That’s over!

Sister’s wedding was beautiful:

They said their vows as the sun was going down and the professional photographer was able to get pictures with the sun setting. ( This is the happy couple as taken by my hubby.)  It seemed as though God had his hand in this as everything was just perfect….

So that’s over and the long days of driving are done and I was very happy to be home.  I think I’m still playing catch-up on my rest.  Another nice thing about the wedding was being able to spend some time with my son without the interruptions of his being a husband and father.  With his wife in school and the kids in school, they weren’t able to attend the wedding, but my son flew in and actually escorted his aunt to her groom.  Okay, sorry, as usual I tend to side track…..

While I was gone had some unhappy things going on with friends.  One dear friend’s hubby had multiple strokes and one was considered massive…. QFC (Quilters for Comfort)  is coming together to make a quilt for her husband as he (and she) have a long road ahead of them.  A member of our QFC team has been diagnosed with cancer and the team is putting together a quilt for her.  And one of my very dearest friends has been diagnosed with uterine cancer and will be facing surgery soon.  I’m scrambling to get a quilt done for her prior to the surgery.  Fortunately, the doctor is saying it’s “early stage”.  When I look around and see the trials my friends are dealing with, I’m thankful for just  my sore knees and back….  Life is good and I thank God for my many blessings.

Until next time,

Katie

Not long now….

One more week to go and my sister will be a married lady.  I know you’re probably very tire of reading about it, but I’m so over-the-moon happy for her.  I live across the country and I so often worried about her being alone and not having anyone for her if she should get seriously ill.  Friends are great, but it’s not the same as having someone who lives with you….  Anyway, heading out this morning and I should be getting the last minute stuff done but decided I’d rather drink a peaceful cup of coffee before I wake up the hubs and start issuing ‘orders’.

We decided to rent a car for this trip rather than take our 9 year old 100K plus miles Hyundai.  I wanted to take our 10 year old GMC truck because it only has 65K miles on it, but hubby said no, it needed brakes and the gas mileage isn’t great.  Okay, pick up the car (2015 Nissan Altima) -  it rides very well; get it home to start packing it up – oh crap! smaller trunk than I figured.  I guess thank goodness neither of us have long legs and we will have room on the floor in the back seat!  I don’t know how my parents did it with 3 kids and 2 dogs traveling across country every summer….  I know my sister has said she has some stuff she wants to send home with me, sure hope it’s not a lot.  One of the ice chests we’re taking will stay with her, so guess if it doesn’t take up any more room than that one ice chest, we’re good…

I’m hoping to make a couple stops along the way and visit some quilt shops.  I rarely buy quilt store fabric as I can’t justify the cost of the fabric when it’s being donated for charity, but I still love stopping and looking.

Okay, I’m off and going to get busy… Sorry, no pictures and not really quilt related…

Katie

Never Again!

This was the first and I’m swearing will be the last time I ever make a King size quilt!  My quilting frame will only quilt 84” … it says 90, but that’s the length of the rails.  Put a machine on the carriage and it will not go the full  length of the rails! 

Okay, so I knew this as I have done quilts that were larger.  I knew I could not get this fully assembled quilt on the frame.  I decided to quilt the ‘body’ of the quilt and I knew I would still have to turn it to quilt the side.  I knew I would add the borders after the ‘body’ was quilted.  I had this all planned.  I knew what I needed to do….

What I didn’t know was that when the needle tore a small spot in the backing while I was loading the quilt and I just advanced the backing that it would leave me short on the bottom!  Oh yes, about 4” short to be exact… So off the frame comes the quilt, trim the sides off and use that across the bottom so I can finish quilting the quilt.  So that’s back on the frame to quilt the bottom.  Off – back on the frame to quilt one side.  Off – back on the frame to quilt the other size – oh great!  Nope, not so great… I have a small pleat in the backing.  NO, I did not rip it out.  I love my sister.  She loves me and will understand my patience level at this point is non existent…. and .. it truly is small….

On to the border – oh wait – it’s planned to have a narrow inner border.  This isn’t going to work the way I planned…. Yes it does have the narrow border but  it’s not how it’s usually done.  I stitched the two border pieces together, attached the sides, then attached top and bottom.  The narrow border instead of framing the body of the quilt, goes edge to edge across the top and bottom…    And binding – I used just about every bit of the fabric I bought to construct this quilt so it has a two color binding – I do have a few inches of the dark brown left…..

So here it is – finished at 102” square:

 The pictures aren’t the best, but I hope you get the idea…  It was wet outside and I really had no space large enough to lay this out …  Maybe I can get a picture of the bride & groom holding it up when I gift it to them…

So now I’m quilting the quilts I brought back from Sew Fest.  If I can get them quilted, I will only have to label and bind them when I get back and have them sent off by Nov.  1st..

two weeks from tomorrow and my dear sister will be a married lady – I’m beyond excited for her.. 

Okay enough of that… I hope things are cooling off in your part of the country.  AZ has been a bit ‘warm’ and I’m ready for cool (not cold!) temperatures.  We’ve had more rain than usual this summer and the mosquitos have moved in … I’m ready for them to move out!

Katie who will run along before she gets too chatty about stuff that doesn’t mean squat to anyone else….