Jetsetting T for Terry

Happy Thanksgiving! Here on this special Thursday, when we eat turkey and give thanks, a quilt covered with T's seems particularly festive. This one was made in honor of Terry Fullam, the founder of Wrap-A-Smile. It is the second one of this design that I've made.

The national coordinator of Wrap-A-Smile is my friend Ann D. She gave me this fun backing fabric and the greens are a perfect match to the front. Ann made the difficult decision to put the charity on "pause" for the remainder of the pandemic shut downs. The Rotary International surgery teams that Wrap-A-Smile supports are not traveling right now, and Ann has accumulated a good size backlog of quilts. 

As part of the pause, Ann is moving out of Maine and any additional quilts are to be shipped to a person in California. I had easy access to a post office last week, so I shipped out quilts to several different charities. I carefully packed this one up and sent it on its way. However, I managed to cut and paste the address incorrectly into my shipping software. So the T for Terry quilt traveled from Virginia to California and back to my "return address" in Florida. Remember that old song? "Return to sender, address unknown!"

Fortunately, this is exactly why I use my Florida mail service address. They received the returned package and will ship it right back out to the correct address on Monday. All I have to do is pay for the second round of postage. 

This will be my last WAS quilt for a while, but I look forward to the day that the medical teams can travel safely and continue their good work out in the world. Our little quilts will be right beside them, giving warmth and comfort!

Boat Quilting Logistics, Part Three: Your Questions Answered

Today I'm going to answer some of the great questions you asked in response to my video tour. Let's get started!

Tina asked: I am curious how you made the connection with Kat and Covered in Love?

One of my first CiL block drives

I started making block drive blocks for Kat back in 2015, I think. Like many quilt bloggers, she responded to my comments on her posts and we just sort of struck up a friendship via email. I wrote a few guest posts for her blog when she was super busy with her nursing work. When she took the legal steps to make Covered in Love an official 501(c) charity, she asked me to serve on the Board of Directors as Secretary. She's a smart gal and figured out I couldn't say "no" to such a great cause!

Nicki asked: Do y'all live on the boat year round?  

Everything we own is with us on the boat

Yes, the boat is our only home and we live aboard 24/365. The proof is in the photo above: a water resistant box that contains our income taxes and other vital paperwork! Pre-pandemic we would occasionally travel away from the boat for a week or so to visit family across the country.

Wendy asked:  When the seas get rough, how do you stabilize the open bins, etc.?And Jennifer also wanted to know: What do you do in rough waters? I guess you batten down the hatches? If the rough seas are unexpected, does everything get tossed around?

Built in glassware holders

We try really, really hard to stay out of rough seas! One of my jobs is Weather Router and I spend a lot of time studying the weather forecasts to determine when it will be comfortable to be in open water. And when the boat is underway, we have stabilizing fins underwater that keep the boat from rolling. They sort of look like pectoral fins on fish. The fins don't work at anchor, though, and that's when we can get rolling motion. That usually happens when another boat goes by too fast and creates a large wake.

Kitchen drawers with extra security

During our first year on the boat, we learned a LOT about how to secure items against sudden rolls. Every cabinet and drawer was installed with latches, but certain drawers now have better latches. We have a bungee cord that holds the fridge closed after a roll that ejected a pint of blueberries and a can of beer. An unsecured wine glass hit the floor, the beer can burst open, and the blueberries merrily added to the shards and brew to make quite the mess. At 3am, of course.

 

Shelves with 3/4" deep fiddles

Many of the flat surfaces have little ledges on the edge, called "fiddles," that keep items from sliding off. The open shelves in my studio have fiddles, and the bins that stack on the shelves sort of nest together. They've never moved, and neither has the sewing machine on its little table. If I'm worried about the machine, I set it on the carpet below the table. The bathroom counter doesn't have fiddles, so the bins that I store there sit on a non-slip rubber mat. One time I had a pretty tall pile of scraps in there, waiting to be sorted, and that fell onto the floor in a heap. Oh, well. It's just fabric! Good incentive to keep those piles tamed, though.

