the progress of the works

The 'twins' are coming along nicely.

After calculating that I had roughly 24 hours of hand-quilting for the vertical rows,

I went ahead and machine quilted it.

I wasn't so sure about my decision at first, but once I got several rows done, I decided I liked it just fine.

Especially when I was finished in just 1 hour!

I dug through my scraps and stash to find 36 blues and greens

for the Irish chain.

I'd intended to use Missouri Quilt Co's tutorial, but there was something I wasn't crazy about 

about it.

Then I remembered that I'd bought a pattern from Rae ages ago (4 1/2 years!)
before I knew that I could probably find it online for free.

It was much more pleasing to my eye, so I went with it.
(I also really like this one  - but it's not what I was going for this time.)

 I would have saved myself a lot of headache if I would have just made it exactly according to her pattern,

but of course, I couldn't do that...
(as written, I felt the length was too long for the width. Plus, it was longer than I wanted...)
I also wanted to include more fabrics - duh ;-) but that part wasn't tricky.

I got so frustrated trying to figure out what I needed to cut/sew to make my reduced version

(I took off 2/5 of the top and bottom blocks)

that I had to walk away from it for awhile.

When I came back to it - I was able to figure it all out just fine.

Now I need to decipher and re-write my notes in case I want to make it again.

I really like my version better than Rae's, 

and wondered why on earth she didn't plan her's that way ;-)

I haven't touched my red and white quilt, 

but I got one more star turned into a hexagon.

Jeremiah thinks this looks like a pond in the fall.

I also did a fabric pull

that I'm just itching to cut into

But next on my agenda - pies.

Ya'll pray for us.

Linking up with Lee, as usual :-)