I am not missing having the huge pile of scraps! I even went to the LQS and bought some new fabric, something I haven't done in a long time. It was very refreshing to see bolts of fabric, instead of shreds.

The materials for the borders, sashes, corner-posts and future binding all came from deep stash. That's stash that's more than 4 years old. I wanted another fabric for the small pink border, but I only had a FQ, which is why I was at the LQS trying to match it. 'It's, oh, about 2 years old...' I told the assistant. No Luck. When I got home I looked through my fabric books, and found that I bought that FQ in Paducah, 5 years ago. Time does march on.

My resolution not to make large quilts went out the window with this quilt. It fits the QS bed, and that's bigger than I intended but it just wanted to be like that. I am helpless in the face of such insistence. I just do what I'm told. Several blocks, like the diamond star and the one to the right of the M block, are pieced with leftover strips from the 1" checkerboard of the Maverick Stars.

I did get a bit desperate towards the end, when I needed three more crumby blocks and the pile of scraps was blechh and down to the dregs. That's when I raided the orphan block pile, and came up with the larger bits and pieces to use as the beginnings of a crumb block. They turned out to be my favourite blocks, that's always the way.

The Initial blocks were just because I've never monogrammed a quilt before. If I had any sense I would have made a '7' block to date it to this year. I may applique that on one of the blocks still, wouldn't take a minute. And I made them blue because it is so out of character for me to be noticeable; I like to be wallpaper, in the background observing, quietly enjoying. I don't do the centre-stage thing happily, and I still feel uneasy at how noticeable these letters are. How bizarre! It's MY quilt! I need to get over that.

I had another border planned, and it was just beautiful. Wrong border for this quilt though, so it's in the ideas basket and I will get round to developing it with another quilt. It was sooo pretty; it always amazes me that in the process of finishing one quilt I stumble across ideas for at least three more. That's why there will always be new quilts to make.

What to start next! I think I may actually quilt something, and then there's a darling thing that Mereth is working on, and I could do some blocks for that to help out... I love this moment, when there's so much delicious choice of what to do next. Once the project is begun I get obsessed at seeing progress and work too hard, so I really enjoy the deep breath before it all starts again.

Who am I kidding? I enjoy all of it. (Though the other night I cleaned the dishwasher filter rather than face those sashing seams right away...)