Non-slip mat under bins

But honestly, things falling over are really rare. The boat, being made of steel, is quite heavy so the motions are very smooth. There really aren't any jerking motions to jar things out of place.

Vicki asked: Are you using those springy deals that go across your openings to hold things on the shelves when it gets rough out there or what? 

Spring tension rod holding WIPs

I do use those spring loaded curtain rods! One is installed between two walls and I hang WIPs from it. And I have several in our medicine chest to keep stuff from falling out when we open the mirrored door. But the fiddles on all the other shelves are plenty to hold stuff in place.

Nicki asked: What determines what locations you go to and how long you stay? 

Can't get any closer to downtown Savannah than that!

There's no simple answer to that because it changes all the time! For the most part, we try to stay in warm weather while also avoiding the hurricane zones. That often means we travel north along the Atlantic coast in the summer and south to Florida and the Bahamas in the winter. We've also gone inland on the rivers to the Great Lakes and down the Mississippi where we froze our turkeys off in Memphis for Thanksgiving one year.

Anne asked: I'm curious how long you tend to stay in one location and if you seek out quilt shops while docked?

A rare quilt shop visit. Also: I wish I still had that skirt!

Our stay in a given town is usually only a day or two and then we mosey on to the next place. The boat only goes about 6mph, so after a few hours of travel we might still be in the same county! It's really distorted my sense of distance, to be honest. When we visit our cousins in New Hampshire, I'm always a bit amazed that they are willing to drive 30 MILES just to have dinner with us. That's like, all day! Oh, wait. They have a car and take the freeway. Since we can go months without being in a car, sometimes the first ride at 60mph feels alarming, too. With the pandemic, we haven't been in a car since February. I hope my heart can handle the excitement after the vaccine.

I do occasionally find a quilt shop I can walk to. When we're in town for short visits, walking is our primary mode of ground transportation. Quilt shops aren't usually right by the water, though. 

Sometimes we stay in one spot for a week or so. That happens when we really like a place and find lots of interesting things to do there. Big cities like New York, Boston, Washington DC usually warrant a longer stay. We also enjoy Charleston, Fort Lauderdale, Key West, Jacksonville, Savannah, Norfolk and some other much smaller places that have the right combination of easy shore access, a good grocery and hardware store, and decent restaurants. Our preference is to anchor, which is free. But we occasionally splurge and pay for a dock. Once we are docked, we can put our two motor scooters on the ground and they let us travel much further from the water. 

Our two scooters with their stuffed mascots. The one in front with Leopold the Tiger is mine.

Right now we are docked in Hampton, VA and have done just that. So what exciting local attractions are we visiting? Costco. Walmart. The hydraulic hose shop. An Amazon locker. Woo hoo! Livin' large. I will go to Joann's to buy some batting, but probably won't go to the local quilt shop.

True confessions time: I almost never buy anything at a LQS, and only go to browse. Buying fabric online and having it shipped to me is a much more reliable way to get my stash, so that's what I'm used to now. And friends, there is a LOT of fabric for sale online if you're willing to buy "used." A staggering, mind boggling, overwhelming amount. So much fabric that in order to keep myself from going insane looking at it all, I filter most of it out and only purchase stuff I find for less than $2/yard including shipping. That makes it sort of a treasure hunt, and I enjoy the search! But one of the consequences of this little game is that I just can't bring myself to pay LQS prices. And just going in to browse seems unwise in Covid-times, so I'm content with my online purchases.

Annie asked: Where are your husband's craft things or is the boat upkeep and navigating his hobby?

He would call those things his job, but in general he takes great satisfaction from understanding and fixing things. He's a wizard with the electronics especially and can spend hours researching and troubleshooting the navigation equipment. After we were hit by lightning, he was able to repair everything himself. And right now, he's repairing the hydraulic steering system, a brand new and exciting problem! Also, a very oily and messy problem! And a "the boat can't move from the dock because the rudder is completely disconnected" problem! But I have 100% confidence in his ability to work through it.

