A Sad Day

....today. Going to memorial services for babies is so sad and disheartening. My nephew lost a 10 month old little boy in a tragic accident over Halloween. Curtis and his wife are such wonderful people. They have adopted 4 or 5 children nobody wanted and were just days away from signing the papers to adopt this little guy. My thoughts are with them in their time of sorrow.

Yesterdays Fun....

Every year my cousin's family and mine get together for a picnic in July. We started this after a death or marriage. I can't remember which event prompted it, but seemed we only managed to have the whole durn family together at these two times. This has been 10 or 12 years ago, time does slip away as you get older. In 2000 I got the bright idea to raffle off one of my mothers quilts as all the family would simply die to have one, no pun intended. It went over so well everybody wanted to do it again the following year. Time passed, years went by and my mom said she felt funny letting me raffle off her quilt so didn't want to do it.


Last year 2 months before the picnic a raffle quilt was brought up and were we actually going to do one. The cousins, my sisters, mom and I all dug through our stash and came up with tons of fabric, all ugly.






The end result ..............

a pink/green "Sunshine & Shadows" log cabin.



Time came for the drawing and my GD won it.





Invitations were sent out and 11 of us gathered at my house to start on a new quilt for 2006. My 4 cousins, 5 sisters and Mom all arrived, arms loaded down with quilt books, pictures from past picnics, food, and visions of what they wanted to do dancing around in their heads.



The table was cleared, the pictures came out and what a time we had trying to decide who wore what which year. oooh's, ahh's, lots of laughter, and look at this, look at that before somebody said "Where's all that food, we gona eat or what????"


Stuffed like 11 fat little tics, it was time to get down to business. Books came out, suggestions flew left and right. Finally 3 patterns are selected, voted on with a 5-5 tie, my mom picking one nobody else wanted. Throwing that one out she became the tie breaker. Lots more chatter, changes here, changes there, the pattern doesn't look the same but...WE HAVE A PATTERN!!! It's Dutch, it's a windmill, it has to be B&W. More chatter, more changes, a committee to shop is picked. We're ready now, LQS here we come!!!!

I'm new ......

and what a neat way to keep a journal of your daily comings and goings, meeting new friends with interests that mesh with your own. I'm a quilter who enjoys the traditional rather than the artsy hang on the wall style although they also have their place in the quilting world.

I started this quilt for my Great Gdtr some 5 years ago and finally finished it a couple months ago. I didn't do as much quilting as I had planned, I just got tired of it hanging around and wanted her to have it before she graduated from HS. I guess you could call it an artsy quilt cause it sure ain't traditional by any stretch of the imagination.




This top has been hanging around far too many years and now I am getting it done. It's a kit quilt from way back when and I am keeping to the era by handquilting this one. I'm not very fond of blue and wonder if I will ever put it on my bed. I found it in mother-in-law's attic along with a pile of finished quilts that had seen much use and love. Why is it we don't seem to save that history behind the quilts? As I sit handquilting I wonder who did did this, was it my MIL or her mother. Why wasn't it finished?