this is something I love that someone made for me

It's week 2 of the meme that Melissa started. It was Kate's turn to pick a subject, and she chose "something I love that someone made for me."

My daughter, Grace, in case you aren't a loyal reader or are just not paying attention, has serious artistic tendencies. Not in the sense of mommy one-upmanship that can happen on the playground while comparing who potty learned or pointed to their noses first; no, more in the sense of looking at something surprisingly creative that your child produces and wondering "where on God's green earth did that combination of genes come from because she sure as hell didn't get it from her father." Anyway, Grace has often taken me by surprise with her art, but the painting above was one of the first times that she really took my breath away. She was four years old when she made it in preschool for Mother's Day, and it was her first experience with oil paint. It isn't so much the beauty of the painting but how she described it in her little girl words. She said:

There's a rainbow and green grass and a few clouds, and a rose with some thorns but also gold [the gold center is actually so thick it is raised off the canvas]. And in the middle of it all is a volcano!

Well isn't that just about a perfect description of motherhood if you ever heard one? My favorite part is that her teacher took a picture of her painting it and wrote down her description and attached it to the back so we will never forget. Grace has drawn and painted and colored many pictures for me since that day. She has molded clay and folded paper and even learned to piece fabric on her very own sewing machine. But I love to look at this painting, hanging in my office, and remember the first time I got a glimpse of her artist's soul. The best Mother's Day present ever.

What's your favorite thing that someone made for you? Jump in and play with us!

Healthy Habits Monday - Week 5

Update: I am still drowning in paper, but managed to get through Open House and the first day of school with all of the required forms and checks and slips and summer reading lists handed in to the correct person. That has to count for something, right? Schools have to top my list as the worst paper wasters EVER! Why they can't have one form that you fill out per child and then print/save the information they need for each required location (teacher, clinic, office, etc.) instead of making me fill it out on those teensy lines so you can barely read my writing, with six copies of the exact same information? You can almost hear the trees weeping every August. It's a sin, I tell you.

Sorry, on to my meal planning and water. Neither showed stellar results this week between the two trips to the dentist, the long night and day with Divot :c( and another football injury, plus trying to get ready for school to start. I need to kick it up a notch if I'm going to survive the season.

But in the interest of moving forward, I am adding a new habit this week. Now that the kiddos are back in school, I am resolving to exercise at least 2.5 hours/week. Today I did 30 minutes on the treadmill after morning carpool, so I'm off to a good start. This is a critical one for me, and I hope in future weeks to bump up the time.

Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks Monday is a good day to start a new habit. Last week I got this link to Healthy Monday. Check it out for lots of other ideas and resources for your own healthy habits.

What's on your To Do list this week?

Goodbye, Div

I'm sad to say that our sweet beagle boy, Divot, has gone to the Rainbow Bridge [warning! Kleenex alert!]

BeaglesBay King Arthur's Wizard, aka "Divot" was born April 16, 1999. He was diagnosed with bladder cancer this past April, a less common but unforgiving cancer in dogs. Wednesday night he took a turn for the worse, and we realized it was time. He died Thursday morning in my arms with a belly full of cookies.

Divot may not have been the world's smartest dog, but he was sweet and gentle, especially with children and the elderly. He would, in the manner of most beagles, eat anything and everything, from a Sprite can as a puppy [yes, that required an ER visit] to broccoli - just not the raw meat that the holistic vet recommended when he got sick. He would not fetch, but he could walk forever and almost caught that squirrel in the back yard once. He loved to chew ice cubes and was particular about bedtime. A good night's sleep is critical for the next day's napping, you know.

He leaves to cherish his memory three bereft children, a daddy who let him sit on the couch when the Braves were on, and his momma who cooked brown rice and chicken for him when the going got tough; also, the two dogs next door who now have no one to bark at.

Run to the Rainbow Bridge, Div. We miss you already.

Friday Fill Ins

Come play with us or find more Friday Fill Ins here. My answers are in bold:

1. You know you're old when Friday means "sleep" instead of "party!"
2. My heart is divided between doing all the responsible things to make life the best it can be for my family and ignoring all of the mundane things in life to spend quality time with them. I guess there must be a balance in there, right?
3. Sleep is what I need RIGHT NOW!
4. I have felt the high of brand new love, I have known the depths of grief.
5. Gah, won't these people in front of me just GO!
6. Come home as soon as you can!
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to sleep, tomorrow my plans include the first feeder football scrimmage, and Sunday, I want to sew a bit!

