Eating some Crow

OK, OK, sometime you just got to admit when you are wrong............

I must admit having looked at the Quilts of Valor initiative with some skepticism...

I mean - SOLDIERS... rough, ready, tough, SOLDIERS....

I just wasn't sure a returning soldier really wanted a QUILT...  I mean, wouldn't they rather have something more macho?  More rough - and-tumble..???  I just didn't get it.

But - my guild is doing a QOV drive as part of our next year's quilt show, so I figured, ok, I'll play along and make a disgustingly-patriotic RWB quilt (I know, that cynicism is showing again :)_

So, I have been working on a QOV quilt - here's the 'body'

 and this is one of the borders, in progress... cool border, huh??  This is a pattern from the book "Scrap Therapy" by Joan Ford.  

 So - ARE YOU READY FOR THE KICKER????

This pattern needs lots of HST's, and I asked DH to draw some diagonal lines on squares for me - and he did (he likes to do that - grin)... then he asked me about the quilt, and I explained QOV to him, and I said "I'm not sure a soldier really wants a quilt when he comes home from war" - what do you think?

And, then, my sweet DH, who was drawing diagonal lines on 3 inch squares, reminded me that he was a Vietnam vet, and that when he returned from Vietnam, some people heckled him and spit on him at the Seattle airport... and he said "I would have really loved to have been given a quilt".

............... and I shut up and went into my sewing room and sewed on the Quilt of Valor.

I plan to attach a little note to the quilt to tell the soldier that a Vietnam Vet helped with this quilt!

Kate

Another Month of Hexagons

Well, my friends - it's a momentous moment in the life of the Great Hexagon adventure!!!!

so - here is the Sept 1 photo....

And you can see I have completed HALF of the quilt completely!!!  In truth, I am much more than half done, but until this point, the outside sections were not done to the halfway point, and now they are!!!!   (excuse that plant part that snuck into the photo )

I am truly exhausted with this thing - it has now become a 'grit your teeth and sew hexagons" moment... 

How many are there, someone asked - WELL I AM GLAD YOU ASKED.

If I stop with this design, and don't put any kind of border on it, it will be approximately FOURTEEN THOUSAND FOUR HUNDRED hexagons.  

Will I add some kind of borders?  I truly don't know... I keep waiting for the quilt to tell me what to do to finish it, and it just hasn't spoken yet...

Well, let me go get busy, I figure I have about 4,000 more hexagons to go...

color me nuts..............completely nuts...................

Kate

Oh What a Great Quilty Day !!!

I played HOOOOOOKY today !!!!


Instead of going to work I took a class with quilt-maker extraordinaire Sally Collins...

oh my my...          

we made tiny little basket blocks...  with 3/8 inch HSTs... 

 this block measures 1 7/8 inch !!!

 This one is 3 5/8ths

 and here's mine, in turquoise and purple, a basket within a basket:

 and this is Sally's little quilt, made around the same block...  wowee, isn't this cool???

and dahlia's are blooming in my back yard...............

Overall, a fabulous day - thanks for the great class, Sally!!!

happy quilting,

Kate

GRAB THE BRASS RING

Well, today I got one HECK of a message... 

You know I have been feeling unsettled about that big 60 birthday yesterday - wondering what comes next, stuff like that... 

Well, DH and I have a special celebration in August, cause his birthday is one day later than mine - great fun!

So today we celebrated by spending the day HERE:

 That's the Santa Cruz, CA waterfront - it's a fabulous, old-style boardwalk, complete with an arcade, fabulous shops, a huge pier, and a wonderful old wooden rollercoaster.

 We ate, walked, people-watched, and then ended up here, at an old, classic Carousel:

 Well, it turns out this Carousel is famous because it's one of only about 25 in the world that has one of these:  Do you see this boy grabbing something from that arm???

 Well, it seems this is where the phrase GRAB THE BRASS RING comes from - at the end of that arm, a little ring slides into place, and the rider grabs it, if they can...  if your horse is down, you can't reach it, if the horse is up, you have a chance...

She got one!!




After you get the brass ring, you are supposed to throw the ring in the clowns mouth...  if you hit
the mouth, lights flash...






OH - OH - IT HIT ME LIKE A BOLT OF LIGHTNING... that's what I am supposed to do next...  GRAB THE BRASS RING...

I so needed to see this and get this message...

hmmm...  I am very excited - and gonna make some plans for what this means... stay tuned!!

What a great birthday this turned out to be..

Kate

CANCELLED

TODAY'S ORIGINALLY SCHEDULED BIRTHDAY IS..........

I'M TOO BUSY DOING FUN THINGS !!!!

KATE

Dreading Friday

OK, somebody kick me in the behind quick... 

I'm having one of those birthdays where the first digit changes... you know, the one from 5 to 6...

Oh Lord, I don't want to have a 6... I truly don't...

I don't want to be a baby,,, but I don't like this............

Is denial a good way to cope? 

Extensive margerita therapy?

Fabric shopping?

Buying a long-arm??

hmmmm........................

Kate

Last Day of My Quilty Retreat - boo hoo

Wow, four days of staying home and quilting, quilting and more quilting, except for a trip out to - you guessed it - the Quilt Guild meeting!

Tomorrow I really must think about work ... and actually go to it too!!!  And an extra-fun trip to the dentist...

But, for now, let's recep all the fun things I did today...

I cut up some scraps for the Quilt Guild charity project...I'll take them back next month, all nicely trimmed into stacks of 5, 4.5, and 2.5 inch squares, as the little instruction card in the bag told me to do!

 Then, because I felt guilty, I worked in my own "crumb basket", where I throw the 'little bits",  and then gradually stitch them into squares of fabric.....

 From that work came some nice 6.5 inch crumb blocks...

Oh, my... I looked at this basket, full of strings... but I closed my eyes and pretended it wasn't there!

 I now have a plan for the remainder of this piece... a 1.5 inch tan border, which I attached today in oversized fashion - I will trim it down and square it up.  Then it will get one more pieced border and one solid border, and it will be finished.  

 The Quilt of Valor got a third row of the eight required.

 And I popped these blocks together - I won them in a lotto... pastels aren't really my thing, but some little girl will love this - have to put one more yellow border on the whole thing. 

So - now it's soon going to be late afternoon, time to tidy up, put away, fold some laundry... you know, transition back to the reality of the workweek.

It's been a great four days... fun, fun!!!

I'm sad to see the Olympics end - it has been great having something decent on tv every night!

Happy Quilting to Everyone...

Kate