A bunch of stuff under the helm, including an oxygen bottle for emergency medical care

Most of his tools live in the closet-sized room between our bedroom and the engine room. Some larger tools and spare parts are stored in the engine room itself. And there is miscellaneous stuff everywhere else: under the beds, in lockers out on deck, under the helm, tucked under ceiling joists, in the bilges, you name it. The logical way to store stuff is to put like with like: all the plumbing parts together, for instance. But on a boat, things go where they fit safely.

Diann asked: What do you guys do when it's time to go to bed? Just drop anchor wherever you are, or do you have to plan out where you need to be each night?

On travel days, we always have a route and a plan. We try to be finished for the day before it gets dark because it is much, much harder to navigate in the dark unless we are out on the open ocean. Sean studies the navigation charts and usually creates a route that ends in a good place to anchor. A "good place" depends on many factors, including wind direction, river/tidal flow, what's on the bottom for the anchor to hold onto, marine traffic patterns, and occasionally local ordinances. For the most part, anchoring is free and allowed, but there are some exceptions.

Chart software showing water depth, current, large ships, deep channels, etc

We also have to be prepared to change the plan at any time. We could arrive at the anchorage and find it is full of boats already, with no room for us. Or full of dredging equipment. Or that the bottom is scoured rock and the anchor won't set. Or the weather forecast is wrong and the wind makes this anchorage lumpy. Or there's a beach bar with blaring, thumping music 300 feet away. Usually there is plenty to time to regroup and find somewhere else before dark. Sometimes we have to just suck it up and endure one uncomfortable night. 

Arnold the Anchor on his rusty pulpit

My part of this process is to understand the weather. What direction is the wind blowing? Will it remain steady, or shift and increase? Are there thunderstorms forecast to move through? Will heavy fog move in? If we have to move in the night, where does it make sense to go? I am also the one who stands on the bow and drops the anchor. I can tell by how it moves and sounds whether it has "set" or grabbed the bottom securely. Is the set good enough to hold in increasing wind? How much chain do we need to put out for this depth, wind, and tide swing? Weighing (lifting) the anchor in the morning is also my job, and requires communicating to Sean how to move the boat so the anchor will release its hold in the mud, 10, 20, 50 feet below me. It's an art! I told you in the video that our engine is named Larry. The anchor is named Arnold Bruce, and he is extremely reliable. We have a bond, Arnold and I. Once he's back on deck, I gently wash the mud off him with a special wash-down hose.

Jennifer asked: Is there any fresh air down below?  Looks like the windows don't open? 

Open portlight hanging from small chain

The windows do open; I'm sorry I didn't say that in the video. They are hinged at the top and swing in. To stay open, they hang from a little chain. Between the two bedrooms and two bathrooms, there are eight of the small windows (called portlights), four on each side of the boat. If there is any wind at all, it will come through one side or the other, giving us plenty of ventilation below decks. We also have three small fans near the windows to help the air move on still days. 

Closed portlight sealed using black screw knobs at the bottom

When the windows are closed, they are very well sealed against air and water. In some sea conditions, the waves splash aggressively against the glass, so they need to be really strong! That's why they are quite small with very thick glass. There is a rubber gasket around the edge for a good seal. They can be dogged down tight with big screws.

Tina asked: How about the fumes from the basting spray? 

I use the Odif 505 spray and find that the fumes are not a problem for me. I usually open the portlights for ventilation. The bathroom is adjacent to the bedroom where I spray, so I also turn on the fan in there to move air out of both rooms. I use a VERY light touch with the spray since I've found that it really doesn't take much to hold the sandwich together. Too much spray is more of a problem; that seems to make my needle skip stitches.

Diann asked: Do you baste all quilts that way, no matter what size? I have tried lots of different basting methods myself and finally decided that's the best way for me. 

