It begins..

This morning I had asked a local long arm quilter to come and meet me at home to discuss the future of my three quilts ... it was brilliant. She arrived with samples of the quilting and we talked through all aspects of what I needed to do for each quilt... very exciting!  I have sent one away with her to do and she says I will get it back in around a month.. amazing!  I still have some ( a lot of) work to do to complete the other two.. so Trip around the World and my mothers hand pieced beauty I need to do more to.  No sooner had she left than we decided to remove my mothers one from the horrible shiny fabric topper and start removing the pieces ready to take it (without the pins) to the shop to choose a nicer topper  to attach it to. I hope we will do that soon. We have also removed the pieces of paper from 5 of the outlying stars, apart from the very outer edge as that will protect the edges from deforming or fraying. The papers have revealed that it was probably started in the mid 70's (that's 50 years ago!!!!) and the latest printed date was 86 so I need to finish this before the project reaches its half century birthday!!  In the photo you can see the underside of the main piece with all the paper still tacked in.. it took an hour to remove the papers from 5 stars with two of us so I shall sit with this on my knee and do it a little every evening till it is finally released!
My daughter has moved back to her boat today leaving little Jasper here for one more night as it is Guy Fawkes night. She is heading out to a firework party so didn't think it very kind to leave the cat alone on the (probably rather cold)  boat in a new place on her own with bangs around. Jasper will be fine here.. she isn't terribly bothered by bangs seemingly and the house will provide some dulling of noise anyway. 
Extra is showing the choice of two quilting samples next to the Trip around the World quilt.. decisions decisions!!