Sorry for the massive absenteeism!!

I have been very, very absent from posting, not sewing...but posting. 

I left off after I wore the dress I had been working on.  Since that time I have finished another dress, with the same pattern

AND took my trip to London!  We had a great time - we did have a chance to see the Grace Kelly exhibit

at the V & A.  It was wonderful. Sewing related, I went to a nice fabric store (I don't remember the name) I didn't buy anything there.  They did have the fabrics displayed a bit different than I've ever seen.  They had strips of the fabric hanging from  pants hangers and then those were on round racks with the price/content/location on a cardboard piece on the hanger.  If you wanted a swatch, you just cut a piece from the bottom.  All the actual bolts of fabric were stacked on top of each other along the walls.  Not the most appealing way to display, but efficient.  Then we went to the Liberty Dept. Store....beautiful fabrics!  I bought 3 different fabrics there and it was very hard to decide on just those 3 (limited luggage space).

Once home, I had to begin my next project...an A, B, C baby quilt

for my soon to be born Great Niece.  The shower is in 2 weeks and all I have left is to stitch the binding down. I just can't decide if I want to try the stitch in the ditch with invisible thread, or hand stitch it. I decided to hand stitch!  It came out really nice, for my first "real" quilt.  A few stitches are showing since I did the stitch in the ditch - I wasn't always in the ditch....I was even using my machine magnifying glass.

As soon as I finish this quilt, I'm going back to the "Mama's Boy" quilt that I started in January.  I feel more confident to be able to finish it now that I had success with the baby quilt.  I'm also taking a machine quilting class next Saturday.  It should really help me a lot.  I'm looking forward to the class so much.

One other thing that I almost forgot to mention was my first vintage machine that I purchased on E-bay from a seller in Canada a Bernina 121 born somewhere around 1957. She is a beaut and she purrs like a kitten. I have had some trouble with the stitches but I'm sure it is a threading problem.