Are you ready for the 4th??
Can you believe it's almost the 4th of July?! July 4th is a big deal at our household--our kid's birthdays are the 2nd and the 6th and there are other family birthdays on both sides that are either the 4th or within a week each direction. Add to the normal family cook-out/birthday cake get together is the fact that we are a family of pyromanics when it comes to fireworks and since we live in the country we get to indulge that urge! (we even put a metal roof on this house when we built it, partially for that reason). So as we gear up for the 4th, celebrating family birthdays and the birthday of our country, I've got some quilt work to do.
I am giving my brother-in-law, John, a Veteran's appreciation quilt that I made--it goes onto the long arm tomorrow morning. John is a Viet Nam Vet (Marine) that fought in nasty places like Khe Song and was welcomed home with the typical (for that time) reception of being spit on, etc. So hopefully he will feel appreciated by this quilt. I even plan to have my daughter do a drum roll when we give it to him--the least she can do for the years of storing her drum kit! And I made a patriotic table-topper with the scraps from that quilt plus an orphan block to deorate the table AND serve as my Quilt Guild 8 point star challenge. It too will go onto the long arm very soon. The goal is to have both ready for a presentation to the local Rotary Club on Wed--keep your fingers crossed on that deadline! Promise pictures of both next blog post.
But today I spent sewing with a friend. I had volunteered to sew a Christmas tree skirt for Jenny at the Lil' Red Hen to showcase her Christmas fabric and because she's not only a fun friend, but has been so helpful to my business. She had the fabric cut and I laid out and sewed the strip sets to use on a bargello type quilt using my 10 degree wedge ruler. Despite lots of customers and friends dropping in, when she closed shop at 5:30, it was all pieced. I'll get it from her after the 4th to quilt, along with one I've made for my nephew's family and of course you will get to see a picture of that, too!
But here is a customer's T-shirt quilt. She had given me 30 shirts for a full size quilt and wanted some back's also used. I managed to work in all except one back, despite the Garth Brooks logo(front and back) being over 16". It also included an embroidered block with the recipient's name and that of his new wife and wedding date (the reason for the quilt). Happy 4th of July and keep quilting!
