a full Sunday

I was invited to dinner tonight by the Greek family nextdoor. As I walked in the house, the fabulous cross-stitch piece i mentioned in my last post was lying on the sofa and I was dying to go over and examine it closely.. I didn't though, and instead had a nice leisurely visit with Angeliki. It has been weeks since we'd chatted and her baby is due really soon so we had lots to talk about. I waited til after dinner and then couldn't wait anymore... i asked Angeliki to ask her mom about the cross-stitch-- see, I can't speak Greek in front of Angeliki. When am I gonna get over that? It turns out I was right, it's gonna be a table runner. Upon closer inspection, it's gorgeous~ Rena sat at the table and worked on it while we chatted over ice cream, and just to watch her-- she's a real needlewoman. I did my best to let her know that I realized that, but it was so clear to me that both Angeliki and Socrates had no idea the work that went into making a piece like that. I was happy to hear that Rena had asked Angeliki about my quilt too.. of course she couldn't explain much more than what a quilt was, and that she probably thinks I'm nuts for making them and not ironing my husband's shirts instead, but hopefully I'll get the chance to talk crafts with Rena one day soon. I'm toying with the idea of inviting her with me to the Silver City guild mtg. tomorrow, but they've only got one car so I'd need to drive down here, pick her up, and drive back up to the meeting.. I think I'll check out my workload tomorrow and then decide if I can pull it off.

Before I went out, I spent most of the afternoon working on a wall hanging for Costas' office. I have wanted to make him something for a long time, but I didn't want to tell him I was working on anything for fear that there would then be pressure to finish it. When i was living in Japan in '02, Costas came to visit and bought me a ton of fabric from the one fabric store, "Komiyamaya" in Tanuki-Koji in Sapporo. I started to make us a quilt-- very very simple, squares and rectangles, and when I showed it to him, he didn't like it!! So I stopped, mid-project, and even tore some of it apart. I cut a bunch of patches for fan blocks, thinking i could make a large wall hanging instead. After hand-piecing one fan I got overwhelmed with that, and the fabric sat in it's Komiyamaya bag in my stash for the next 3 and a half years.
I pulled it all out last week and laid it out across the bed in the sewing room. So many possibilites, not enough direction. I messed around on EQ5 for a bit but didn't like anything I came up with. Today i decided to give the fans a second try, and having learned a great deal about quilting since I last worked on them, i first re-did my templates with a built in seam allowance, and trimmed up the patches. Then I machine pieced 4 identical blocks. I didn't want to do more (though there are still patches cut to make around 10 more fans), and I knew i wanted to incorporate the sail boat pattern I had seen at the Fairhaven quilt show so I set about making 2 sailboat blocks.
ooh that was fun. They're the type of blocks that when you press them you just squeel "ooh that's so cute!!" hehe. I set the two sailboats inside two half-circles made from the fans, and I think I'm happy with the results:

(please forgive the crooked picture)
Now I just need to decide if I want borders or not.
My plan is to hand quilt it with pearl cotton, probably in beige/off white. I want to have it done and hanging in his office by the time he gets home next Tuesday. Can I do it? Let's see.