Finishing Quilts - On a Roll

I've been so efficient on finishing quilting projects in the past month that I've amazed myself.  In the past, I've blogged that I HATE hand stitching on binding and would rather stick the needle in my eye.  And it is still nearly true but I finally figured out that if I go to the "sit and sew" down at the quilt shop on Wednesdays, I will sit still long enough to actually bind my quilts.  So that is what I've been doing for most of the past few Wednesdays. 

I finished Katie and Chris' wedding quilt, first:

I used a pineapple pattern that I got out of a McCalls Quilting magazine in 2004 (it may have been 2005). 

Ahem, they wed in 2007 and the top was about half done at that time.  I finished the top, last year and just now got around to binding it. 

So after I managed to finish it, I couldn't wait to get Windy's quilt done. It is smaller and went a lot faster - here it is:

I was pretty happy with the quilting.  This was a fun quilt to make and super easy - it is a picket fence traditional block. 

Then, I quilted my 911 quilt that is intended for our bed:

 Honestly, I had the most fun quilting this quilt. 

 I used Carol Doak's paper piecing stars book for the block patterns.

 See the hearts in the background?:

 Here it is after I bound it:

 Evelyn, my good quilting buddy:

 Here are the girls checking it out:

So on top of that, I took five 12.5 inch unfinished nine patches that I helped a friend's daughter make about five years ago and tarted them up to make a graduation quilt for her.  I haven't quilted it, yet, but it is coming along.  It was supposed to be just a lap quilt but it swarmed on me:

I'd hoped to get it done for her highschool graduation, tomorrow, but it isn't happening.

Pearly has continued to struggle with her vision problems.  She had yet another relapse and lost vision in her right eye.  Poor thing.  It wasn't as bad as when she went completely blind but it is discouraging.  Since I last posted, she's been back to the specialist three times and he has been trying to get it under control with prednisone.  He put her on antibiotics earlier this week in case this was an infection.  She is actually doing better and seems to have most of her vision back.  

Today, I took her in to see an internist and she confirmed Pearly is struggling with an auto immune problem rather than an infection.  She has dealt with dogs like Pearly who just can't seem to be able to keep from relapsing when their oral prednisone is reduced.  She put her on a second immune suppression medication to help her keep from flaring as we work down the prednisone doses.  Both can cause bad side effects but the prednisone is quite problematic and she will be monitoring her, closely to make sure the new medication is behaving.  The hope is that after several months of being stable on a low prednisone maintenance dose, we'll be able to get her medication free.  If that doesn't work, at least the prednisone will be low enough to not be so dangerous.  So I'm optimistic.  The internist, btw, is a quilter!

It has been an incredibly busy 6 weeks and I could write for hours just hitting the high points.  I will leave you with a photo of the surprise I got when I checked on the baby blue birds in our blue bird house, out front:

Mr. Snake (we think it was a Texas Rat Snake) was quite lumpy when he slithered off.

Happy Quilting, Penny, Evelyn and Pearl