It seems like a real job
With all of this quarantine and flattening the curve activities, I have worked on reducing the pile of quilt tops to just needing binding. The stack was huge as one of the hardest things was basting. That involved clearing the dining room table, pulling out binder clips and popsicle sticks to mark the center of the table and stabbing myself with the safety pins or trying to reach the center of the table to stitch—–or finding a gym floor, taping the back to the floor and crawling around the floor with a spoon in one hand and a needle and thread in the other.
But then I was lucky enough to get a Gammill quilting machine. Basting is no longer much of a chore.
That machine lives about five miles away from me; my garden in raised beds is there as well along with a thriving apiary of five hives, and maybe four more from splits we took this spring.
Each morning I drive out to the shop; do a bit of house/yard maintenance and then work on the quilt in the frame. I mostly do pantographs…patterns I follow with a laser light from the back of the machine; but I have also tried doing some ruler work–just to see if I could.
I can do one of these in a morning; and then home for lunch and a bit of sewing and Netflix and maybe a walk in the neighborhood and a phone call or two.
It has begun to feel like a real job. But that stack is steadily diminishing and the binding stack is threatening to topple over.
Here is one of the Quilts of Valor
and another one
And because I seem to never be able to read all the instructions for an exchange in a group I am in—I make them the first week or so but then more rules emerge and I end up keeping all of my exchange— this was two—those triangles and some four patches
Sorry for the lighting; I have not figured out a way to photo them except hanging over the rails of the quilting machine frame; there is a large window overlooking a huge field behind me–where I can sometimes see egrets flying over head and the neighbor’s helicopter.
Sylvia Weir Art 
Doc, those are sooo beautiful. You are mega talented.