The Happy Quilt

Here it is... all done. I meandered in the center with the birdcages, then again throughout the green border and then I changed and did a straight spiral stitching pattern throughout the second border, then went back to meandering around the final border.

I had one big glitch...as I was meandering my way up the final side of the final border, I felt the machine go over a big lump. "Hmmm, what was that?", thought I. Turned the quilt over and saw the big mess I had made.....somehow, my backing had gotten shifted and I had pleats and tucks EVERYWHERE along that final row of stitching! I thought my brain was going to spill out of my ears all over the table! I had been so careful and pinned so well - how could this happen on my last row? I pulled all the stitching out, repositioned the backing and pressed the quilt sandwich all together again, repinned, and started again. I was able to finish it without a single tuck! Yea!! And my brain stayed completely intact within my skull.

The fabrics and colors still make me happy.

I pieced the back and I love it!! I love the texture that the quilting made on the white background.

Here is where I did the meandering in the green inner border, then straight line stitching in the patchwork border and back to meandering in the final border.

Thursday

I FINALLY finished my "Happy Quilt" tonight!! Though it's too late to get good pictures of it so I will add them tomorrow. I'm really pleased with the way it turned out. So bright and cheery and it's the largest thing I've done free motion quilting on so I'm doubly pleased about that!

The Fabric Shoppe is hosting a giveaway - scrap bundles which equal 2 yards of fabric from the shoppe - Here's hoping I win something! Maybe you can win too - click on over and see some of the great fabric they have - their coordinated bundles make quilt planning so simple!

Saying lots of prayers for this family tonight. I've been following their blog for about 3 years now and their sweet daughter is not doing well at all. I can't even imagine.

Traditions past and present

July 4th - always such a fun day when I was growing up. The tradition I remember I guess from the mid to late 70's was that we would spend the day swimming at the pool of my parents best friends. Because they had a pool and we didn't, that made them really, REALLY rich you know. They had one of them thar ceement ponds complete with a sign that said, "we don't swim in your toilet, please don't pee in our pool." But I digress...

We would spend the day there, the kids swimming and splashing, mom doing the occasional sidestroke/dog-paddle-so-my-hair-won't-get-wet across the pool and dad diving off the side with his rubber nose plug firmly attached to his face. Those were the days of waiting a firm 30 minutes after eating before getting back into the pool lest you become overwrought with the likes of horrific abdominal cramping that drowning was inevitable. I remember while waiting to go back into the water playing an old time plinko machine - you flip a handle and a little metal ball bounces around and you try and win more little metal balls. Ahh...but I digress again.

After swimming, we would head out to Shotwell Stadium, sit in the stands and watch the fireworks. I don't remember as much about that - only that they were loud and I covered my ears with my hands most of the time. I do know that I looked forward to July 4th every year and I think we don't do enough here in the 21st century of making traditions with our kids.

Time is so harried and hurried. July 4th is just another day it seems. For the past 2 years, we've gone to the fireworks downtown, let the kids sit on top of the van and enjoyed the light show against the dark, hot skies of summer. This year was a little different. Abby and I were both sick with a stomach virus (ick) at the end of the week and by tonight, I was feeling much better but still without just a ton of energy and I could see Abby waning as well. We decided to pack ourselves into the van and just trek around Benbrook Lake and see if we could find any large gatherings of people that would indicate there might be some fireworks about to pop. No such luck. We got back towards home and we could see some fireworks out west of Benbrook so we parked in a parking lot behind a church right across from the entrance to our neighborhood. What a great pick that ended up to be - we not only saw the two fireworks shows around downtown Ft. Worth but also a show from Aledo!

Our traditions may not be much, but they are all ours.