Not sure why I'm saving all these

Yes, I use spray baste exclusively now. I bought hundreds of those little curved safety pins, but I never use them anymore.

Jennifer asked: Do you ever have guests? For the guest bed/sewing studio, could you take out the bed to make more room? 

We do have occasional guests when there isn't a pandemic raging. I can remove most of my sewing stuff from the guest room and put it in our room for a few days, but it gets pretty crowded. The whole boat gets crowded when we have guests! It's a very intimate situation, with almost no way to get out of each other's hair, so guests are rare and don't stay very long.

Many of my tools live in this hanging bag and are easily moved

The guest bed is completely built in and covers some mechanical spaces underneath. Behind the drawers where I store scraps and orphan blocks, it opens up into an oddly shaped, pointy bilge where the bow thruster is installed. The thruster is a pair of small, high speed propellers that help move the bow from side to side during slow speed maneuvers like tying up to a dock. 

Nicki asked: Where's the farthest you've been from the states?  

The boat is somewhere behind me in the turquoise waters

We cruised past the Bahamas all the way to Turks and Caicos. It was really beautiful!

Kate asked:  Did you have all of this worked out when you first started living on the boat or did you gradually figure out how to navigate life without a permanent abode? 

Before we moved onto the boat, we lived for nine years full time in a motorhome. Many of the logistics are the same for things like receiving mail, conserving water, and creating our own electricity. There were approximately a million people living as full-time RVers when we started 16 years ago, so we did a lot of research and picked a lot of brains back then. The traveling community is very helpful and friendly! There seem to be fewer full time live aboard boaters, though, so I'm glad we started by RVing first.

We lived in this double decker bus for almost a decade

However, apparently we chose our homes in the incorrect order. You're supposed to start on a boat. The sequence is: Sailboat, Motorboat, Motorhome, Nursing home, Funeral home. Since we're going backwards, maybe we'll end up in kindergarten instead. Travel does keep you young!

These were all such super questions! Thanks for all your interest in our oddball lifestyle. If you are curious about anything else, feel free to ask in the comments. 

Boat Quilting Logistics, Part Two: Video Tour

Hello, friends! Thanks for all your interest in how I quilt on the boat. I made a video tour for you. It's pretty rough and ready; my video production skills are quite limited. But I think even bad video gives you better sense of the size of the spaces than still photos do.

The words "Power Director" at the bottom are a watermark inserted by the el-cheapo video software that I used. Please do not think for a moment that I consider myself a power director. Video production is hard, yo. And incredibly time-consuming. I have great admiration for those who regularly upload decent videos. If you follow someone on YouTube, give them lots of thumbs-up feedback! They deserve it.

I'll be back with another post later that expands on some of the things you'll see below. Once you start watching, you can click in the lower right corner to expand the video to full screen. When you're finished, click in the same spot to shrink it back down. Got your popcorn ready? Let's go!

Boat Quilting Logistics, Part One: The Mail

Some of the fine, upstanding, kind and (obviously) gorgeous commenters of this blog have asked me to explain some of the logistics of quilting on a boat. How do I get shipments of fabric? Where do I store it? How do I wash finished quilts and ship them out? So without further ado, let's get into the details!

For those of you who are new to the blog, my husband Sean and I live full time aboard our boat Vector. She is a 52 foot long power boat that is designed for long distance travel, and she only goes about 7mph. This type of boat, often called a "trawler" has a deep hull, so there's a lot of space under the waterline. That means we have quite a bit more living space than a sailboat of the same length.

We are full time cruisers, have no land based home at all, and no home port. In the United States, though, citizens are required to have a state of residence, or domicile. This is where we are registered to vote, where we file our state and federal income taxes, and where we buy health insurance. Choosing a domicile has a lot of factors that full time boaters, RVers, and active duty military have to weigh. For us, being residents of Florida makes the most sense. We're not particularly emotionally connected to Florida, but it is convenient and we return each year.

