pam's earthly quilt

before she moved away from us, my mother-in-law picked out a lovely selection of solids, earthy batiks and a neat stripe to tie them all together. she wanted a simple design of square blocks for her brand new guest room, which she hadn't seen at the time, but my father-in-law had put together while waiting for her to finish retiring.

i started work on the quilt during 4th of july weekend. things were slowed down a little with this trip instead...

my MIL has come to visit us for a week and i knew i needed to get it finished before she got here so she could take it home to north carolina with her. that goal was accomplished and this is how it looks!

and some detail of the all over stipple i did in the variagated brown/tan thread:

the thread was a complete nightmare though. 3 of the 4 spools were defective in some manner; thread breaking (not due to tight tension or wrong sized needle), thread peeling and not being able to quilt very long (say, an inch?) with spool 3. the first spool had a few issues, but i managed to do ok. the second spool was wonderful without issues. the third... i hate. i don't want to talk about the third spool. the fourth spool was better than the third, worse than the first, but managed to get more quilted on it. then the third spool had to come back out since there was so much breakage and waste, i needed the extra.

i haven't mentioned it to my MIL yet. she'll eventually see the mess on the back - it's not obvious until you get to one side of it and you see little clumps here and there. i think once she washes it when she gets home, it'll be better looking.

and i need to give a HUGE shout-out to my favorite redhead. today is boo's 9th birthday and i love him dearly. now...just how to figure out how to keep him from growing more...

can i take a nap now?

i had a very, very busy weekend and i'm glad it's over. although, i'd rather sleep tomorrow than go to work.


on friday, i was annoyed at all the junk in the garage and the fact i couldn't find my painting stuff. so, snappy and i started cleaning it out and getting rid of all the junk and putting the camping supplies in their huge storage tubs again. i cut my leg on the bucket of tile pieces that we unearthed - be careful around cut tile... it'll make a nasty jagged cut when you just barely bump it. somehow, most of my painting supplies went missing and i had to buy them all again, but we did find the dining room paint that i purchased a while ago, but couldn't do with my bad shoulder.


while snappy kept working on the garage, i ripped out the old caulking in boo's bathroom. my MIL is coming to visit this week and boo was with his dad - perfect timing. i also worked on stripping more of his bathroom door and trim that he started.

and then i got to some serious work on the wall. while the paint was drying, i worked on the bathroom and replaced some worn out items for him.

by the end of the weekend, this is what i got to see:











the fruits of my labor were worth it!!! of course, the garage isn't finished, but it's SOOOO much better than it was. we have clean carpets, the tile and worn out linoleum has been washed and we have more color in the house. i love it.

it's moving along and coming soon!

this winter, some of my contacts with the navy approached me about making a QOV to enter in a wounded warrior art exhibit that would be in a brand new DoD building in the washington, d.c. area. at the time, i was a few weeks out of my shoulder surgery and still completely immobilized... no sewing was happening for quite some time. they had a backup plan and that plan worked.

the opening ceremony has been delayed from mid-august, to october to early november. the first press release is here and it tells a little background of two artists and some of the program. i didn't know before, but the DoD only selected 12 pieces to be displayed within 2 floors of this new building. the quilt is mentioned (i'm not, but that's completely ok! these two are more important to the story and history).

so now my travel arrangements are being made and i should know something "soon" about that. i'm taking my mother with me to the opening ceremony - who better than the person who taught me to be kind, generous and artistic?

some help for the littlest wildfire victims!!

my sister fowarded me this info a little earlier this morning and i'm definitely going to help out. can you?

http://futurecraftcollective.com/2011/09/what-we-can-do/

the modern day quilters at valli and kim quilt shop are hosting a quilt drive with the hopes to have a handmade quilt for every child who has lost their home in the texas wildfires - especially those in the bastrop area, which is just down the road from them.

the fires have started popping back up in the greater houston area, where i live, as well. thankfully, they have not been to the level of destruction that bastrop is suffering and i continue to pray that we see a little spot of rain and that the winds stay calm enough that the firefighters can do their job as well as they possibly can.

so if you can help out, even just a little, please check out the most up to date information with modern day quilters. if you want to make some blocks and have me put them together, i am more than happy to do that too. just send me a message or leave a comment and i'll give you an address to send the blocks.