Hospital Sketches BOM

Yay! My comments are showing up again--I followed a tip from Lori @HumbleQuilts and so far it's working. I'm a little worried about what will happen next week when Google+ goes away, although I'm not even sure exactly what Google+ is or how it works--haha!

I have been looking forward to the Barbara Brackman Hospital Sketches BOM since she announced it last year. The history of block one is fascinating. I had no idea Louisa May Alcott had published a book named Hospital Sketches under the pen name Trib Periwinkle about her time as a nurse (you can read the book HERE).   Choosing a fabric theme for my quilt would be a dilemma though. At first I thought I would do a traditional red/cheddar/green combo. Then I thought of using one of my bundles of fabrics that have been aging in the cupboard--Jo Morton, Betsy Chutchian, Judie Rothermel--hmmmm.  
In the end, I decided on blues--and scraps, to boot--go figure--lol! 

Although my first block is all Laundry Basket fabrics (because the bin was still sitting on the cutting table), I will be adding in other blue fabrics for future blocks. Barbara Brackman sent these fabrics to me (along with the signed book) in a surprise give-away on Facebook for posting the first block to the group page. So fun--and this will make my quilt very special (to me, at least)! 

 Yesterday I finally got around forced myself to long arm machine baste my Arctic Circles for hand quilting. I did a little research on doing this and never really came up with much. I have heard that you can take a stitch or two every three or four inches in a grid, but that sounded like I would end up with a huge net that would be a snagging disaster. I decided to set my machine to the largest stitches I could (4 to the inch) and do a large wave across each pass of the machine. 

This probably shows better on the back. Once the quilt was loaded and the machine threaded, the actual basting was complete in about 10 minutes. Much easier and faster than pinning! If I ever get it into my head to hand quilt again, this is how I will do the basting, for sure! 
 I used an orange thread so it will be easy to spot when I am ready to remove it. I deliberately did not worry about the tension thinking it will be easier to remove  the stitching later. 

I recently watched this Kaffe Fassett video on hand stitching called Kantha. It's   pretty much what I had been thinking I wanted to do on this quilt, although not as dense. I'm not a hand quilter, and have pretty bad arthritis in both of my wrists, but I think if I take it slow I will be okay. 
And look--the center is already done--lol!