Have a great weekend!

Going to Guild

Monday was guild night, and one of the most fun ever! First of all, I have to share this recipe with you. It was my turn to bring a sweet snack, so I brought these Self Frosting Oatmeal Cookies that were just yummy!

Then we moved onto the fun stuff - hand dyeing fabric with Marquetta Johnson.

Not only is Marquetta extraordinarily gifted, she is a hoot! We laughed all night, especially when the Quilt Police in the guild (you know who you are) kept worrying about their folding techniques being exactly perfect. Marquetta would just say, "tuck it under until it's happy and it will be beautiful!" It was definitely an exercise in relinquishing control for a few of us.

Marquetta taught us some basic folding techniques to use with her water conservation/clean dyeing method. This is especially critical in the metro Atlanta area where drought is an ongoing problem. It's nice to know that the earth doesn't have to suffer for this art. Plus, as anyone who has every tie-dyed knows, rinsing is the worst part! Then we got to work with the dyes. Gracie had a great time - I purchased a separate kit for her so we didn't have to compromise on color choices. Now she has her very own stash of hand dyed fat quarters to fondle. I am creating a monster in my own image! It was a fun way to end our summer guild nights together. Once school starts she won't be able to be out so late on a Monday night.



Then comes the waiting - the pretty bundles had to sit in the sun to dry.



And voila! Here is a little slide show of our finished FQs.



I would highly recommend this program to any guild. Best of all, it is a clean technique that we did in our regular meeting space in less than 2 hours. And for those of you who aren't interested in dyeing fabric yourself, Marquetta brought some of her own gorgeous fabric that we could buy.

What was your guild's best program this year?

My Favorite Refrigerator Magnet

Color me cool, I'm officially playing a blog meme game. Whatever the heck that means.

Melissa asked us to find our favorite refrigerator magnet. This is mine:

Okay, technically I know it is not just one magnet (and the pictures turned out HORRIBLE! Something to do with the glaring white fridge I suppose). But I love playing with all the words and leaving little love notes in haiku for DH.

Sometimes it even inspires creativity from my offspring. This little gem is from my middle child, the eleven year old boy, in response to Gracie's insistence that she is a vegetarian. Not very loving, but literate and better, I suppose, than calling her a "stupid head."

In case you can't read this, it says "a demented simian claimed she despises beefy lizards".

Come along and play our game with us. Next week it's Kate's turn to pick, and I love her choice!

Have a great day.

Healthy Habits Monday - Week 4

My menu planning/cooking at home went MUCH better than the paper taming efforts. We only ate dinner out one night last week, and that was a planned evening with the grandparents to celebrate my oldest son earning his 2nd degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do. The paper, however, is still piling up around my ears. Sigh...

This week, in a nod to the 95+ degree heat and the pleading of the football coaches for the boys to to skip the Cokes and drink water all day every day (not just at practice), my healthy habit is going to be to drink water and plenty of it. No soft drinks, no sweet tea, just fresh clear water. I am allowing myself my morning coffee for the sake of those who have to live with me, but otherwise it's H20.

I have a feeling my skin will look better, I'll have fewer headaches, and it definitely cuts calories.

What's your healthy habit for the week? Jump in with me.

Orange Crush Step 3

Wow, am I spatially challenged!

I do not know how someone with such poor spatial abilities and terrible math skills got involved in quilting, but it just goes to show that you should pay attention in Geometry even if you don't want to be an engineer.

These very simple blocks took me forever because we needed 22 going each direction. I got the first batch right, and then sewed the second batch wrong and had to "un-sew" them...TWICE! I even did a test block, wrote down how to do it, and did it wrong the second time. Honestly, it's amazing the kaleidoscope quilt ever got put together.

But they are done, and I can move on to step 4. I might actually get this quilt done before Bonnie moves on to a new mystery - at least if her publisher keeps her busy with the book tour and teaching!

I hope you feel some sense of accomplishment today!

