Good quilt for a crap reason

Well, today was another day I kind of went off-list in terms of my goals, but I do have a good reason for it, unfortunately - the reason being that a friend of mine has recently been diagnosed with Hodgkins lymphoma - she's got three kids under 5 (for another few weeks - then there are two birthdays - but still) - her eldest is in the same class as Alex. Anyway. Basically it sucks. But of course, being a quilter, my immediate reaction to just about any bad news (or good news for that matter) is to make a quilt - the intention this time being something lap sized for snuggling under during chemo or when she's shattered later. They want to start her chemo right away (Monday) so I am trying to see if I can finish this up if not before Monday, at least in time for Wednesday or so, when all the side effects will no doubt hit. Right, anyway - deep breath.


This quilt top is one put together a while back from pieces from a discharging swap I did with Dyehard, my dyeing group. It's been hanging around for a while, waiting for me to work out what I wanted to do with it, but today I decided that the quilt top was highly suitable for Sharon and after a lot of thought (this morning during quilt group, and so on) decided finally to quilt it with "toothed ammonites", a la Dijanne Cevaal, in a variety of coloured threads. I've started - done about a third or a quarter of the required number. I hope to work on it tomorrow and/or on the weekend. We'll see. Here are a couple of close-ups of the quilting - I think they are kind of fun. And the important thing is, they are versatile, so I can position them wherever appropriate - in some cases, overlapping the discharged squares quite a bit and in other cases, much less so.






Another couple of photos - here's the progress on the quilt we are making with my Thursdaya group - the entire centre is now together - I have brought it home with me to trim the outside triangles to the right seam allowance and to cut (and possibly attach) the narrow cream border which is going on it next. Sorry for the slight fuzziness of the photo, but it was taken with my phone, which is not quite as reliable as my real camera.

And on the right, some faces, words and letters which I made up earlier tonight while watching The West Wing (I've seen them all before, but I borrowed the complete set from my friend Cathi and am in the process of watching them again - I've just started the third season). I need to do some more letters, but can't decide whether to just do letters in different colours or try to think of actual words to do - and if the latter, which words (suggestions gladly taken - though not necessarily followed).