Monday, August 27, 2007

Liberated Doll Quilt


My husband and oldest son are really close. They are both outdoor adventurer types and have spent a lot of time together doing outdoorsy things. When Jess moved to Wyoming my husband was lost. All of a sudden he started doing this stuff with a guy he works with who is 20 years younger then him. Kayaking, climbing, you name it they spend there weekends doing this kind of stuff. My middle son who is not interested in any of it started calling this man “Replacement friend”. He hit the nail on the head. My husband was missing my son so much that he just replaced him with a new one. Well “Replacement friend” and my husband have headed West for a couple of weeks. They are going to spend it with my son in Wyoming. He is taking a few days off work to climb one of the Teton Mountains with them. They will then climb others on there own. It struck me as they were pulling out of the drive that we hadn’t even gotten “Replacement friends” full name. So here I run chasing the SUV to get his name and next of kin in case something would happen. I hope they all get along.
This has left us at home with a whole bunch of time on our hands. Mariah and I had a semi-stay home weekend. Our original plan was to be home all weekend, but you know how things never go as planned. First my car broke down so we got that into the garage to get fixed and I drove my oldest son’s car that he had in college and didn’t take with him when he moved. Well it broke down so I spent part of my weekend dealing with vehicles getting fixed. Then my middle boy’s football game was called because of storms on Friday night so we ended up traveling to the makeup game on Saturday. Lucky for us his car was still running. I was able to get the binding on this little doll quilt that I have been working on. It is made from the leftover scraps of a liberated string pieced quilt I had done. I used Tonya’s free hand fans with no hoop to quilt it. These were a little more difficult then the first one I had done because of all the seams involved in this little piece. But it was fun. I love using her fan method on these little quilts. I plan on working on something a little larger next time I try them.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Ode To My Dog


Some of you may remember my “Ode To My Dog” quilt. My good friend Carol got it all quilted for me and I absolutely love it. She did such a fantastic job. If I want the perfect finish for my quilt I just have to give it to Carol as she always does perfection. On top of doing such beautiful quilting she also is a beautiful person. She leads a quilt ministry with her church. You should see the quilts she makes and then donates. I am not talking about sewing some quick quilts up with donated scraps. She is making one of a kind quilts using top of the line fabrics. She even hand appliqués some of them. They are just unbelievable and then she is willing to give them to someone that she has never met before. She is also very active in the Quilts of Valor project donating batting and her beautiful quilting to many quilts. I am in awe of all that she is able to accomplish, of her giving spirit and that she is also able to fit me in to her special place in this world and do beautiful quilting for me. Thank you Carol, I feel lucky to call you friend!
Now a little recap, the quilt is about my yellow lab Bullvye. We almost lost him late last summer to a freak accident. At that time I felt we needed to make record of him in our lives so I made this quilt. It includes 2 kitty’s on the front as he shares our home with Maggie and Zoe. The kitty I am showing is the one I placed on the back of the quilt as his best buddy is our outdoor cat Annabelle. She leads him on a merry chase most days and if he does catch up to her he will just roll her on her back and wait for her to get up and go again. The quilt is made using techniques that Tonya shares on Bonnie’s site.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

C'mon Get Happy


Last night I was able to cross another thing off my list of have to do’s. I saw David Cassidy in concert! I absolutely loved him as a kid. I actually sported a pair of David Cassidy jeans and collected every Tiger Beat magazine with his picture on the front.
When I heard he was going to be at our State Fair I told my sister that we had to go. Of course we were about 35 years late but that didn’t matter. My daughter tagged along also as we promised her that we would take her to the Bucky Covington concert first. He is a country music singer that got his start on American Idol. He was really good. After his show finished we raced over to the Grandstand in anticipation of David. He was fantastic. He knew who was there to see him, Old Partridge Family fans and women of my age and he didn’t disappoint. He sang all of his old hits and all the songs that were hits for the Partridge Family. It sure was a goodtime!