Our legal address in Florida is in Clay County, and includes a mail receiving service. This is the address on our drivers licenses, bank statements, etc. We don't get much paper mail, preferring to handle most transactions online, but what little we receive goes to this address and is held securely for us. When a bill arrives, the service company sends me an email with a photo of the envelope so I can see what it is. I can ask them to hold it, shred it, or open it and scan the contents. Very useful when something time sensitive like a letter from the IRS arrives.

Looks like our AAA cards have arrived!

But setting aside trivial matters like tax audits, I know what you REALLY want to know. "But Louise!" you say. "What about the FABRIC??" If I order fabric, I can ask to have it delivered to this Florida address and the service will cheerfully store it for me. OK, "cheerfully" means they charge a small fee if they hold it over a month! I can check my account to see how many pieces of mail they are holding, and to double check who has sent what. Once there are several squishy fabric packages, it's time to get them sent to where the boat is.

There are a number of ways we can receive mail locally to get it into my hot little hands and under the needle of my Juki. If we are docking the boat at a commercial marina, the mail can be sent to the marina's address. If we have friends or family nearby, we can ask that they accept a package for us. Some towns, especially in New England, have public harbormaster's offices that will receive a package. Some (but not all) good old United States Post Offices will receive mail via General Delivery. UPS has retail stores and customer service hubs that we've occasionally used, too. 

Those local addresses can also be used to receive packages directly from an eBay seller, or Amazon, or any business for that matter. True story: when I ordered my Juki TL2010Q used on eBay, it was shipped directly to a marina. One of the marina guys kindly schlepped the box all the way down the dock to the boat and was stunned to learn it was a sewing machine. He thought it was an anchor.

The trick for us is to know far enough in advance where we might be to allow time for orders to be processed and shipped before we leave the area. On a slow boat subject to the whimsies of the weather, those predictions can sometimes go awry. It doesn't make sense to linger an extra week just to get a late shipment of $5 worth of fabric if it means we get stuck in uncomfortable weather, but that is a rare scenario. (And let's face it, if the fabric was cute enough, I'd wait out the weather.)

 In over 16 years of mobile life, we've permanently lost only 2 or 3 packages. Mostly our mail catches up to us just fine, but it does take a certain amount of focused planning. Our last package of forwarded mail included our ballots, so I'm really glad that one arrived safely. We are signed up to be permanent mail-in voters and returned our ballots last week. Have you voted yet?

I can check online to see if my ballot has been counted yet.

As for shipping quilts OUT, I rely almost exclusively on USPS Priority Mail. There's at least one post office in every town, and they provide free boxes. That means I don't have to store a lot of boxes on board because I know I can always get them. It's easy to buy postage and print out labels online then carry the packages to the local USPS and drop them off. I then grab a couple of new, free boxes for the next batch. Easy peasy! Medium flat rate priority mail boxes hold one lap quilt, large flat rates hold two. I put the quilts inside plastic garbage bags, sit on them to squeeze out all the air, and cram them into the boxes. Did you know that if you have an account, you can print postage through Paypal for a discount? Just log in, then use this link to access their postage page. The discount is about $1.50-$2.00 per package. Nifty!

OK, that was a lot of blah blah blah about the mail. If you have any questions about the details, please leave them in the comments below and I'll answer them there so others can see. Stay tuned for part two when I'll write about storing fabric, my cutting/ironing/sewing/basting spaces and that most rare and precious boat appliance: the full sized washing machine!

A finish and a tour

I cleaned up my studio last week and decided it was a good time to take a few photos and invite you in for a tour. A number of people have recently asked to see how I quilt on a boat. I wrote about my studio a couple of years ago here, but there have a been a few changes.



But first, the finish! This super scrappy string quilt top was pieced almost a year ago. I just recently decided to add navy borders to make it the right size for the double/full size bed in our guest stateroom. The mattress sits on a platform and is surrounded by a built in railing to keep it from moving while we are underway. I wanted the quilt to just fit inside the railing. I'm happy with how the bright yellow inner border shows along the edges.

