progress

For a quilter who tries to not be anally-retentive, I do have my little quirks. Here is a basket of colored strips, each color safely ensconced in a ziplock baggy. When I make each letter, I like to use only two different fabrics - the letter fabric and the background fabric - to make the letter easier to read. I hate pawing through a whole pile of strips and bits looking for the color I need, hence the baggies. These are randomly cut strips as far as the width is concerned, tho I did try to make them straight. We're talking about me, so straight cut is a relative term.

And here are the black fabric strips for making the letters themselves. Again, far too organized. I cut the first strip 7/8" wide and then increased each strip by an 1/8" more or less. I think the widest strip is 2". I also cut a bunch of strips at an angle tho those are hard to see here. It makes me absolutely nuts when the cats leap up onto this chair. Can they just shed a bit and then leave? No, they always manage to knock strips off onto the floor.

I'm not making stunning progress on the quilt, but I am moving forward. On the 1st I completed 16 letters and that includes making the units the proper height - 4 1/4". Yesterday I got 15 letters done, but they're still shorties. I also washed and ironed 9 yards of fabric I purchased in the states in May. Lots of lovely Princess Mira batiks, most of which are too dark to go in this quilt, at least at this stage.

I have tossed aside a lot of the purples, blues and greens for being so dark it's hard to read the letter. There will still be a few of them in there, just not so many.

And on a completely different note: Woohoo, yesterday was the first day of the Tour de France. Lance showed them all what great shape he was in, putting in almost a minute on the entire field except David Zabriskie who won the time trial. He deserves it - multiple bone breaks and he came back to ride at a high caliber.

Since I would feel just that much more sluggardly watching the best athletes on earth, I actually got on the treadmill for the first time in a year and walked for 25 mins. Not fast, not at a high incline, but walked. It's a start. Hoping to put in a repeat performance today, if I don't get trapped here at the computer.