Patriotic Baby Quilt Finished

The quilt is in the dryer, and Lord willing, will be delivered on Wednesday night. I have really enjoyed making and giving baby quilts.

Upward and onward...

~Joan

Not Enough Hours in the Day

There has been so much going on around our house. Too much to even tell about, so I'll recap the last few weeks...

After getting back from my parents' house, my husband, our two youngest children and I went to Florida for a week. A couple days after we arrived home, four of our children arrived home from PA with a mountain of dirty laundry. (my nose wrinkles just thinking about it). Then two of my girls drove back to where we had been in Florida to visit the same family we had just left! They stayed for a week. While they were gone, I frantically painted our shutters, doors, and house and stained our deck in preparation for Steve arriving (I don't think he was looking at the house!). My husband helped me one day. That. is. monumental. Here he is in action...in the last picture you can see where the deck is stained and where it is bare wood.

The day after the girls arrived home, the young man (Steve) they went down to visit flew up here to stay for a few days. He left for 24 hours during the visit to see a friend graduate from Marine Officer Candidate School in Quantico, VA. While he was gone we kept some children overnight whose grandmother is in the hospital and needs 24 hour a day help. Steve arrived back here (yippee), and we continued visiting with him. By the time he left, he was officially courting our second oldest daughter. Smiles all around. He missed his flight Sunday night, so I got up at three on Monday AM to get him to the airport. Airports are very eerie at that time of the AM. My oldest daughter arrived home Monday night after being in CO for six weeks. Today we just regrouped. The end. For now.

I just listed two quilts on eBay. Here they are. Click the button for auctions to the left if you want to bid on them.

In a few days, I'll have two daughters commuting to college, both working as many hours a week as they can, we will start our home school year on Monday, and Steve wants to fly up every weekend. Pray for me!! I'm in overload, and the button to reset my stress level just flew off.


~Joan

Quilting of Patriotic Baby Quilt Started

I have had this top pieced for years. It was made from leftovers from one of Bonnie Hunter's pineapple blossom quilts. I wanted to try the tilted look with blocks, so I used red on the mainly blue blocks and blue on the mainly red ones. I will show the whole quilt after it is finished. I am trying to finish up quilt tops I have more than piece new ones. Yea--we'll see how that goes.

Here is a blue surrounded with red. I am quilting with stars and loops because of the patriotic colors.


Here is a red with blue surround...

And a larger section of the quilt just to show the design. That is my sewing machine in the right bottom corner. Off for more laundry and hopefully more sewing...after lunch is prepared.


~Joan

Border Selected--Quilt Quilted

I finished quilting Ethan's quilt. Here it is below. I happened to have lime green variegated quilting thread. How fortuitous is that? I just did a simple cross-hatching through the green squares.

Here's close-up of the border fabric. I think it nicely frames the quilt, being dark and all. Lots of lively colored squares. I had the perfect size remnant...trimmed it right at the selvage for the second set of sides. Whew--that was close!

All I need to do is put on binding and sew it down.

I am going to sleep with the scent of laundry detergent and dryer sheets permanently embedded in my memory. I did 12 loads of laundry today. Susanna didn't want me to do hers. I asked her when she got up at 5:30...PM...hahaha...


What a day!


~Joan

Mt. Never-rest is About to Blow & New Baby Quilt

Four of my children got home from a mission trip this AM about 4:30. They each had 10 days' worth of dirty laundry. They did painting/construction work much of the trip. Stink about it. Uuum--I mean *think* about it! I got up at 8 and have been doing laundry ever since. I am halfway through with 2nd child's laundry. Thank God for a fantastic washer and dryer!

One reason I appreciate the functioning appliances is that our vacuum broke yesterday in the midst of a whole-house vacuum extravaganza. I can't remember where we bought it or when, but I need to investigate SOON so we can get it repaired.

While in Florida last week, I decided to make some new friends a baby quilt. The baby is due in less than a couple weeks. Their nursery is light lime green. I am resolved to avoid buying any fabric for I Spy quilts unless absolutely necessary. I found a piece of light lime green mottled fabric in my stash, so I used that for this. Still deciding on border fabrics. I had the novelty prints already cut into 4-1/2 inch squares, so I cut the green and pieced this this AM.




I feel like my life has suddenly escalated to supersonic speed. We have never in all our born days made so many trips and done so many things as we have the last couple months. We just got home from a week in Florida (12-hour trip one way) on Wednesday night. Four of our children just got back from Philadelphia this AM. Now, two of the girls are going BACK to Florida to visit the same folks we just left. All I can say is, "I with I could go, too!!" We are watching three boys starting Wednesday until I don't know when, so I suspect I would be missed. But I'd love to go back.

More laundry, more sewing, more cooking, more everything!! My life is full!

~Joan

OPNP Update and Batik Baby Quilt Finished!

Last night, I sewed for a while to relax. I pieced a few more blocks for my NPOP (Nine-Patch One Patch), using up scraps from the plethora of fabric from my sister. So far, so good...

I also finished the quilting on this batik baby quilt. I meandered in the cream with cream thread, then did a three-loop free form shape in each of the triangles, with a larger one in each corner.

Here is a close-up of the corner. This was washed and dried this morning, ready to be delivered in a little while.

Have a blessed day. My own heart is heavy on behalf of my son, who is having a lot of emotional turmoil right now. I pray he rests in the Lord.

~Joan

Home, Sweet Home

We are finally home. I must say, I thoroughly enjoyed our visit in Florida. Well, there was one rough spot for our son, but very nearly thoroughly. Below is our hostess (hi, Kila!!) and her son. This was at a picnic on Bear Lake our last night there (sniff, sniff).

The very first evening I was there, I learned that Kila is a beginning quilter. Need I say more? Like twins separated at birth! She is nearly finished hand-piecing a beautiful queen-sized quilt. I forgot to get a picture of it! What was I thinking? We got along swimmingly.

Speaking of swimming, here are my two youngest at the beach. They didn't see any oil from the recent spill. I heard that some of the Pensacola beaches were affected, but not this one!

The sun is so BRIGHT there. I was graduated from a college in Pensacola, so I actually did live there for four years. Now I recall why I was always squinting in pictures from 1984-1988! This is taken from one bridge to the other on our way back to the Bryans.

This picture was taken on the Naval Air Station base at the museum. My handsome hubby is on the left, then Josiah, our son James, and Steve. James is working full-time at the college he attends. Steve is a new friend :) If you get the opportunity to visit the museum, I would highly recommend it. So good to spend some time with Josiah!!

I have had a typical home morning...woke up at 4 AM (just gained an hour on the way home, so why does my body think I need to be awake at 3 AM??). Couldn't go back to sleep, so I woke Wes up to see if he was having trouble sleeping--hahaha...

Started laundry. Thanks to Kila's generosity (did some laundry at her house the day before we left), I only have a few loads to do from the whole week. Started machine quilting a baby quilt for a baby born last week. Planning meals, shopping lists, etc., etc. Welcome home, Joan!

I think we need to stay home for months since we've been gone so much this summer. Whew--I barely recognize the place.

So glad to be home, but also so sad to be away from our Florida friends already!

~Joan