relaxing prep means fast race?

On Friday I got the big kids up and to school while Tim took the day off to watch the little ones and work around the farm. After a visit to our parish's new adoration chapel ( I figured it would be better to spend that half hour praying than spending it at McDonalds), I headed over to participate in an all day quilt class with Bonnie Hunter, a scrap quilting teacher from North Carolina. We worked on piecing string blocks and half square triangles that in a very long time will be put together to form this quilt, Jamestown Landing.  

The reason it will take so long? 168 string pieced blocks, and 840 half square triangles, and that doesn't even include the string pieced border made of 16 sheets of copy paper string pieced, then cut down the center. In the 6 hours we were there, I made 25 cream blocks and about 50 triangles. But I also socialized with old friends and learned some new tricks for making triangles.  Here is Bonnie demonstrating how to cover the 4.5" newsprint with diagonal strips of neutral scraps for the background blocks. 

Tonight at quilt guild, I'll bring my tote bag full of scraps and keep plugging away. I've mentally designated this quilt as a Christmas gift for my sister-in-law so there is a self imposed deadline.

But all that time away from the children must have relaxed me enough run really fast on Saturday morning. Charlie, Timmy, and I headed out early to Orrington for a 1 mile fun run and 10K. Charlie ran 7:08, Timmy 8:27, and while they were gorging on post-race granola bars and fruit, I ran my best 10K ever with a 44:58 (7:15/mile pace). So three good races in a row have taught me to slow down that first mile and stay on a consistent pace rather than bolt out ahead and wear myself out far before the finish. My next quilting class is in July at the state quilt show in Augusta,the day before the Bucksport Bay festival 5K. I've never done very well in it for some reason, maybe another relaxing day quilting will change that statistic.