Forced Sabbatical... *ugh*

I haven't sewn-- or done anything particularly crafty-- since early August. It's now late November & Christmas is all of 33 days away.  I have a lot of sewing to catch up on!  When life gets busy, it's amazing how quickly time flies.  It's not that I've had creative block~ because I certainly haven't.  I suffer from a common affliction: not-enough-hours-in-the-day-to-get-it-all-done! 

But... I have a week off here for Thanksgiving... yesterday was a Mommy pamper day; salon haircut & bargin shopping for some new clothes.  And now, here, on the 2nd day of my vacation... I've gotten into my burning projects.  The two quilts have been back from the long-arm quilter for quite a while & have been neglected; just sitting on top of my sewing table.  They're first up on deck~ not only because they're both *huge* projects... but because they're UFO's that are So.Close. to being finished.  All that's left to do on them is trim them up & attach the binding.  That's it~ sounds easy, eh?! Well, for one of the two, it's not too bad...

There is no way I could ever quilt anything like this w/out a long-arm machine.
Sheila did amazing work with hers... this is the back...  

This is the top corner of the quilt... the quilting blends into the design so perfectly...
You don't even know that it's there unless you look closely...

Yours truly trimming off the excess backing & batting...
getting ready to start the process of binding... 

And... with this particular quilt... the progress stops.  You see, I forgot that I used the binding I had set aside for this for this quilt on another project that I wanted to get finished. *oops*  So, I'm without binding for this one!  However, my current "to-do" list comes in pairs... so it's off to the super king sized quilt to trim and then begin the "small" undertaking that is managing it on my sewing machine.  It'll take 4-5 packages of 3yd. segments of binding to finish this one off.  My plan is to only sew one segment at a time; that way, hopefully nothing slips!!! I'm not quite talented (or neurotic!) enough to bind my quilts by hand.  Forget that~ if I did that, this quilt would *never* make it out of the UFO pile... 

For this quilt, because the top is so intricate, Sheila did an all-over pattern... this goes from edge to edge... 

This is a portion of the top of the super-king... otherwise known as UFO #1... 

Yours truly again doing trimming battle with the super-king... and yes, I pulled my hair up from earlier; it was hanging in my face... not a fan of that! 

And there we have it... both quilts are trimmed up... one folded for binding another day... and another ready to be finished.  Once it's done, it's going on my bed; hope it's not too flowery for the husby. (Oh well~ shucks, darn!) With any luck, my next posting will be a photo of it finished & on my bed.... but, if I'm on the computer, that won't happen!!! 

Back to attaching binding & figuring out how to grapple with the sheer magnitude of this last bit to the project!!! 

Happy Quilting!!!