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Back in July I told you in this post about the Black and White and One Other Color Challenge quilt I was working on. At that time it still needed borders but now it is a finished quilt.
My friend Angela at Quilted Joy machine quilted it for me and did a beautiful job as always.
I can't wait to give this one away. It's for someone special, but I won't tell you about that until much later. Don't want to ruin the surprise.
This weekend I made five more pillowcases towards my 50 Pillowcase Goal for St. Louis Children's Hospital. That makes twenty, so far!
I'm sure my friend Gloria will especially appreciate the hippo fabric. It's from the Jungle Buddies line by Blank Fabrics . The last time I blogged about pillowcases she told me I need to make more with hippos on them.
Well, this year is winding down and I haven't completed as many UFO's as I had hoped to. Hopefully I can get another one or two finished before the holidays!
The first quilt I blogged about was Grant's quilt. It had a really cute monkey print on the back, so since Grant had a baby sibling coming soon I started his/her quilt thinking that I would use whatever was left of the monkey print on the back. I found a Whirligigs tutorial at Turtle Hill Quilter and chose a bunch of brights to use. (Not surprised, are you. What can I say? I love brights!)
The instructions were well written and saved me having to buy another special ruler.
This is what your block ends up looking like if you forget to stack your fabric right sides up.
Don't do that!
Now who could resist such beautiful brights? No pastels for me!
I used each of the fabrics once in the border, then hand-quilted it.
This is the back. I didn't have much monkey fabric left, after all.
I had fun with the binding. I just had a little bit of this frog print left from making pillowcases so I used it for binding, and you can see little frog eyes if you look for them. Grant might have fun with that.
Now, I really want to do some serious bragging. Being math challenged I have trouble making the right amount of binding. I can measure the four sides, add them up, figure out exactly how many strips to cut for my binding, check my math, and still have THIS MUCH binding left over when a quilt is finished.
When I made the frog binding, I only measured and figured once, and I only had THIS MUCH binding left.
I was so excited I almost did a happy dance. This has never happened to me before. It probably won't ever happen again, so I had to share.
I know, right?!?!?
This year it was Barb's turn to plan our trip, and we all decided it was the best one yet! She booked our weekend at the Great Wolf Lodge in Kansas City the weekend of The Renaissance Festival. The lodge has a humongous indoor water park.
Hubby couldn't believe it, but my sisters talked me into going down one of those crazy slides! I was terrified, but I have to admit it was fun. And, NO they could not get me to do it twice!
Saturday morning I stepped into the bathroom while Dee Dee was showering and said, "I'm just taking a picture of you to put on FaceBook." You should have heard her scream when the flash went off!
This is how Barb puts her makeup on when there is only one mirror for five people.
I had bought T-shirts for us, but ordering online makes it difficult to get the right size and they were way too big. We all decided they would make better PJ's so Carol modeled one for me.
None of us had been to a Renaissance Festival before and we loved it. You do see some interesting people there!
It was not always easy to tell the customers from the performers.
Even so, the costumes were great.
The fairies were especially cute!
Debbie and Barb were flirted with.....
.....Dee Dee braved a snake around her neck.....
.....Carol did some shopping.....
.....and I got a cute shirt that totally fits my personality. (It's hard to get a picture of yourself when you are the resident photographer!)
Five hours was not enough to see everything, but we gave it our best shot before we were totally worn out. That night we ordered pizza for dinner and played cards in our room. I really do "heart" my sisters!
You can see more photos on my Flickr page if you aren't already tired of us!
One would think that I went from losing my sewing mojo to losing my blogging mojo. Not so. "Life is real" as they say, and lately it has been incredibly busy. I've had more than one reason to be so far behind in my blogging. I apologize to my tens of followers!
The grands have kept me busy for sure. I cannot complain about that, though, because I love it! I have been baking and cooking with Gavin...
...doing all kinds of fun things with Aidan...
...going to Noah's Cross Country meets...
...and planning a week-end-long celebration of Hubby's 60th Birthday!
(And in case you are wondering, yes, he is older than I am!)
I just finished a wool scarf for a soldier in Afghanistan, a group project that my Tuesday Night Knitting Group is working on.
I have also been very involved in the Newcomers Club of Greater Huntsville where I joined a Book Club, Learned to Play Euchre and all kinds of other fun things. I'm making new friends through this group and Huntsville is feeling more like "home" every day.
Since the last time I blogged I also spent the better part of a week in bed with bad allergies, kept Gavin and Aidan while their daddy was out of town, and spent two weeks without my computer when it was at the Apple Store being repaired. (See? I really do have good excuses. Ummm, I mean reasons!)
I have managed to throw together a quilt from leftover Yellow Brick Road blocks and hand-quilt it.
I think it's the perfect quilt for my newest great-nephew, Noah!
This week I finished up five more pillowcases for Children's Hospital in St. Louis and I am right on track to meet my goal of fifty by next June!
This is what fifteen pillowcases looks like!
Last but not least, the 9th Annual Wagener Sisters Get-a-way was last weekend. But that is a subject for a whole 'nuther post!
