Finally Finished!

Time sure does fly! Especially when you have lots to do! I finally finished up the signature quilt that I started for Brian and Jen for thier wedding. I made up white squares with the wedding colors around them and had people sign them at Jen's bridal shower. I've looked at them a few times, but have always just put them aside, unable to work on them without being reminded of the tragedy that struck just a few short weeks after their marriage. Time slowly heals our hearts and hopefully the memories of this quilt and the sentiments that it includes will bring them great joy.

The above picture shows one of my favorite signatures. Our little friend Kelly, who must have been around 7 years old, maybe 8 drew a picture with a couple kissing and a bell that says "Bing, Bong" and the words........"Have a Happy Marriage!"

We have been busy with preparations for Jenny's wedding. Jen and Jenny and Rafael and I got together and did some personlization on the guest book. We are going to have 2 of Jennys' roommates from Florida take pictures of each guest and then we'll put the pictures beside the signatures. How many times have you seen a guest book with only the first 5 pages filled. And filled with a name right after a name.........We did a little scrapbook frame for each page.

We finally finished up all of the invitations. My friend Jo, who does some beautiful calligraphy came over to help me address the envelopes. Unfortunately my camera batteries were low and the picture I took of her did not come out! But here is a picture of Jenny doing the envelope stuffing! She doesn't like to like the envelopes, so she is using a sponge!

I feel like I have been working on weddings for ages now! I've been doing a whole lot of projects for the wedding, some that my daughter really hadn't asked for........but this is the last wedding and I like to add personal touches...........SO>>>>>>>>>>> I made up these little purses for all of the attendants.

The pattern came from a book that I bought in a quilt shop in Pennslyvanna. The book is: Sashiko Handbags 14 on 14 by Nancy Shriber. Each bag is made from two 14" squares and there are 14 different options. It is a really cool book. I altered the pattern slightly, firstly.......I didn't do sashiko.........that would be the "H" word and I don't do that anymore! (Hand). I put the fabric on my longarm and did some absolutely beautiful quilt patterns on them. I also made some changes in the construction and the stabalization method. At any rate, here are some pictures of them.

I still have several wedding projects to go............I am making up a couple of bags for the Dollar Dance. I am going to try to design a bag that looks like a Brides dress and a Grooms tux. Wish me luck on that one! I also want to make up a signature quilt...........must be done by October 13......the day of the shower. I'd better get cracking on that one!

Looks like I"m going to be pretty busy..........I'd better get crackin!

Fish Quilt

This quilt just left my studio today. It was a fun little quilt with patchwork fish. I quilted a really sweet little fish border on it.

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I am starting to get really discouraged about how my living room is shaping up. The carpet man came yesterday and we will get new carpet in the next few weeks. However my Living room is so very Vanilla. EVERYTHING is vanilla! The walls, the couch and soon the carpet. I was hoping to get some chairs with a fun contemporary print, but the ones I first saw at Pruitts and liked........I didn't like when I went back. I must have looked at 6 different furniture stores yesterday. Guess I"ll keep trying or perhaps start thinking of the space in a new way............Wish me Luck!

Really neat baby shower game!

Yesterday I went to a baby shower held at Mimi's cafe for the daughter of a friend of mine. It was your typical baby shower.........nice lunch, mom-to-be opening her gifts..........until it came time to play the baby shower games.........My friend Katrina arranged for one of her friends to give a nice talk and showing of antique baby items. Below is one of the pictures of an infant cloak from the 1880's! It was really very interesting. If you would like to see all of the pictures taken you can go to this link and see them: http://community.webshots.com/album/566715590hpAMiE?start=0

Also of interest is that Pat Stark (the women who gave the presentation) will be appearing at the Desert Foothills Library in Cave Creek on Friday October 10 from 4-6PM to feature Vintage clothing dating form 1900-1970. It would be really neat to see.

Here are a few more embroidered t-shirts. One is for a friend who loves to quilt by was raised on a dairy farm in Iowa. (can you guess which one?) The other is for a friend who is building a Christian kids camp in Kauai. The name of the camp will be Akua Makana Lani (God's Heavenly Gift) AND they are shephards over many sheep there! I haven't sent it out to them yet, so I hope my friend does not read this and spoil the surpirse!

Wow! What a weekend

We celebrated Jenny's 23rd birthday yesterday even tho today is her birthday. We went to a family style Italian restaurant called Buca De Peppo and sat at the kitchen table. We could watch all the dishes being prepared and then they were all brought by our table so we could see them close up. After dinner we went to Jenny and Rafael's apartment and had a bite of this chocolate cake that Rafael baked.





Earlier in the day I attended a baby shower given by my friend Katrina for her daughter Tana.


My gift to Tana was the quilt top pictured below. This quilt top was designed so that shower guests can sign in the little white squares and be a rememberance for the mother and child for years to come.









As you can see I have finally finished painting in my living room. My couch now matches the walls. I have spent a good deal of time lately shopping for chairs and curtains to complete the decor in this room. Mike still wants me to paint some sort of texture technique on the wall, but I want to get the other components in the room before I decide on what color to do. The carpet man comes tomorrow! Silly me.........I thought that I could just buy a new sofa and all the other old stuff would still work! What was I thinking?

Mike has been busy outside...........our back porch used to be enclosed by screening, but with age and such it has really been looking unsightly lately. So he has been taking the screening and extra boards off and re-enforcing/creating some main support beams so the porch can be open. Here are some pictures of the project in progress.

