, as promised. You can't get better sewing storage for a more reasonable price!