Friday Fill In

My answers are in bold:

1. If I could travel back in time, I'd go to witness the life of Christ. Hindsight is 20/20, but I've always secretly wondered if I would have followed Him or been one of the people telling His disciples that it was time to up their meds.
2. Give me peace and quiet or give me dessert.
3. I am listening to The Disney Channel, the soundtrack to my life.
4. Somewhere, someone is thinking wasn't she supposed to get back to me on that?
5. I'll always be trying to catch up.
6. My idea of a good time includes lots of family and friends, plus dessert.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to a good night's sleep! Tomorrow my plans include celebrating the new 2nd degree black belt in the family and Sunday, I want to finish my Kaleidoscope Dreams quilt!

Have a great weekend.

It's a Green Thang...

I've read on several other blogs about quilters who recyle soft stuff when it is finally, undeniably, too small to sew into anything else by throwing it into an old pillowcase. When the pillowcase is full, it is sewn shut to make a pet bed.

I thought this was a great idea; the only problem being that I never seem to have old pillowcases. This has come up before - at the guild quilt show we are asked to deliver our quilts each in their own pillowcase. Each November my children have been asked, invariably in first grade but also in other years, to send in an old white pillowcase to help recreate the first Thanksgiving. Where these pillowcases are supposed to come from, I do not know.

What I do always have lots of is old towels. Sure, you can cut them up to make rags, but just how many rags does one person need? Maybe if I cleaned more I'd go through them a little faster. But let's not dwell on that. Anyway, I decided to try it with a towel.

First I trimmed away the worst of the frayed edges. Then I matched up the short edges and used a tight zig-zag stitch to sew up the sides. I used a denim needle, but still broke the first one going through the tightly woven strip. After that lesson, I gently "walked" the machine through that part and it was fine. It made a little pouch that looked like this...

...which fit perfectly into an old basket I had on hand. The basket was filled with random odds and ends, and this project motivated me to go through it and pitch at least half the items, and put most of the rest in the GoodWill pile. I also found a small photo album with pictures of me when I was pregnant with my oldest child. Treasure!

I put the basket next to my cutting table to catch those skinny slivers of fabric. It's amazing how quickly it fills up!

When it is nice and fluffy, I will sew it shut. I'm sure it will be a perfect crate cushion for Divot. The best part is that when it gets nasty (he's a beagle!) I can pitch it into the compost heap without a second thought.

I hope you find some project today that gives you a feeling of satisfaction.

Healthy Habits Monday - Week 3

Okay, this paperwork thing still needs work, but I am doing better. Hopefully if I keep working on it a little bit every day, I can tame the beast.

Moving on, football practice started this week for the boys. This involves a meal schedule that challenges everyone. They need to eat early enough that the running and 90+ degree heat doesn't make them sick, but late enough so that they can make it until they get home around 8:30pm. One of the more experienced moms tells me that she makes the more traditional dinner around 4pm, and then they eat a sandwich or smaller meal when they get home. This way they aren't eating a lot right before bed.

Now I don't mind cooking, but I do have a bad habit of wandering into the kitchen around 5:30 wondering aloud what sounds good, so this is going to require a little more advance planning. It's not just temporary, either - the football season and practice 3 nights a week is going to last well into December! So I need to get a grip on this thing.

With all of that in mind, my healthy habit for this week is going to be meal planning/cooking at home. To avoid the lazy cop-out of running by a fast food place (and the calories and cost that entails) I am going to set a goal for myself of planning the week's meals every Monday and planning to eat dinner at home at least 5 nights a week. That leaves a night with the grands and a night to run out for pizza or whatever grabs our fancy.

If I hit any home runs, I'll post recipe links. I'm sure with school starting, at least a few of you are in the same boat. Of course, any money saved can be rerouted to the fabric fund!

I hope you'll share your healthy habits or links to great recipes.

Food, Fun, and Family

What a wonderful weekend! We celebrated my mom's 65th birthday last night with a completely indulgent dinner at EastSide. Bob brought out the most gorgeous platter of antipasti that he created just for her. It had everything from little Caprese bites with fresh mozzarella and heirloom tomatoes to prosciutto wrapped asparagus spears; from the traditional roasted peppers and olives to the inspired fresh blackberries that just looked too perfect to leave out. It was delicious and beautiful and left us almost too full for dinner.


Somehow we managed, though, because he had also made veggie lasagne and chicken florentine and penne with sausage. When it came time for dessert, I took matters into my own hands and brought out this cake that I had found at one of my favorite food blogs, No Fear Entertaining, for July 4th weekend. Mom really loved it, so I recreated it - this time without needing her to rescue me from the whipping cream fiasco!
So all in all it was a very yummy evening! The best part was that my FIL felt up to joining us, so our whole little family was together. I couldn't ask for anything more...unless my brother and his crew could teleport home. Or MOVE! But I digress.