The guest stateroom is also my quilting studio. It's pretty small, with about 2 feet on average around each side of the double bed. It's in the bow of the boat, so the room is a little triangular, narrowing significantly up near the head of the bed. I wish I could take better photos of the space, but the combination of dark wood walls, tiny (8" x 18") windows, and no way to step back for perspective makes taking pictures difficult.



The bed itself is my main work space. At the foot of the bed, it is about counter height. By adding a piece of thin plywood over the firm mattress, I have a good surface for my cutting mat and folding ironing board. I really like how I don't have to bend over to cut and iron. I also like having room for a 24"x36" mat. The iron is cordless, which is a good choice for a moving vessel. Less chance of getting tangled or caught if the boat lurches.



My Juki TL2010Q sewing machine sits on a small built in table on the starboard side of the room. The table is covered with dark brown vinyl so it's hard to see but easy to clean. It's wedged in tightly and bolted to the wall, and can be removed if we have guests. The surface of the bed acts like an extension of the table, supporting pieces as I quilt them. There's just enough room for me to sit on an adjustable stool in front of the machine, but not enough room for the stool to have a back. That's OK, I try to only spend about 20 minutes at a time sewing, then move to ironing or other activities.



Most of my tools are hanging on the wall next to the Juki for easy access. The rectangular brown basket holds the stuff I use the most often. The glass door to the right in this photo is the en suite shower, which is where I store batting in big plastic bags. There's another window in the shower, so I get a little extra light that way.



My stash is stored in every nook and cranny of the room, including inside the small attached bathroom. See the stainless steel sink? This is my scrap strings and crumbs storage area. Spray baste, starch and an extra iron are stored under the sink with the toilet paper and bottles of wine. No wasted space on a boat!



Here is the port side of the room. You can see some of the plastic storage boxes to keep out dust and salt air out of the fabric. There's a spring loaded curtain rod running between two shelves under the window to hold WIPs. More of those live on hangers behind the door and in my clothes closet. Because really, who needs more clothes?



Two of the four drawers under the bed contain ziplock bags with fabric sorted by color or theme. Equipment under the bed (the bow thruster) generates black graphite dust, so this fabric needs extra protection. Keep those ziplocks zipped!

These two larger bins on the floor next to the bed are all my yardage bigger than fat quarters. The woven basket crammed in behind that holds pieces large enough to use as backings.

 

The wall space is extremely limited because of all the doors and cabinets, but I hang up my frequently used rulers wherever there's a bit of room. 3M Command hooks work well and don't damage the woodwork. There's no way I can have a design wall, so I use the top of the queen size bed in the master stateroom.

So there you go, my little nautical studio! I love having all my quilting stuff close at hand and spend many happy hours here. It may be small and salty and constantly moving, but that gives me a built in excuse for any wobbly free motion stitching. Feel free to ask questions in the comments.

Palm Beach interlude

We are anchored in Lake Worth, between Palm Beach and West Palm Beach, and happy to be back in the United States. One of our first tasks ashore was to visit a Publix supermarket, where we wandered around touching all the familiar food items. "Look! Ghirardelli chocolate! Seven different kinds of tomatoes! A bag of Chex Mix for less than $7!!" Life is good.

In between visits to first world establishments (a real Italian restaurant! free public transportation!) I've had plenty of time to work on some more of my UFOs. This one was actually finished back at Dudley's dock, but didn't make it into my retreat post. This is my Ernie quilt, inspired by Rose and finally all quilted up using simple stitch in the ditch. 

I debated whether to add more quilting in the homespuns, and I'm still a bit on the fence even after a pass through the washer and dryer. The horizontal pieces are 1.5" finished, so there's certainly enough quilting to hold it together. Does it need anything more fancy? Hmm.

 

The backing is some big chunks of the coral and green, plus a stripe of the border fabric. This one is going to Covered in Love.

