out of the blue

Jodi was my very first friend

as an 'adult'.

We were both young moms

with soldier husbands

and we lived just a few miles apart,

on the other side of the world.

It wasn't uncommon for one of us to call the other 

to see what we each had on hand

that we could contribute towards dinner.

Then when our husbands got home from work,

we'd hodge podge it together,

and follow up our shared meal

with a few hands of spades.

We helped each other
celebrate birthdays and holidays,

and our families even went on a few trips together.

We haven't done a great job at keeping in touch over the years.

Neither of us are very good at that,

and there's over a dozen kids between us,

so we've kept pretty well occupied,

but thanks to Facebook,

we've been in contact more lately.

Just before Independence Day,

I was up to my eyeballs

working on a pretty major (for me) commission quilt

(whose deadline was rapidly approaching)

and of course,

we're smack in the middle of building a house

and I got this wild hair 

to make Jodi a quilt.

Now,

I can come up with some crazy ideas,

but when I have a thought that ludicrous,

I generally assume it's not my own,

and I best run with it.

So I sent a quick FB message to one of her daughters

asking what her mom's favorite color was,

and the very next day

I started cutting fabric.

I just *love* a quilt in the sunshine!

We ended up with sick kids on the Fourth of July,
and had to miss out on going to my brother's house,
which was a real bummer,
because it would have been the first time in years
that we've celebrated the holiday with my family,
 - but -
it became 'found time',
and found time is for playing
so I got a free pass to sew with no regrets
and made excellent progress :-)

Except for that one time when I made a couple of mini mini quilts,

I totally miss out on the bandwagons,

and the scrappy trip-around-the-world

was no exception.

I figured that'd be a fun and easy quilt to make,

and it was!

Plus

- hello -

trip around the world??

Totally appropriate.

Since they were all still out, 

I used a lot of the same fabrics

that are in Faith and Freedom,

and then added a bunch more favorite blues from my stash,

including, of course,

some Jenean Morrisons.

only a snippet of that California Dreamin fabric remains. sniff...

I also pulled one special cream fabric from the shelf

-glasses-

as a nod to the fact that

darn it all,

we are both getting old!

I followed the directions

except I cut my strips 3 x 19 instead of 2 1/2 x 15

(although, 18 inches long worked if I was super careful)
and ended up with a 60x75 inch quilt
(before quilting, and a gentle tumble in the washer and dryer)

I used 80 different fabrics,

but instead of being totally scrappy,

I sewed one blue strip on top of two creams,

so that they would create diamonds.

(guess I didn't have diamonds out of my system yet ;-)

It's a fun pattern,

and relatively quick,

and I wouldn't mind revisiting it again in the future.

I wanted to free motion quilt (the same design),

but my machine was being contrary,

so I used my walking foot

which took twice as long
and required a fair amount of wrestling.

I thought briefly about adding some hand quilting,

but everything I came up with would have taken

several hours,

and it is simply too hot

in Arkansas

in July

to hand quilt.

So,

I had to be content with just adding a few stitches to the label.

Because I expect this quilt
to see a ton of use,
I sewed the binding down by machine.
Still not my preference,
but I'm improving with practice.

Jodi once surprised me with a visit,

and now

24 years later,

I am so tickled to surprise her

out of the blue,

with a quilty hug.

Jodi. I love ya!

XO

linking up with MCM at Cooking up Quilts
and Free Motion by the River
and AmandaJean :-)