I should never announce my plans for the weekend, because then I never achieve what I wanted to do. It's a fact of life. The quilt I wanted to work on is still in pieces on the design wall, because of an unexpected visit from my DD. She lives in a little town about 3 hours away, and it's much colder there, so she came into town to stock up on winter clothes. She makes me laugh, she can stretch a dollar further than me when it comes to clothes shopping. She has a talent for bargain finding. It's a gift that she likes to cultivate.

She went through my pile of quilts and chose 4 to take home with her, including this one, shown on the Statler being quilted a few years ago. It's foundation pieced and is much the same as my Irish Star, just tweaked a little to give stars instead of spirals. Even though it was quilted so long ago it still didn't have a binding, so that's what I had to do today. It's another mammoth quilt, I must have been insane to make quilts that big. I think I've learnt my lesson for a while.

After the quilt was bound we made 3 sets of curtains for her flat. It warmed my heart to see her sewing with such concentration and care. She has never been one to do anything slowly. She once ran right through a glass door, and she was going so fast that only her heel was cut as the glass fell like a curtain behind her!

Her first attempt at machine sewing was when she was 7, while I was away at a retreat. It resulted in her stitching right through her finger and a trip to the X-ray department to track down the bits of broken needle. She told me all this breathlessly, with great enjoyment, when I rang to see if they missed me. I could hear DH in the background hissing 'Don't tell her that!!!' And he said the same thing when she informed me that they had had a bag of chips for dinner....

There were various incidents with other sewing projects, all done at a million miles an hour. She was allowed to sew on my old Bernina, but hated it because she leans way too close to the machine, and the bit that carries the thread and goes up and down used to smack her on the head. My Janome 7000 has this bit enclosed, so I gave it to her to take home. Along with many instructions on the care and feeding of my beloved machine. We will wait to see if she turns into a quilter......

I would post a photo of her, but she was horrified the last time I did that, so I'd better not freak her out again. But how dumb of me not to take a photo of the newly bound quilt, because I've just discovered that I don't have any of it except the one shown. I am going out to visit her in August, so I will make sure I photograph it then.