This one is also bound for CiL. The blocks are called Old Italian, made with Anita Grossman Solomon's method from one of her books. I only made enough of them for a 36"x48" quilt, so it needed a nice wide border to get it up to CiL size. 

 

The colors in this top seem very 1980s to me: dusty blue and pink and maroon. So I've named it '80s Flashback. Or maybe that should be "Flashdance"? Anyway, I quilted the center with orange peels that barely show in the busy, busy fabrics.

In the border, I decided to practice big feathers. All that wide space called for something interesting, and I've been wanting to spend some concentrated time on feathers. A blending blue thread hides any wibbles and wobbles.

The quilting shows up better on the back, and I'm pretty happy with it. I had to pick out a couple of pleaty bits, but mostly it went smoothly. These are sort of beginner's feathers, what Angela Walters calls "basic" as opposed to "custom" feathers. 

Here's an overall shot of the back, which I pieced from some fabrics that are kinda sorta in the same '80s color scheme. Both the stripe and the blue border fabrics were donated to CiL, so I wanted to use them together in this quilt.

DH Sean really likes the colors in this one, but when I asked if we should just keep it, he said, "Um, no." Since I haven't been able to ship out anything in over four months, the boat is suffering from Deadly Quilt Backup and there are piles of quilts everywhere. I suspect he wants to see them gone, gone, gone.

Here are two more that I finished in the last week or so. They are small ones for Wrap a Smile, only 40"x50", so they stitched up speedy quick. They are literally half the size of the Covered in Love quilts. I get a lot of comments about how many quilts I finish, so it's good to keep in mind that the little ones go together super fast. By the way, that's tony Palm Beach in the background, with a median home value of $1,166,200. Our anchorage is free, bwa ha ha!

This piece is made from a charm pack of Kaffe Fasset Collective fabrics in soft, spring colors. I sashed and bordered it with a pretty green blender. All the fabrics are really light and soft, almost voiles. This one got a lot of petting and patting.

The backing is an odd garden veggie and greenery fabric, also a voile. It has leaves and leeks and broccoli on it. Several small pieces of this were donated to me by a gal on eBay who was clearing out her stash. I had no idea what I'd do with leek fabric, but it looks really nice on the back of this little quilt, which I'm  calling Peeking Through the Garden Lattice.

The quilting is quite simple, straight lines paralleling the piecing and extending into the border, done with my walking foot. An older, more traditional lavender with twee flowers made a nice binding.

Finally, this is Lazy Rail Fence. Rail fence designs are made by sewing strips of fabric together, but lazy rail fences simply use pre-printed stripes. I had lot of small chunks of bright striped fabrics so I just stitched them together in alternating directions. 

I think it actually looks quite festive, and it was a good scrap buster. I quilted it in bright yellow thread in a liberated orange peel. "Liberated" is quilting talk for "don't look too closely because things are a bit wonky." And "wonky" is quilting talk for "Dang, that's crooked!" But it's wonky on PURPOSE, so that's okay.

This quilt is also destined for Wrap a Smile, and it will hopefully comfort a small child undergoing cleft palate surgery. To keep it child-friendly and extra cheerful, I backed it with the last of my animal butts fabric. There are very few children who aren't endlessly amused by butts, so I'm confident it will be well-received.

I've finally been able to wash and dry all these quilts, but shipping them off to their destinations still has to wait at least another week. Tomorrow we are heading right back out into the Atlantic to head north. Palm Beach is nice, but heat, humidity and hurricanes make summer kinda the worst time to be in Florida. There is an excellent weather window that will hopefully allow us to take the boat directly to New York in one straight shot, so we're gettin' while the gettin' is good. I'll be completely out of range of internet for a week, but promise to respond to your comments and visit your blogs when I get back into coverage. (As always, if you're curious about our status while we're on long offshore passages, you can check the boat's Twitter page.  We update that using our limited bandwidth satellite phone for short "all's well" messages. You don't need to have a Twitter account to view the status updates.)

Cross your fingers that the ocean is calm enough for me to be able to sew!