HAPPY 15th BIRTHDAY, JENNIFER!

Well, she finally made it. Or, should I say, we finally made it. Jenny has had an extended birthday. It started prior to our trip to Texas. A good friend of mine, Debbie, took Jenny to have her toenails done as her birthday gift. Debbie has known Jenny since before she was even conceived. Shortly before we left Texas to come back home, Jenny got a new phone (for her birthday) since her old one had broken. After we got home we spent her actual birthday making a trip to Wal Mart for nail polish, eating out for lunch with Amber and shopping for new unmentionables for me. On Wednesday we picked up one of her friends and met another friend of mine at the movies. We saw the new Harry Potter movie. Finally today her brother, Chris, came over and grilled hamburgers and hot dogs. Amber made a beautiful argyle cake. We were joined by Phil, Misti and Arriana.

Amber and Chris always like to ham it up for the camera.

We even got Evelyn to pose with Jennifer's cake!

And Now For The Rest......

I have finished this quilt except for the binding. This is the first one I attempted to quilt on my machine. I used black thread and did an outline outside the cats on the black background. I then meandered around. On the red boarder I did a mouse design. Again I used black but if I had it to do again I would use a multicolored thread. I had to so some minor quilt work on the cats. On the corner blocks I just did a four leaf daisy. On the middle sized cats I tried to do a paisley shaped teardrop through their bodies. I let the quilt hang in the living room for a day and realized it tended to make the cats look like owls with a stitched wing. Needless to say, I spent a day taking out those stitches and just doing a simple square around their bottoms which is a seam line (in the ditch). For the large cats in the middle, I stitched around their tails and across their necks (again in the ditch). Below is a view of the whole quilt. I got mom and Jenny to hold it up.

Next quilt is one I found in a magazine. I liked it enough to look on-line to find the fabric. It is the first one that I had to cut out multiple strips and blocks. It is suppose to have a scalloped edge so it will be a while before I finish it. I really like the way it turned out! Again, my quilt models are mom and Jenny.

Here is a close up of the corner. Notice the nine patch stars. The boarder around the stars is "fussy cut" so that it looks like it has stripes in it.

This last one is one I saw in a shop in Independence, LA and thought it was rather cute. I didn't take but a few days and it was together. Of course I worked on it during the summer. Otherwise it would have taken weeks during the school year. I made my models work overtime!

Here is a close up of the duck quilt. The hardest part of this quilt was getting the mitered corners together so that they lined up with other mitered corners. There were quite a few I had to rip out and fix to get everything to line up. And there are still some that don't quite meet. Please don't look too closely.

Trying to "Get It Right"

I spoke with my brother David on the phone yesterday and told him I was working on a few different quilts while I was visiting mom and dad. Below is another one that we laid out on the floor this past week. I was having trouble with the circle in the upper right corner of the photo since it was so bright. Well, yesterday, while "shop hopping" a couple of quilt stores, I saw another kaleidoscope quilt in which they had placed like colored square close together. If I get ambitious I may lay mine out again and try that with mine. (Of course there are 4 points associated with every square that also have to be placed correctly. That makes a total of 120 pieces that will have to be laid down again!)


Well, here is the second attempt to lay out these pieces. Mom and I played on the floor trying to get the right effect. I do think I like this one a bit better. I had decided that if I used the first layout that I might have to remove the really bright orange it the top right and replace it with a new piece that I would have to construct when I got home. On the second attempt I grouped the squares by color and even though the brightest one stands out, I think it is not as overpowering. Any opinions out there?

Vacation Time for Pat

Well, I have been on "vacation" for over a week. My sister and I spent part of Father's Day traveling to pass off her daughter, Avery. We met about halfway and we, Jennifer and I, brought Avery back with us. Of course we didn't even make it home. We stopped at Chris and Amber's for a short visit and then went on to Paul and Elizabeth's. (Chris and Amber had invited her parents and Mike over for dinner. Mike really enjoyed himself, especially since we had abandoned him.) At Paul's we got to see the girls and got a chance to visit. Elizabeth baked a cake which we all enjoyed. From there we finally returned home.

Jen, Avery and I spent the next 2 days at home. During that time we went to Wal Mart, had lunch with Amber, baby sat the girls so Elizabeth could run to the store, and ate Canes.

We finally left on Wednesday morning for Texas. We made it in good time with very little traffic. Houston has grown so much and there was no construction on I-10 in the downtown area. Jen and Avery spent most of the next 4 days talking. Of course now days that also includes friends since texting is so popular. One day we went to the movies and another day we spent most of the day at the mall. Mom and I sat in the food court and talked while the girls went to all the shops that interested them. On Sunday we took pictures of the girls dressed up. Thank goodness for digital cameras. It is nice to be able to take MANY pictures so that maybe you get one decent one.

On Monday I took Jen downtown the EFY. There were so many kids attending. Avery went with us to get Jenny settled. She had a room with a friend from home. The next day Dad and I drove Avery to Houston so she could fly home. That in itself is almost another story. All in all, we got home before Avery since the plane sat on the tarmack for 3 hours! And there were a lot of little children on the same flight! I'm glad it was her and not me.

It has been pretty quiet around here and so mom and I have been sewing. I was putting together some quilt blocks that I had finished. Mom helped me decide how to arrange them and I finished sewing them together. (It took me till Thursday night to finish since I decided to go shopping during the day. I found a pretty good quilt shop about 15 min. from here.) I will still have to add some boarders but I have another quilt that I need to lay out and arrange. I want to do that first since I have an extra pair of eyes to look at it and a much larger floor to lay it out on.