Before:

During construction:

T-Shirt Quilts and all sorts of other things...........

One Saturday morning several months ago I got a call from a nice lady who wanted to know how much I might charge her for quilting a t-shirt quilt. It is always hard to quote over the phone without seeing the quilt and without knowing how densely quilted the person would want it done. This nice lady explained to me that she had never quilted before and this would be her first quilt. Oh........and she was on her way to the class to learn how to do it! I've got to tell you that I was pretty scared! T-shirt quilts can really take on a life of their own and be incredibly hard to work with. So I gave her a ball park estimate and figured that I would never hear from her again.



WELL! Was I ever wrong! I got a call from her the very next evening! She was almost finished piecing her top and wanted to get some tips about making the back and when could she bring it over to be quilted? I gotta tell you..............I was really impressed.


To make a long story abit shorter I'll just tell you that she claimed not to be a quilter and professed that at her age (71) she probably wouldn't do another quilt............I told her that unfortunately she had already been bitten by the quilting bug and she would be making more.... I was sure of it.


The picture below is of her 2nd t-shirt quilt. I just finished the quilting on it this morning.

THIS QUILT IS GINORMOUS! I couldn't even get the whole thing on my design wall!





T-shirt quilts are So very interesting. I just love looking at all of the neat shirts. What a great way to remember fun times.




This quilt was originally sent to someone to make the t-shirt quilt and unfortunately when it was given back it was already cut into small chunks. The picture below shows a really good way to handle those little little logos that appear on the front of shirts.












Since this quilt is a gift for her daughter she included an outfit that was bought on her honeymoon in San Diego. This square includes both the TOP and the BOTTOM of that outfit.








When doing the quilting I tried to include leafy designs since the recipient of this quilt has decorated her home using leafy type patterns.










So that is not all I did today!


I also finished a baby quilt top!

It's kinda hard to see on this picture, but the quilting pattern I used was from Deloa Jones' Continuous Curve quilting book. It makes a nice pattern on the back.

Let's see, I also did 3 loads of laundry today, cleaned the kitchen and bathroom, returned books to the library, picked up a class catalog at the local community center, did some shopping and looking for new chairs for the living room, had lunch with a good friend and lastly went to the dermatologist who promptly used her bottle to burn off 4 pre-cancerous spots on my face and 4 spots on my arms! Gotta always remember to put sunscreen on..........Especially living in Arizona!

Happy Anniversary!

Today is Mike and I's 29th wedding anniversary!

I don't think we are going to be doing anything special

besides perhaps going out for a nice dinner later on tonight.

We have SOOOOOOOOOOOOOooo many projects to work on at the house,

so I think that most of the day will be spent working on

taming some of the chaos within these walls!

I spent the morning doing a little embroidery on my new sewing machine

AND finishing up a project that I started over a year ago!

As you can see in the pictures below I made a label for the engagement quilt

that I made for Jenny and Rafael.

Since they are getting married in under 80 days now

I figured that I really should finish up the Engagement quilt!

As you can also see in the picture I have a one dollar bill with the label. This is an old custom. Early quilters used to sew a coin into the corner of thier quilts.

It was thought that this would bring wealth to the person who received the quilt.

Or........that they would never be broke since the coin was sewn into the layers of the quilt.

Usually I would sew a coin into the layers,

but I forgot until my daughter

reminded me about this.

I had sewn a coin from the year 2000 into my Millenium quilt

but unfortunately the coin was fairly heavy and it made a hole

in the fabric of the back of the quilt and worked its way out.

So this time I decided to sew a dollar bill under the label.

Hopefully I'll have better luck with that!

I did a little research online this morning and could not find any written evidence of this custom. However I did find a really neat Quilt History site. This site is chocked full of articles about the rich custom and folklore of quilting. Check it out here:

http://www.quilthistory.com/articles.htm

MadHatter 4 Life!

A few years ago.........actually QUITE a few years ago my husband coached a girls soccer team called the MadHatters. They were together for several years and formed a really special bond. They were a pretty good soccer team, won alot of games and such, but what they were really good at was socializing. Mike organized training hikes to be followed by a stop by Zuka juice. We had Soccer olympics at the beginning of the season and always a pot-luck picnic with the parents at the beginning and end of the season. We did a camping trip with some of the hatters and parents. We also hiked and camped down near Havasupi Falls. We had bonfires. There was always a Christmas break sleep-over.





Why am I writing about this? Well, when you form that close of a bond with people, even tho they are not part of your daily life anymore, you still wonder about them........what they are doing and such. So my friend Kathy and I started talking about having a MadHatters reunion.


It took place last night at one of my favorite places..........Caramba's!
Wow! was it ever GREAT seeing the girls all grown up!

Here are some of the pictures from the evening:

Seven of the Hatters attended

Nicole, Jennifer, Lacey, Kim

Amberle, Vanessa, Jenny

One is married, one has a baby, one has just started the nursing program, one is a second grade teacher, one is a biology major with a job at AZ game & fish, one just got back from South Africa helping the poor, and one is engaged!

It was really great to see them and learn about the wonderful adults they have become!

This picture includes the Hatters plus MIke, the coach and Paul and 3 of the brothers who were a big part of the team!

The parents were an awfully big part of the success of this team.