one down, one to go...

Great progress to report - the sashing and cornerstones as well as the first border on the Amish with a Twist quilt are completed!

The Kona Snow sashing and the random colored cornerstones finish at 3" wide. Combined with the small corner squares in each of the blocks, the cornerstones give the setting sort of an Irish Chain feel. I like that!

Since this pattern is structured as a block-of-the-month program, the directions called for strip-piecing the piano key border in sections as I cut and sewed each of the blocks. After all 12 blocks were completed, I had about 8 different color versions of 4-strip border sections already pieced, cut and ready to go. Whew!

It felt like there were thousands of those 1.25" strips needed to make up the border, and I was soooo glad the only work remaining was to sew the already made 4-strip sections into the long border pieces.

Aren't the colors fabulous?!

And now the top is too big for the design wall, so I had to drape it over the railing to get a shot of the entire thing! The size now is about 65" x 85".

While pressing the border seams, I had the ironing table set up in front of a sunny window. As I was flipping the quilt top over, I caught a glimpse of it with the sun shining through it, so I taped it in front of my sliding glass doors to get the "stained glass" effect photo...

All that remains now is the final border of applique. I've decided to hand applique all the stems, leaves, and flowers because I think it looks so much prettier. And I want this to be really pretty for my mom :)

Hand-applique is a time-consuming process, so progression from here will be slow-going. I just can't sit for hours at a time doing hand sewing work; I save it for an hour here and there in the evenings while I'm watching/listening to the TV. I'll continue to show you my progress, but it won't be as drastic and exciting. This is still my #1 sewing priority, but I'll be working on other things now during the prime daytime sewing hours.

I think I'm still on track for a Mother's Day finish!