The icing on the cake (I know, I know) was that Jan the Longarmer called to tell me that my Kaleidoscope Dreams quilt is done! It must be record time. She said she just couldn't stand to have it hanging over her head while she was on vacation, so she worked like crazy to finish it. (Why, oh why, couldn't I get just a touch of that work ethic???) I picked it up today and cannot wait to show it to you. I'll wait until it is bound, hopefully very soon. It turned out just lovely with all the swirls and points and swoops.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend as well. Sweet kaleidoscope dreams...

Friday Fill-Ins

My answers are in bold:

1. I believe whatever doesn't kill you teaches you something about yourself.

2. If you're good at something, do it!

3. Why so tired? The girls had a sleepover again and kept me up til 2 with their giggling!

4. Something is out there, it's God.

5. If my life were a sitcom, it would be titled Trouble in Suburbia. [I wonder if anyone will get that.]

6. Sitting on my back porch I see green. Emerald grass, lush trees, and a jungle of kudzu. It's my little slice of heaven right here in the heart of the 'burbs.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to reading by the pool, tomorrow my plans include celebrating Mom's birthday, and Sunday, I want to work on Orange Crush!

Have a great weekend!

Danger Quilt Bloggers!

Okay, you know how this whole blogging thing is supposed to be free? And how a lot of us are pretty focused on a) finishing UFOs, b) busting stash and/or c) making items to sell?

I fell into the danger zone today! In my effort to email back the people who leave comments on my posts and to visit their blogs if they have one, I accidentally (that's the word I'm going to use when I explain it to DH) stumbled across the Fresh Squeezed Fabric shop at Etsy.

It is gorgeous! The Ginger Blossom line makes me grab my graph paper. I don't know what to do with it, but I want it. I want it all. Not in the spirit of using from my stash in any way whatsoever, but I want it.

In the interest of mental health, I think I'm going to allow myself a little bit of it. Denying myself completely would just make me resentful, and more likely to binge at some cheap fabric store later. Don't you agree? Now I just have to define "a little bit" and figure out which ones I can't live without.

Of course, that led me down the treacherous path of what else might be hiding on Etsy that just needed to come live at my house. I'm just warning you right now that you shouldn't have your credit cards anywhere near by while you are looking. You should have them put away somewhere - preferably with a flight of stairs in between - so you can think before you shop. It's really just too tempting.

Hope you find something that inspires you today!

I Dreamt it was Finished!

My goal was to get the borders on my Kaleidoscope Dreams quilt today, and here it is. I am so pleased with the pieced border and the illusion of curves. Now the trick will be to see if any of the longarmers I know can get it done in time for our guild's show in September.

My other challenge is that the pattern calls for 6 1/4 yards of fabric for the back, but I cannot for my life figure out how to piece it so it is big enough for a quilt that is 84" by 104". Especially since longarmers tend to be picky about having extra fabric around all of the edges!

What I have learned from piecing this is the absolute critical need for a design wall. I could not have kept the pieces straight any other way. That was the best advice I learned during my class. Also, I truly believe I would have gone completely insane trying to do this pattern without Marti's Kaleido-Ruler. You cut every single piece with it, and they are PERFECT.

As I have mentioned, Bonnie's leaders and enders technique was the perfect companion for this quilt. I would take two pieces off the design wall, sew them, put a leader/ender piece through the machine, snip off the kaleidoscope piece, press it, and put it back on the wall before taking any other pieces down. That was the only way to keep track of where everything went.

The odds of one quilt having Marti Michell and Bonnie Hunter in common must be astronomical, but there you have it. Quilting: the great unifier. Hey, maybe we need a quilter for president!

Healthy Habits Monday - Week 2

So, you wonder how I did last week with my 15 minutes of Paper Chasing.

Not good. Not good at all. I didn't do it one single day.

Of course, I did manage to get the pieced border blocks done on my kaleidoscope quilt, make 10 doll quilts, and throw a fabulous birthday party for my daughter, so there's that.

And I took one step that, although it didn't reduce the paper that is currently living in my house, it will (hopefully) reduce the junk mail (and junk email and telemarketing calls) headed my way in the future. I visited dmachoice.org and went through all of their consumer options to be removed from as many catalog and pre-approved credit card offers as possible. They also have a link to the National Do Not Call Registry and one to be removed from a significant amount of junk email. Let's see if it works.

For this Monday, I'm trying to decide if I should redouble my efforts on the paper front or move on to something else. Since my office is such a disaster, and in the interest of marital harmony, I think I'm going to keep this one on my list for one more week. By next Monday if I can't make it a habit then I'll have to face up to this character flaw.

Honestly, I think I'm more disappointed about the broken promise of a paperless society than I am about the flying cars at this point. Where does it all come from?

An American Girl's Birthday Party

After much delay, we finally got around to hosting Gracie's birthday party. She wanted to take her friends to see Kit Kittredge: An American Girl and then go to EastSide to make our own pizzas. Of course I had to come up with just the right party favor, and there's nothing at the Amercian Girl store that I could afford to give 10 little girls!

My mother had already seen the movie with my niece, so she was a fabulous resource for ideas. The mystery in the movie revolves around a box that Kit's mother hides under the floorboard with her money and some jewelry in it. Mom was able, with the help of a friend (thanks Sharon!), to round up a cigar box for each girl. We decided to add a strand of faux pearls from JoAnn's, Etc.; a ring pop, candy necklace, and some candy (mini boxes of Dots and Tootsie Rolls), all from Dollar Tree. But there was something missing, something to make it unique and special and just from us.

So I decided to make a quilt.

I'm chalking it up to the insomnia I've been suffering lately while my DH has been traveling to be with his dad. Sheer exhaustion made me do it! While he was gone again (this time to bring his parents back home, thank God!) I had no one reminding me of the time or urging me to come to bed. Not only have I made tremendous progress on my Kaleidoscope Dreams, as you can see in the sidebar, but I made ten little cheater cloth quilts for the girls who came to the party.

Of course, they each had to be quilted slightly differently. Heaven forbid the dolls be together with their quilts at a slumber party and get mixed up! (But then, that was before I made the personalized labels for each one. I've gone completely 'round the bend, I tell you.) This actually turned out to be a fun exercise - it was like auditioning different quilting designs on a mini quilt. I found creative ways to change familiar quilting patterns in ways I will definitely use again.

The labels were super easy. I just made 2 little circles with the label info on them and raw-edge appliqued them down. I overlapped them slightly so that the label is reminiscent of the number 8. Fun, yeah? I made you a little slide show so you could see how it turned out. I am so happy with them, and the girls oohed and aahed over them.


The absolute best moment, though, was when we came from the movie to the pizzeria and DH was there waiting for us. He had been fibbing all day about how much progress they had made on the trip home. Gracie was so excited to see him. It had only been a few days, but signalled the end of a long stretch of road. Now his dad is out of the hospital and his parents are home from the longest they've ever gone without seeing the grandkids. The party was a roaring success. My husband is back where he belongs, beside me, under our quilt.

Maybe now I will be able to sleep. At last.

Friday Fill-Ins

A new fun thing for Friday! (my answers are in bold)

1. If I could be a fly on the wall I would peek in on old friends and boyfriends. And not out of regret or jealousy, but because I'm the kind of person who likes to know how things turned out. I like tangents and secondary story lines. At the end of a book that starts with a horrific crash caused by a train engineer who has been drinking, which follows the lives of the victims before and after, I'm the one who turns the last page and wonders if the driver ever went to rehab.
2. Jealousy is a product of insecurity. But sometimes rears its ugly head in the best of relationships anyway.
3. When I see a shooting star my wish would be that I could have the people I love nearby all the time.
4. I'd rather be confident and secure than brave and crazy any day!
5. Certain songs when I hear them make me wanna call someone I haven't heard from in a long time.
6. If time were in a bottle I'd open it.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to a good night's sleep, now that the slumber party is over. Tomorrow my plans include getting the kaleidoscope blocks together and Sunday, I want to see Mamma Mia!

Orange Crush Step 2

So I'm a little behind the times on Orange Crush. What can I say? I've had a lot going on in my life, and a lot going on on my design wall. But I finally finished step 2, a process that seemed eternal!

Part of the reason it took so long is that I was doing it as a leader/ender project with the Kaleidoscope Dreams blocks. It turns out that the kaleidoscope pattern practically screams for another quilt to be made at the same time with this method due to the need for the design wall and the extreme care required to make sure that each piece is in exactly the right spot. The down side is that the leader/ender quilt (in this case, Orange Crush) doesn't really get your full attention or sewing time.


Both quilts are chugging along at a glacier pace. If it weren't for the changing photos of my design wall it would feel like I wasn't making any progress at all! I really like the red border on Kaleidoscope Dreams, and I am thrilled to be moving on to step 3 (of 6) of the mystery. It's not much of a mystery to me anymore since I have been unable to help seeing photos of the finished pattern on other blogs, but I am curiously anticipating my own finished product since no two of us chose the same fabrics.


I have to add that making this quilt for Grace is perfect. The other day she sat on my bed looking through the step 1 blocks and reminiscing about all of the quilts they represented. She remembers - maybe more than I - which fabric went into whose quilt and sometimes even when we bought it. I imagine her lying in bed, covered in memories of all those cousins and friends and times sewing together, like a cozy memory lane. I have discovered a new fondness for scrap quilts that I never appreciated in the first ten years of my art. Bonnie awakened this in me, and for that I am so grateful.

Healthy Habits Monday

In honor of my 39th birthday, I've decided that I'm going to pick a new "Healthy Habit" each week for the next year. By my 40th birthday I hope to be more organized, healthier, and a better person overall. And maybe I'll have fewer UFOs on my list!

They won't necessarily all be related to physical health, since my spiritual and mental well being are just as important to me and, IMHO, interconnected. If you decide to make this journey with me (or even join me for a week) please link up and share your results.

For my inaugural week, I'd like to start with the obvious and choose exercise; however, the next few days are already shaping up to be a nightmare of logistics. I think I'll table that one until next week. If I rotate through a 4 week cycle of body, home, spirit, and mind, then next on the list would be the house. Let's start this week by digging out of the paper mountain that threatens to bury me on a regular basis and commit to 15 minutes every weekday of Paper Tiger Taming. And don't forget to recycle! Being more "green" is definitely on my list.

What are you going to do this week to improve yourself? Leave a comment and let me know.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Chance You'll Live to 100: 68%

100 is looking pretty likely for you right now. You've made your health a priority. So kick back, keep doing what you're doing, and enjoy the great life you've made for yourself. And you might get to see what the world is like 70, 80, or even 90 years from now.

Will You Live to 100?

We're having a lovely, lazy week. We met Piper and gave her the Circle of Love quilt. Andi loved it and was so appreciative. Monday was guild night, and we had our annual Quilt Olympics. Every year we sew for a charity, and this year we made pillowcases for ConKerr Cancer. By the end of the night the guild had 116 pillowcases, and many more of us brought home kits to finish. Gracie had a great time sewing with Mom and me, another generation of fabric fondlers on the way!


Today DH took the kids out shopping, so I have some quiet time to blog and sew. I'm hoping to get the border blocks cut for Kaleidoscope Dreams, but it will require some concentration and functioning brain cells! I'd love to get it to the longarmer and back in time for our guild show in September.

I hope you can squeeze in some sewing time this weekend.

At Last (Updated 8/12/11)

I put the finishing touches on our anniversary quilt yesterday and spread it on our bed. My husband was so impressed when he came home and saw it finally finished. I showed him the label with the totally unoriginal name (from the pattern) "Yesterday, Today, and Forever," and he said I should have called it "At Last."

Ha ha ha. What a comedian. I've always said I love him for his sense of humor.

But he's right. It is a major feeling of accomplishment to sleep under a quilt that I made. Not just a nap under a lap quilt, but a real big bed quilt. Unfortunately it is July in Georgia, so it was kind of hot, but that just means we'll be cozy all winter.

I love how the colors turned out; I love how the red center looks like the heart of the quilt; I love looking at all of the different scraps and remembering where some of them came from or what quilt they were left over from or wishing I could find more of that fabric.

Then while we were watching TV last night, I started doing some of the handwork on my Serenity Quilt (from the Fiber on a Whim class). This is what I have so far:

Any suggestions on what more to add or should I stop now before it goes over the top?

Hope everyone has a happy and safe 4th of July!

Update 8/12/11:  after being asked by a reader about the pattern for my king sized quilt.  It is called Yesterday, Today, and Forever by Hazel Metcalf.  I cannot find a website for Hazel, but there is an email address:  hmetcalf AT bellsouth DOT net.  I hope that helps if you are interested.  Also, the pattern calls for 9" finished blocks (3" finished squares) and makes a 90" square quilt.  I wanted king size, so I used 3 1/2" finished squares for 100 10 1/2" blocks.  The finished size was 105" square.

Miles and Miles...

Holy Smokes!

I mentioned that I finally sent my first-ever king sized quilt off to the longarmer (thank you Jan Kramer!). Jan even got it back to me in plenty of time so I could bind and label it in time for my anniversary; but the thought of making that much binding and wrestling the cotton croc through my machine was too overwhelming.

Finally, I decided to cross two things off my "to do" list at once: I made a continuous bias binding for the first time ever (I know, I know) and sewed the binding onto my quilt.

I found some pretty simple directions in a book that look almost exactly like the ones seen here at Quilter's Cache. The only difference is that the directions I had didn't say exactly how much it would make, just that a 36" square made enough "for a large quilt." Well, I have a very large quilt - 105" square - so I decided to use a 40" square of fabric to make my binding.

Can I just say, in my own defense, that geometry was not my best subject? No, the irony is not wasted on me that I took up quilting as a hobby.

The directions worked great. The binding turned out perfectly and quickly, as promised. I am a convert to the method. Sewing it onto the front of my ginormous quilt was not nearly as challenging as I had feared. In fact, I already whipped down 2 of the sides while watching Law & Order reruns that TiVo so kindly recorded for me. The only miscalculation?

This. This is the leftover binding. Yes, the leftover. This is what I have after binding my entire king sized quilt. From a mere 40" square of fabric. How is that even possible? It boggles even the mind of someone less mathematically challenged than I. I haven't measured it yet, but it makes me giggle every time I look at the bundle.

The Quilter's Cache link above has a great formula for calculating the size square you actually need to cut. I needed 420" plus some for my quilt. Let's say 450" for comfort. Multiply that by the width of the binding you are using - in my case 2 1/4". That gives me 1012.5. The square root of that number - 31" - is about the size square I needed. All easy with a basic calculator.

But if you reverse the process and multiply 40" x 40" (the size square I actually used) you get 1600. Divide that by 2 1/4" (width of binding) and you see that I made about 711" of binding. Only about 261" more than I really needed! Luckily it was all out of my stash and I will surely find a use for it.

All in all it was an inexpensive lesson, and one I won't soon forget. I hope you learn something today, too! Drop me a line and share what it was, or link to your blog and tell us all.

Done!

Is there anything so wonderful as a newly finished quilt, fresh from the dryer? Anything so soothing or infused with love? I don't think so.

Yes, Piper's quilt is done. As in "done done." All the way done. Bound, with a label. Wrapped even. Good thing since we will be seeing them on Saturday and the entire extended family is expecting to see it!

I think is perfect. I quilted it with this yummy lime green variegated thread in a spiral pattern to emphasize the illusion of curves. The spiral is very primitive and imperfect in an effort to break up the geometry of the blocks. (Okay, and because I was too lazy to mark it!)

I decided to name the quilt "Circle of Love." If you look closely around the edge of the label, I added the quote, "Our family is a circle of love and strength. With every birth and every union the circle grows. Every joy shared adds more love. Every obstacle faced together makes the circle stronger." [author unknown].

I found this quote especially apt since, as I mentioned, we haven't always been particularly close with this side of the family. We all get along, but we just don't see each other that often and aren't entwined in one another's lives. Over the last couple of years that has begun to change, especially since Andi's wedding (Piper's mommy) when almost everyone was able to come and make it into a sort of reunion. Also, Andi's brother is newly engaged, the last of the grandchildren to be married, while the first great-grandchild is spreading her wings as she finishes her first year of college. Then my father-in-law faced a health crisis over the last several months and I have taken the lead on sending updates to his extended family. The Independence Day picnic has always been a reunion in memory of Granddaddy and Grandmama G, but I know this year's will be particularly sentimental. Piper arrived not a moment too soon, and we are thrilled to get our hands on her, pass her around, coo over her tiny fingers and toes, and argue about whom she looks like.

It's the everyday miracles that make us appreciate life, even in the challenging moments. I hope you have a moment today that fills you with joy, even if it's as simple as opening the dryer door on a newly finished quilt.