october is almost over

hey everyone! remember this quilt top? you don't? it was toooooo long ago? yeah, i know it was more than 2 years ago and it's been hanging in my studio closet ever since then... at first, it was so big and i didn't machine quilt at all, so i didn't feel like hand quilting it at the time. plus, i was working on QOVs and trying to do all these swap blocks and bee blocks that i just didn't have the time either. then, i changed the backing fabric from a pale yellow solid to a plain white muslin (nice and traditional). then it just sat.

until....

tia bought her longarm. you may remember that i've gotten a few of her campfollower bags over the last few years. i loooove them. i carry my very first bag around with me everywhere from the instant i opened the box. anyhoo... she was offering her services and i took her up on it. tia does such a lovely job quilting the bags and pouches, that i knew i wanted her to quilt my bed quilt. plus, it saved me from quilting it and sped up the process of getting it on my bed.

i finished up the binding two nights ago and took it out of the dryer last night:

i LOVE the quilt on my bed. so does the cat.

it was late when i got home from the library so i couldn't take it outside for good photos. there's a "warm" glow that alters the colors from my fluorescent lightbulbs (good for energy savings...bad for color photography...). but you can see bits and pieces of the vines and feathers that tia quilted into the coins themselves and the organic lines that i wanted to do if i quilted it.

so far, this is my only finish for the month. i've been busy - stitching hexagons together during lunch breaks and scout meetings, slowly piecing together the dr. seuss quilt for boo, piecing together string blocks for a bastrop wildfire victim quilt and just going crazy i guess. at least i have one thing done and off my ever-growing list of things to work on. and i got to snuggle under it last night while i slept.

60 years and counting

today, i am wishing my grandparents a very happy 60th wedding anniversary!!




isn't her dress amazing?! the train was so long, the photographer couldn't capture the entire thing. if it was fully shown, there would be about 2-3 more feet of train below what is in the photo. 47 1/2 years after their wedding, i cut into that glorious heavy silk satin (the real deal, no synthetics) and made my own wedding gown for my 1st wedding. i used HALF of the train and my dress included a little chapel length train itself. i also took some of the satin covered buttons and a few of the new-fangled plastic orange blossoms and used them on my jacket and train. we had to clear the living room furniture out and spread just the train diagonally across the living room just so i could pin and cut my dress pattern.


51 years later, some more remanents of the train, along with more buttons (this thing had something like 50 buttons) and made a very traditional christening gown for my son to wear, plus any future children in the family.

i embroidered an anchor cross on the front - symbolic for the church and because my now ex-husband was a mariner himself - and my son's initials inside the hem. there's a bonnet that matches, but my sister got me an heirloom hankie bonnet, which is what boo is wearing in the above photo. since then, both of my sister's children have worn the christening gown for their own baptisms and i have embroidered their initials inside the hem as well.

so, after 60 years of marriage, my grandparents are still holding hands and driving each other nuts. i had the joy of celebrating their 50th with them, my family and their closest friends. this year, there is no party as my grandfather is recovering from a broken back and surgery and my grandmother doesn't move around well either. but that doesn't mean that we're not celebrating with them... they've been flooded with anniversary cards - 30 -40 or so as of yesterday, my mother and i have arranged for their neighbor to deliver dinner from their favorite italian restaurant and flowers will be delivered and set up by the florist in their dining room. both of which are a surprise til this afternoon.

of course, my grandmother knows something is up... but can't get my mom or i to let out any hints.

i can only wish for another 56-ish years with my hubby. of course, a man who does this...

can stick around...

as heard around my house...

last night on the way home from the Lego store, i told my son that i had an appointment to see miss c for a long-awaited haircut. he was ok for a moment...but when i said that i might go short again, he told me that "it's against the house rules." i loved that. he kept trying to convince me that i was not allowed to cut my hair short, that snappy wouldn't like it, etc. for the record, snappy already said that he really likes this haircut and that i'd look great:


it's not so different from two years ago when i "had" to cut my hair off - just fancy styling and a prettier face... it was the first time either snappy or my son had ever seen me with hair quite that short, even though the top/front/bang area was quite a few inches longer than the first few times i'd hacked it off. but still, boo kept saying no and i finally had to call miss c so she could get a few words in. long-time friend and my stylist, she tried to tell boo that too bad, he didn't have a license, so he didn't get to decide either.

i'm still debating on whether to trim it back to my "normal" length with some funky style to let the crazy curls come out better, or to take a good 8-10 inches off. while the longer hair has been great for ponytails and pigtails and braids, that's all i want to do. my hair has it's own mind and right now, it's telling me it doesn't want to be long. if we keep it long, it needs a dramatic style change.

on to non-hairy things...

last week, i got to open this box:

tia, of tia curtis quilts and the infamous camp follower bags (of which my house owns a few), used her brand new-to-her longarm to quilt up my coin quilt. there are swirls, organic lines, leafy vines and feathers all over my bed quilt. i LOVE it. my MIL was visiting and had my studio occupied with her bags and stuff, so i didn't get to work on the binding until this weekend. the binding is a pale solid yellow and last night i started the handstitching part of it. one short side down... three more to go.

we adore the duvet cover my other in-laws bought us for a wedding present, but we both felt we needed something else. something that i made. especially since most of my quilts are given to other people. i know i'd like to snuggle under a handmade quilt each night! when we opened it up after taking it out of the box, the quilt instantly brightened up the room. the quilt is step one of redoing our bedroom, although we have a long way to go before we actually redo anything else in there. like bathtub replacement, kitchen revamp, new floors around house...

houston is finally seeing a break from the ridiculous heat. it was about 82 degrees for our high yesterday and it's in the low 60's in the morning. how glorious! now...if only we could have a usual october and get some stinkin' rain!! at least with the better temps, i can start doing painting and stripping of paint and all around the house. slowly...the shoulder is still aching from my dining room paint weekend 2 weeks ago.

and - a couple more weeks til the texas clay festival, then a couple more and international quilt fest!!