A week’s worth of progress

I’ve finished the first row of my new daybed quilt!! Yay!

Even better is the fact that I now know how many rows it will all take – looks like seven is the magic number. (This is exciting to me – you don’t often get to use sevenths, and for some reason I still remember all of the fraction-to-decimal conversions from Mr. Valle’s 7th grade math class. It will be fun to employ them in the blog sidebar.) After mulling over the first two squares for a few days, I did end up adding a ¾” strip of magenta and reducing the size of the outer pink by ¼”. I think it’s a little less striking, but far more balanced – a tradeoff that I am completely willing to make. I’m no longer left wondering what’s missing, which is still my reaction on the old one. The first two will make great pillow tops.

Equally exciting, and probably deserving a fair amount of credit for my speedy progress so far, is that I have a new desk! It was a Christmas gift from Kevin’s parents after I’d mentioned that I’ve been considering a side-by-side setup for ages. Here it is in quilting mode:

I love that I can have the sewing machine set up while still having easy access to my monitor, mouse and keyboard! I tend to listen to NPR online while I quilt, and this makes seeing the story information, clicking to email, or changing shows so much easier. It’s also nice to me not to have to move the machine every time I’m done with it – it can stay put while it’s needed and then retire to the shelf when it’s not.

Also, I can finally cut long strips at my desk, instead of having to decamp to the kitchen table. 🙂 Certainly helps in keeping the creative mess contained.

Also, all of my mats, rulers and the rolling cutter can live on the spare keyboard tray when not in use (they seem most prone to my knack for finding perfectly-sized and subsequently unrecallable storage spots). I’m all pleased.

Tonight, after washing dishes, I finished cutting the strips for the next seven rows.

The decision remains: do I sew up all the strips, then starch, then cut into triangles and seam? Or do I only do enough for a row at a time? I’m torn.