I had a visitor over the weekend. My sister Tina came up and together we got her Giggles quilt done, or at least almost done since she has to still add the binding.  She also brought a 2nd top to be quilted, a Christmas gift for her father in law, but since she's keeping this Giggles quilt for herself, she decided this was the better one to do first before she quilted the one that will be a gift.

Why did she want to do them herself?  She actually wanted to see if she likes longarm quilting.  She had a feeling that she would and she was right.  In fact, when I'm ready to upgrade to a bigger machine and frame (I've had the itch for a while now), she wants to buy my Penelope from me.  That will be a Win Win for both of us.

Here is her finished quilt.  It turned out really nice.  I did the first 2 rows so that she could watch and she how I moved the machine and then she did the rest, with only only getting her started on each new row.

For the back she chose a solid Sage Green fabric and it is fun to see how the quilting shows on it.

I picked the Dainty panto for this one and the design was perfect for complimenting the motifs in the fabrics.  Thread for the top was my favorite Silver Glide and we used a matching Sage Green for the bobbin.

As for that 2nd quilt that she brought with her, she quilted that one too but I can't show it to you yet.  You see it is still on the frame with 12 inches and one more row still yet to be finished.  She was quilting along while I worked on something else at my domestic machine Lucy when we both heard a loud noise.  After a little investigating, this is what I found.

A broken belt meant no more quilting for us.  Ugh!  With so little left to finish.  To say that we both were not the happiest of campers is an understatement.  I'm waiting for a call back from Steve Dekker to find out what type/size belt this is and whether or not I can get it locally or if he has to ship me one (actually 2 so that I have a spare), and then I can finish that quilt up for her fast.  Needless to say that I'm going to find out what other spare parts I should keep on hand so that I don't run into this type of problem again.

Today is the 15th of the month and that means that it is time to show off your progress on your City Sampler for the At Your Own Pace Quilt Along.  I can't wait to see what all of you have been up to.

For myself, I don't have a ton to show you since a month ago but I have gotten to make a few blocks.  At the pace I'm going it will be a while before I complete them all but I'm ok with that.  This is a no schedule, no pressure quilt along.

So I made block #4.

And then I made block #5.  I like it but the more I looked at it and I thought about it, the fact that the cross design isn't so visible with the busy corner pieces, the more it bugged me.

So the next time I was able to get in some sewing time, I swapped out the corner bits for something less loud and I like the block this way better.  The cross is definitely recognizable now.

Next, as I mentioned before, instead of working on #6 next, yet another cross design, I headed over to the next chapter Rectangles and made block #16.

Then came block #17.

Here is my block #18 and as other have said before me, why the Purple photographs as Blue sometimes I have no clue.

Happily I was able to use up the swapped out pieces from block 5 in my version of block #19.

And to round out my 5 before I move onto the next chapter, this is block #20.

Here is my gallery of blocks so far.  I'm really having fun making these and love that they are a nice little break from the quilting and binding I've been doing lately with other quilt tops.

So now it is your turn to link up to show your progress so far.  Hopefully by next month, I'll have more to share.