leaders & enders sewn together, QoV zigzag quilting started

The weather certainly shifted overnight and when we got up Sunday morning (3/22) it was cold and raw and 50 degrees.  We stayed inside for most of the day (Michael took a short neighborhood walk with Cookie) and of course I spent it in the studio.  I continued to cut out rectangles for a men’s quilt, while sewing together the leaders and enders blocks.  By dinnertime I was done and I LOVE it:  

I'm not even going to put borders on it....I will just bind it in black.

While I was working after dinner, we had visitors:

We had 3 in all, but they ran when they saw me move to take pictures!

And in more quilting news.....

BG is continuing to make progress on her string blocks:

And Leila bought the same SCOOCH OVER pattern that I did and finished a top in TULA PINK fabrics:

Here's some food cuteness coming your way....

check out this cookbook....too cool

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Monday (3/23) dawned cold and rainy, so Michael’s golf was cancelled.  He headed to the grocery store for me and once he was home I got Mexican Chicken Soup in the crockpot before heading downstairs.  (By the way, I thought I had a big bag of frozen corn, but only had a handful left....luckily my friend Janice uses green beans, so I threw in a bunch of those as well...thx Janice!!)

First on my agenda was quilting…..I got 5 plus yards of backing loaded up and got my first QoV (the zig zag one) loaded and basted:  

I really want the pattern of the piecing to stand out and not the quilting, so after a brief consultation with Susie (our resident expert and quilt judge!!), I am quilting with cream thread.  Yes, it shows up on the red/blue squares: 

but I think they are large enough and dark enough to stand up on their own, and it really blends in to the background: 

which is what I wanted.  I worked on that throughout the day, along with finishing up cutting and starting the sewing of blocks of fabric from Jan:  

I thought my honey could use some cheering up (mostly because I’ve been so cranky lately), so I made his favorite….giant, browned butter chocolate chip cookies:  

The AMAZON guy pulled up to deliver to our neighbors right as a bunch came out of the oven, so I ran one out to him (since they’re helping to keep us ALL going  :~).  Our soup was WONDERFUL (and we shared with our neighbors)….we haven’t had in forever, and I found 1/2 a loaf of cornbread in the freezer to go with it.

Arizona Mary is using her self-quarentine to finish up a John Wayne quilt for her son:

And AJ says 'let a smile be your umbrella' in these dark days: