A Few Photos from the Week

I've been perusing the links on Judy's Design Wall Monday. (click here) My design wall in the other room is empty, but here's a shot I took of the two projects I'm working on. I had just tossed both the quilts on my cutting/ironing table the other day. Later I glanced over and they were such a lovely jumble that I had to take a picture.

I'm making progress on these quilts, which are part of my February Get It Done list. The Spiderweb needs one more border and the sandwiching and quilting. Wait until you see what I picked out. It needed a dark border to tie it all together. I went and found a gorgeous, plain midnight fabric. It is a dark blue, or wait--is it dark purple? It's one of those fascinating colors that have two colors that show up different depending on what color they are next to. I love fabrics like that!

I have to sandwich and quilt the spiderweb. I'm doing a beginner's class for our quilt guild teaching them how to make a spiderweb. I showed it on Wednesday night last and seven people have signed up. If you're interested, the pattern is from Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville blog. (here)

The square in a square is just a teensy weensy way away from being finished. I worked on it all weekend. Mondays are my wonderful quilting day. My husband works late on Mondays so I get three hours of quilting after I get home until he arrives home. I worked on it today. I've got the sashing finished on the two long sides. It's pinned and ready to sew for the two short sides. After that it's just the binding. The square in a square was my first QAYG (Quilt As You Go).

I told my husband I was trying to think of the name for the quilt. It is almost completely 70s fabric. The 70s were an interesting decade for me. In the space of those ten years I graduated from high school, graduated from college, got married, and had three children.

Hubby came up with a winner: The Seventies Are Calling, They Want Their Fabric Back!

This is the same guy who helped me name an all-blue batik quilt: Jacques Cousteau's Undersea Adventure. You should hear the interesting names he gave his stuffed animals as a child and gives our cats!

A few pictures from this week:

Calla Lilies my hubby gave me when Newt died

Our swallow who is building a nest in the eaves above our front door.

TGS with one of my granddogs, Ginny

OSLW with the two granddogs

My dog, Miko, looking cute

Shhh! It's secret!

I guess I should say "Shhh! Oh darn. It's no longer a secret!"

My Talented Geek Son (TGS) and his Oh-So-Lovely Wife (OSLW) have already found out that I making them a Double Wedding Ring. It's OSLW's favorite quilt. How could I not make it for her? I love her dearly. Of course, DWR is a difficult quilt and sometimes I shudder thinking of it. OSLW wanted the colors to be like a fire: red, yellow, orange and blue. Lots of blue. She's seen audition of fabric colors. She probably didn't recognize the fabrics as batik. I thought it was the best bet for fire. And, as of yesterday, they saw the background fabric. Here's a sneak peek. I still need more blue:

Most of the Fabrics for DWR

The darkest blue will be the cornerstones. One of the blues there got discarded because it had some purple in it. I still think it's going to be beautiful. I'm going to make a couple of rings and let her see to make sure she likes it in quilt form.

My first daughter may know there's a quilt coming for her. I mentioned a couple of posts back that I was going to make her quilt as a leader/ender with the DWR. Of course, she has no idea what that means. It can stay that way for awhile.

I haven't gotten a "Name Alias" for her yet. I've switched it three times already! She has a dozen nicknames. It's quite a record. I'm just nervous about their privacy on the web. It's a big place and I'm not comfortable enough to call them by their given names.

I should ask my TGS. He knows all about Net Security. It's part of his job. In fact, he scares me to death with stories of what people can do to steal your identity and how far they can go to practically make you disappear from cyberspace. Among his credentials is one of his college classes was Ethical Hacking! Basically learning everything about hacking (fight fire with fire) but only for defense.

But I Digress. That's probably the phrase they'll put on my gravestone...

The Happy News is I just finished cutting all the sets for the main blocks, which are churn dashes. Now, you know and I know what that block is, but this will still keep some of the surprise until a few inches down!


I've shown my daughter the fabrics when she was here once. I saw them and thought they were perfect for her. They are Japanese Taupe Daiwabo Fabrics. I love this type of fabric so much and #1 better be careful. This quilt may do a disappearing act also! Not into cyberspace, but into a Secret Hiding Place in my home. Shhh!

A preview of the fantastic fabric in the block sets.

But I Digress. There are 72 sets of blocks. The dark is two 3" squares and four 2.5" squares. The light fabric is two 3" squares and one 2.5" square. Those of us who can do quilt math can tell this is going to be a six inch block. Oh oh. That's the first time I put it through my math brain. Ouch!!! Say it's not so. Six inches--arggghhhh. I'm 90% through making the Farmer's Wife quilt, which is 111 or close to that, Six Inch Blocks. I only made it through by paper-piecing.

Breathe.

Big Breath.

Sit down.

Put your head between your knees.

Okay. You can do it. This block only has 4 HSTs in it. (The pulse is coming down). That's child's play next to some of the FW that had 50-75 pieces in them. (Pulse going up.) I kid you not! I sadistically counted the pieces for the blocks. It's amazing I even went through with it.

Oh dear, you're beginning to get enough information to think I'm foolhardy. I'm using that nice word. Some would just drop the "hardy" part of the word.

But I Disgress. The quilt is going to be absolutely gorgee-oh-sus. Here's a looksie.

I'm going to go lay down now. I'm still feeling a little faint....

My Nutty Son

Barely a few minutes after I posted my Get It Done list, I received a text from my son. "Move number four up to number one and it will be perfect!" Of course number 4 is starting on the Double Wedding Ring quilt. This is the wedding quilt for him and his wife. Wouldn't you know that a few moments later his wife chimed in with a cute remark about abandoning numbers 1-3 and just doing the DWR. At least both were happy that the DWR was on the list and that I was planning on "working furiously" to get it done.

This is a picture of the two of them on their wedding day. They were married in Virginia in June 2012. They had it in a bed and breakfast in Leesburg and the wedding was in the back of the inn. As part of their wedding package, the whole inn was rented out and the family of both sides got to stay there. It was utterly fantastic. The entire inn and room were enchanting.

 It was not too bad in the weather department, for late June in Virginia. But doesn't this picture look so wonderfully green and shady? One thing we learned there was that the pineapple is a sign of hospitality!

We had the "mandatory" wedding pictures of family. Then, of course, my side of the family began to show their true colors.

This is by far my favorite picture of the wedding. This was taken after the wedding as they were "walking down the aisle." There is so much love and bliss in their faces. And let me tell you, if two people every deserved to be happy and crazy in love, it's these two.

 You've seen these lovely portraits of my son but truly his personality is more like this:

That is my middle daughter with her brother. I cannot tell you how many pictures I have of these two growing up where they are goofing around. There's another in the wedding picture of this daughter and her husband being silly during a family picture, but I'll spare you.

If you want to sum up my son's personality, this picture is pretty representative.

When he calls me when I'm quilting with a group, I let him know I can't talk right now. Then he proceeds to tell me about the quilts he's making. He'll name an actual quilt pattern, like Log Cabin, and tell me he's almost done and it only took 2 days. Whenever I press him about giving me a quilt, he says he gives them all to charity. The goof.

When he texted me about making the DWR the top of the list, I told him since he could quilt he could help me out. He just said that he was too busy making his own quilts!

I can tell you life was never dull around our house when our son was growing up!