2010 quilt, sampler progress, and mud

I worked on the 2010 quilt at lunch yesterday and finished the last 6" of quilting this morning on that area I was working on. Here are pictures of the front and back. I am using 12 weight pearl cotton to quilt it.

I have been working on the sampler before work. I needed to get the lettering done so I could figure out the placement for the borders and banding. I ended up stitching the right border so I could finish stitching the letters and numbers in the third row from the top. I wanted to make sure the placement of the numbers will be right. I will now stitch the numbers from right to left as there is plenty of room between where the 1 will end up and that small x. If I stitched from left to right I could mess up and the 5 might run into the border. I don't have a chart for this so I am just winging it, therefore I have to be smart about little details like this.

My neighbor came over last evening to mud. He like to mud; I can do it, but I would rather sew! The entry into the main bedroom needed the wall smoothed out more. I had done most of the mudding, but stopped - I have no idea why or when. We are always helping each other out and he volunteered to finish my mudding job. While he mudded I replaced the missing hook on his girlfriend's dress.  The foyer already looks much better! He is coming back tonight to work on it again. It will be nice to have this area finished. This is the spot where I hang my R.E.M. wall hanging which hid some of the unfinished mudding.