3rd men's quilt totally done!, Foust treasures

Michael ran to get routine blood work done on Tuesday morning (2/13) while I got all of my emails read and put my blog out.  I am determined to finish the third men’s quilt before quilting on Thursday, so I dove right into sewing the binding on, while stitching out the third label.  My honey came down to read his emails, so of course Cookie joined us….look at this dog:  

the sofa cushion is obviously not soft enough by itself…even with a beautiful soft afghan folded on top of it (thx BG!)….Cookie still has to cram her body on top of the tiny throw pillow that is there :~).  

I got a break from binding in the early afternoon with a wonderful phone call from Mary Jo…and I’m sure she is the ONLY person that noticed I quilted these 3 men’s quilts denser than I have doing previous quilts…she is SO observant!!!  After that call I put my nose to the grindstone and by dinnertime, the final quilt was finished:  

You have no idea how much discipline and sheer will power it took for me to get 3 quilts bound in 3 days…and I am SO HAPPY THEY ARE DONE!!!!  

I took a break after that to finally show you my Foust treasures  :~).  So, I wanted ‘focus’ fabric for patriotic quilts….and I bought 2 bolts….

one on the left with a cream background and one on the right with a white background.  I had 5 yards of the one on the right from a patriotic bundle that Mary Ann and I split, but I have used it all, so was glad to find it again (Mary Ann, if you would like to own any of these, let me know and I’ll bring it to quilting  :~).  I was also out of solid red and solid blue.  I really wanted to re-buy those colors in a fabric called ‘branches’, but they were out of that, so I just bought suede texture (that’s what it looks like, but it is regular quilting cotton) in red and blue.  

This is my third bolt of 108’’ wide blue backing….

I use this in most of my rainbow quilts and then use it for a backing.  I also bought a bolt of this aqua heart fabric:  

I’ve already used up all that I bought last time, and it goes with another bolt of numbers fabric I have.  I hope to make a Beds = Dreams quilt with it.  And the last bolt I bought was tone-on-tone white.  Based on everything you’ve now seen, I’m sure you won’t be surprised to hear me say that my ‘stash report’ is going to take months and months to get into the black again  :~(.  

I had a nice visit with Joanne in the afternoon (we haven’t seen each other in FOREVER)…and as she was leaving, my honey returned home after a visit to the vet with Cookie.  Cookie has yet another ear infection  :~(.  I was used to cocker spaniels having ear infections with all of the hair they have on and in their ears…but I NEVER expected it with a Jack Russell.  According to the vet, she has allergies....but they've suggested no strategies to help with that  :~(.

When I headed back downstairs I decided I needed to do a bit of cutting.  I will be going on retreat with Pat in 2-1/2 weeks,  and I haven’t pulled anything together yet.  I know I can’t cut everything at once (my hands won’t hold up), so I decided it was time to get started.  Remember my VORTEX quilt?  

Well, the minute I finished it, I decided I wanted to do exactly the same quilt, but with a black background, so I started to cut the colors.  I got those finished by 6 PM:

just in time to celebrate with my honey.  Since Michael has rehearsal tomorrow, we decided to celebrate Valentine’s Day today!  We opened (yet another) bottle of champagne 

and had a dinner of our favorite…puffy things!!!  

We also made popcorn and snuggled on the couch, watching TV for the rest of the evening.