Inspiration Comes When You Aren't Expecting It.

A week ago I was agonizing over what to do for a border on my Baltimore Album Sampler. This afternoon I finished it and I must say that I am really happy with the way it's turned out. It's certainly nothing like I first imagined. I didn't think I wanted to add any more applique, but in the end I did.

Tuesday or thereabouts, I was sewing on another project when a piece of template plastic fell out of the cubby hole under the desk and onto the floor. It was a piece I had drawn and used for a quilting template in the white inner border of my string star quilt "The Fabric Of My Life" .

It occurred to me that I could use it for an appliqued swag of sorts and that is exactly what I did!

It's pretty hard to get a straight on picture of the top since Tom's arms (and legs) aren't long enough to stretch it all the way out. At this point it is about 84" square. What do you think?

I drew the "wave" (as my friend Geta has called it..and I think it fits) on the back of the border section and then used back basting to applique the long strip of blue fabric. It went really quickly even with the back basting step.

Lastly I added flowers to each corner.

Now I really should get busy quilting this instead of adding to the ever growing stack of tops needing quilted. At least I can move it from the list of UFO's on my sidebar to the "Flimsy" section.

I need to take a bit and make a new supply of siggies to trade; make a few 9-patches for ribbon toppers for this year's guild quilt show; and start a new (or pick up an old) hand project so that I have something to work on in the car Tuesday when we drive to Wichita for Tom's doctor's appointment.

After that..maybe I'll start to quilt this..or one of the other tops on the list.

It feels really good to be done with the top four years after starting.