Birthday Stitch Day

Saturday was an Amazing Quilt Babes birthday stitch day. For those of you who haven't followed my blog for long, here's how they work:

• Birthdays are "assigned" at the beginning of a calendar year when all our stitch dates are set.
• There can only be one birthday stitch day per month.
• Your Amazing Quilt Babes birthday may or may not fall in the same month as your REAL birthday.
• The birthday girl brings her project, cut, marked, and ready to sew by 9AM on the assigned date.
• The birthday girl brings a dessert for lunch (chocolate is usually involved).
• The other Babes bring sack lunches, sewing machines, cutting tools and sew until 3PM or 4PM.

Last Saturday was Vicky's Amazing Quilt Babes official birthday stitch day. She had chosen a pattern that required a large number of half square triangles. Carol and I had sewn about 180 HSTs before Saturday, so we could be a little ahead when the group started. We set up an assembly line of sewing. Ibby and Vicky sewed the half square triangles, Shirlee pressed them open, and Carol trimmed them. I floated between all three. Of course, I "got" to bring home the trimmings bag.

No one really wanted to know the numbers, but all in all, I think we did a FINE job. We only got 18 blocks sewn together, but all the HSTs were completed (not quite all pressed and trimmed). And we are SICK, SICK, SICK of HSTs! So those numbers?

She needed 80 blocks. Each block contained 10 HSTs. That's 810 HSTs. The method we used required each HST to be handled 6 times (cut, marked, sewn, cut apart, pressed, trimmed). That's 4,860 times those HSTs were handled by us! No wonder we only got 18 if the 80 blocks needed complete!

Here we are: The Amazing Quilt Babes

Sharon, Carol with Daisy the puppy, Shirlee, Vicky, Ibby

I think this group is pretty wonderful! They are my best friends, my quilting buddies, my "go to" people! I hope everyone has some people like this in their life!