The quilting begins (or how I took over the living room)

The quilting has begun. Tomorrow will be the first day I have had off of work at the museum (or on museum business) since Sunday, July 16 when I finished the quilt top so you can imagine how eager I am to start quilting!

We have been very busy this week getting the house ready for a guest who will arrive in August. Nick Walker, George's nephew from Peoria, Illinois will be spending a semester with us as he prepares for a possible graduate school chapter in his life. Since we always want to have a guest bedroom in case the kids or others pop in, we decided to change the TV room (the fourth bedroom upstairs) into Nick's room. We borrowed a twin bed, moved my desk in and got him all set up. This meant, however, moving the TV elsewhere so now it is in the living room, a situation George is not too fond of but realizes the necessity. We also had to put the loveseat from the TV room into our bedroom which meant moving other furniture out of there and into the guest room. It was a game of musical furniture. A big thank you goes out to our friend and around the house handyman, Tim Jones for helping with all the moves.

So the TV is in the living room and as I like to watch movies as I quilt, I set up my quilting station smack dab in the middle of the living room. As the quilt will be finished this weekend, George knows this is only a temporary take-over. He is planning to ride all weekend as he is in training for a 420 mile ride on the Blue Ridge Highway next month so I can quilt this weekend to my heart's content. Somewhere in here I need to clean house, however. Ugh!

I just noticed as I proofread this post that you can see my watermelon quilt, finished in 1996, on the green checked couch behind me (see first picture in this post). Cool! Actually, it is very warm ...90+ degrees for today and this weekend so I will be wearing my hair like this all day and night, especially as I quilt, to keep it out of the way and keep my neck cool. I wear a long sleeve shirt to keep myself from looking like a junkie, scratched and pricked from all the pins int the quilt.

Well, I am off to quilt so ta-ta for now!