Design Wall Monday

I'm back from my trip. As usual, I tried to cram way too much stuff into too little time. In 10 days, I took two round trip flights and three road trips (totaling roughly 20 hours of driving). I also cooked 3 pots of chili, 2 crock pots of beef stew, 2 pans of a hamburger veggie mix and about 8 dozen cookies. That doesn't include the extra cooking I did the day before I left. It's all good though. I got to spend lots of time with my mom, aunt, dad, sisters, nieces and nephews. I didn't get all the quilting done that I had hoped to from my last post. I only managed to finish the baby quilt and my dad's quilt top. I also finished the afghan for my mom. Both finished projects were delivered to happy recipients but I completely forgot to take pictures of either one, which stinks because the baby quilt looked really good. The other four quilts only made it to getting part of the cutting done. The above picture is my dad's quilt. The pattern is Strips & Salsa from Desert Stitchin. The original plan was to machine quilt it but I ended up finishing the top at my mom's and didn't have time to quilt it before I left for my dad's, so I got the bright idea that I would try and hand quilt the whole thing while I was in AZ (for all of 4 days). I'm really not sure what I was thinking. It obviously didn't get finished but since I started hand quilting it, I've got to finish it by hand. Can you tell I have a bit of a problem figure out just how long projects will take? I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I can finish the quilting in the next week or so. Time to get back to work. Check out the other design walls on Judy's blog. And if you're ever in the Nashville area, check out The Stitcher's Garden (209 S Royal Oaks Blvd. Ste. 223, Franklin, TN 37064). They have just about every kind of fabric you can think of and tons of fat quarters. I had to behave myself in there since I had limited room in my suitcase, but I don't make any promises for next time. The place is truly amazing. And if you're around Phoenix, check out In Stitches!(2403 N PebbleCreek #109 Goodyear, Az) The store's not very big but they have a nice selection and the owner was really friendly even though I popped in less than 15 minutes before closing time.