7,8 and 9

Veterans Quiltapalooza is continuing at a good pace. In the last 2 days I finished 3 more quilts. This first one is one that I made. After I get the binding on it I'll do another post showing the simple construction method for this one. I like it a lot and expect that I'll make more in this style.

When I finished this top I had an idea that I might like to quilt it in orange thread but I had to wait around for another quilt to pair with it that could also use orange thread.
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As soon as Becky showed this quilt top at the April meeting I knew that my quilt had found it's quilting mate. I could do orange thread on this one......even though Becky doesn't much like orange. But we have a rule that, for veterans quilts, only the quilter has a say in the color and pattern. The piecers are happy to accept that rule to avoid having to quilt their own quilts. Sometimes we use these quilts to practice motifs or, as I'm doing this week, we use them to use up some of our threads. I have an obscenely huge thread stash that I collected in the early years of my quilting and I should have never bought some of the colors.....like multiple spools of different oranges. I'm trying to use up some of the lesser-loved thread on the veterans quilts.
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Here's how it looks up close with the orange thread. I love it.
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I have actually finished off one cone of purple thread this week. I used it on 2 quilts and got it down far enough that I was able to finish off the rest by doing basting. That's 2 empty cones for the year so far and that's pretty good!
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Here's quilt #9.
​Occasionally have single quilts to quilt. Either I have leftover backing fabric that can be pieced for one quilt or I have a leftover chunk of batting for one quilt or I just end up with an odd number of quilts. In this case it was all 3. I had a pieced single backing, a single batt and this quilt didn't have a mate. So I did it quickly yesterday afternoon.

That takes my total to 9 and I have 4 left to do. 
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I got 10 and 11 loaded and basted last night before dinner. I think I'm just going to continue on with the Square Spiral pantograph. It's quick and easy and is a good neutral pattern. It really just provides a little texture with a grid-like pattern. It will work great on both of these. The last 2 quilts are patriotic so I might switch to the ribbon stars pattern. We'll see.

There won't be any quilting today. It's dyeing day and then we have 3 guest for dinner and to spend the night before they ahd Chris head to Myrtle Beach for a golf weekend. 

That's right, I have the weekend to myself! I should have these last 4 quilts quilted for sure. Today I'm dyeing 2 backs for 2 of the 5 non-veterans quilts that are in the to-be-quilted closet.
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