Sigh of Relief

Today I turned over Teresa's five quilts to her.  I was very glad to finish the one with the fans.  Here is how it turned out.  It is a pretty quilt.

There is a lot of quilting in this one.  Working with those fan blades was not easy.  My thread broke often, and it was hard to not catch the quarter-inch of fan that protruded at the end.

In addition to that, I got to the bottom and had a LOT of fullness to deal with.  This sometimes happens due to having a lot of bias triangles, or the borders being sewn on without measuring first.  Sometimes it's just that at the bottom of the quilt, there is nowhere else for any extra fabric to go.  Usually I can put in lots of curvy quilting at the bottom and that takes care of it.  This time it left big puckers.

I ripped out all the stitching near the puffy area.  I tried hand-basting to see if it would flatten out. 

Not a chance!  So I decided to put in a controlled pleat or two.  First I pinned, then hand-basted the pleats or darts.

I quilted a lot over the fold, and then stitched the pleat by hand with thin thread.

All fixed!  I told Teresa about this on the phone, but when she picked up the quilt, she did not notice anything wrong with the border.

It looks fine to me!

I don't think I ever showed a picture of the whole Thimbleberries quilt.  Well, here is half at a time.  I would not mind keeping this one!

I have been cautiously trying out new activities, like walking the dog around the neighborhood, and getting back on my Wii Fit.  Today I went back to the hospital for my blood test, and it was at the low range of normal.  I don't have to go back for a week, and if it is okay then, I will be dismissed from the anti-coagulant clinic and returned to my doctor's care.  I did not even wear my ankle brace when I went out today.  The compression stocking seems to stabilize the ankle pretty well.  Things are looking up!