Anchorage - Vancouver Meld

My friend Pat from Alaska was here for a few days.  We had a blast!  Much of our fun included sewing.  Pat brought four finished quilt tops and one partially finished for Guatemala Bound.

One was the string quilt that Annalise and Susan have been working on.  It's beautiful!  Pat and I made a backing for it, and Pat tried out longarm quilting for the first time.  She did a great job with a very innovative original quilting design.  Our friend Rosie from Oregon finished the binding.

Another partially made top was donated by Joan of Anchorage.  Here's Pat, standing in front of the striped piece holding our pizza box of cut Chinese Coins strips.

Initially, we thought we'd add Chinese coins to the top.  But after we got the Chinese Coins sewn together, we realized they didn't compliment the blue stripes.  (So, that's the makings for another quilt.  It's off to a good start.)  Pat looked through the Gee's Bend books, again, and was inspired by Florine Smith's "Four-Block Strips" circa 1975 (The Quilts of Gee's Bend, Tinwood Books & Museum of Fine Arts Houston, 2002, p. 175).  So we sliced the blue piece into strips and added some green prints.  Here's the resulting top.

So it was a good week.  Lots of laughter, sewing, a trip to the coast, and visiting with long-time friends from Alaska - couldn't have been better!