cottage garden, a quilt

Linking up with Amanda Jean and  Elizabeth again. 

I've actually fit in a bit of reading this week: Sarah Veblen's Complete Photo Guide to Perfect Fitting,

which I'm borrowing from the library, but think I may need to purchase to have on hand as a resource!

I've told ya'll before how amazing my friend is.

I don't do a lot of gift-giving for birthdays, but I do usually give one to Eva.

And if possible, I like it to be hand-made.

(not that I think hand-made gifts are necessarily better than store-bought,

but gosh, I do like to make stuff more than I like to buy stuff...)

As a bonus, the time I spend working on her gift,

is time I spend reflecting on her and the gift of her friendship all these years,

so it's a win all the way around.

(assuming she likes my gift, that is...)

This year, fresh on my mind when it was time to start thinking about her gift,

was the wedding and reception.

We couldn't have pulled off the reception without her.

Really;

she was a huge help!

Eva loves my kids well; and she loves me well.

So this year, I wanted to make her something extra special.

Something that would remind her daily

that she is loved.

I knew that she liked this quilt pattern, so that was what I was going to make.

I was going to use her living room pictures as inspiration for the fabrics,

but I couldn't actually get my hands on pictures of her pictures....

I went shopping anyways, figuring I'd just pull something together.

Nothing was speaking to me. At all.

I went fabric shopping again, still with that quilt pattern in mind.

Quilting cottons were 50% off at Hancocks, and it was the last day of the sale,

and it was already mid October, so I really needed to get my fabrics chosen.

I grabbed a few I liked, that I thought Eva would like,

but I just wasn't feeling it.

you know how I hate laying out the quilt blocks? This one was giving me even more fits than usual (spent 4 hours total, just on the lay-out. Lame!) blocks were falling off left and right, so I was laying out just a few rows at a time, then sewing 'em up, and pinning them back on the 'design wall'. I had huffing and puffing and sweating and trying to lay out a few more rows and reminding myself just how much I loved my friend, when Lexi came in, clapped her hands together and said, "Oh! My favorite part!"

And something was bugging me just a little;

I wasn't sure I wanted her throw to be for the living room.

I kinda thought I wanted it to be more of a cozy sit in her bedroom with her Bible study quilt

but with some browns, should she want it in the living room...

Then, I saw this fabric

and the rest was history.

Eva loves cottage gardens and English tea-time.

She's a great note-writer and dabbles in calligraphy (or decorative writing, at least),

so I wanted all of that to be reflected in the quilt.

I couldn't see the fabrics I'd chosen working with the pattern I'd planned,though,

so

I scrapped that idea and decided to go with 4" patchwork squares.

Remarkably,

I was able to find almost all of the fabric at Hancocks that day,

including the back and binding,

found one more at Hobby Lobby,

and ordered just a few more text pieces off of etsy a few days later.

I spent a good chunk of my weekend alone working on it, but only managed to get the top pieced.

Monday I pieced the back and Brandon helped me baste it that evening.

I spray basted for the first time.

It was definitely easier than pin basting, but I used about half of a big can of basting spray

which is not cheap (and I thought I'd read that you could baste 8 throw sized quilts with one can?!

and it sure didn't seem like I was using an excessive amout, but maybe I was?)

so I'm not sure that will be my go-to method.

I started quilting it on Tuesday.

And started unpicking a whole bunch of nasty stitches Tuesday afternoon.

I've never unpicked quite so many stitches on one quilt before!

Then I took my machine back to the shop on Wednesday.

(it still isn't quite right. grrr)

The quilting isn't anywhere near perfect, even with all my unpicking,

but I figured if Eva can look past all my imperfections and love me anyways, maybe she could overlook the quilt's?

Saturday ended up being full, and I was only able to put in about 30 minutes on it,

 so on Sunday, I was starting to panic that I wouldn't finish by her birthday.

Which I thought was Tuesday.

Until I happened to see on my computer (on Monday) that Monday was the 12th, not Tuesday.

Which really was fine, since our kids have TKD together on Tuesdays, and I'd planned to deliver it via them.

I worked my poor fingers so hard on Monday to get the  binding sewn on in record time, they're still sore.

But, finish on time, I did ~ around 11:30 Tuesday morning, which gave me plenty of time to wash and dry it

(it shrunk almost 6 inches both ways! gah!) and snap a few pictures, before wrapping it up right before walking out the door.

And then, her kids didn't go to TKD!

So there I was, with this gift I'd worked so hard to finish 'on time' and it hadn't been delivered.

It was going to sit there for two more days, until the next TKD class.

Not acceptable!

At my sweet hubby's suggestion, we all hopped in the car around 8:45 Tuesday night,

stopped at Walmart to buy ice-cream treats,

and showed up at her house a little past 9.

(I did send a text giving her a 10 min. heads-up. I'm nice like that ;-)

Happy Birthday, precious friend. I love you more than words can say!

the nerve

I'm getting a little tired of having to put my money where my mouth is with this one.

For several years,

I've maintained

that when you find the one with whom you want to spend your life,

you ought to just get on with it.

No long courtship and engagement nonsense.

Then

the kid got engaged

and just a few weeks later came to us and said they wouldn't proceed without our blessing,

but they'd prayed about it

and didn't see any reason why they ought not just go on ahead and get married.

In just a few more weeks!

Seeing that I'm nothing if not vocal - he knew what I'd say.

What I'd have to say....

~

I knew something was up when Tony called after 9:00 Tuesday night and said, 

"Can we stop by?"

I mean, Van Buren is not exactly on their way home from work...

Of course, I said, "Sure!"

It's probably worth noting

(at least for me)

that Tuesday was a bad day.

Election aside.

Cycle-wise, it was a very bad, no good day.

So.

 Ton' starts telling us about joining the Marines.

And we started telling him why he ought not do that,

and definitely not now.

He's newly married for goodness sake!

And what about the scholarships  I  we worked so hard to get?!

The kid is getting paid to go to school.

You don't just throw that away.

And why not the Army, at least? Or the Air Force - they get maid service...

And what about deployment?

And death?

And who/what does our military even fight for nowadays anyways?

Then he pulls out the golden ticket.

"I just really feel like its what we're supposed to do. Like I'd be being disobedient [to God] if I didn't join the Marine Corps."

Well. Crap.

Nothing I can say to that one.

It's what we try to train all of our kids for;

to be obedient to the Lord.

I am proud of him.

And I will be happy for him,

but for now, I'm looking at it selfishly 

and I'm just going to miss him.

Dad-gum obedient little cuss.

senior pictures

Saturday, I spent a few hours with Andrew, snapping senior pictures.

I really wanted to go later in the day, but that didn't work out, so we had some pretty harsh sun.

I wasn't overly pleased with my work, but here are my favorites.

I'm hoping maybe we can run out another time or two, spur of the moment, when the light promises to be fabulous. 

But it's pretty hard meeting up with a teenager...

I love this one ~ He'd said, "I know it's kinda weird, and most Seniors probably wouldn't want to take their picture in front of it,
but I kinda want to do one with the national cemetery in the background."
 I took the opportunity to encourage him that what everyone else thinks doesn't matter....
I ended up not being real thrilled with the 'real' shots I got, but after I took them,
before moving on, he turned and just looked at the cemetery for a second.
It being the day before Veteran's Day and all, I got a little misty...

 They may end up hiring Roselle to do his pictures,

and that's fine with me ~ I really don't have a clue what I'm doing

and I don't feel like I got any 'wow' shots,

but I had fun,

and was glad to get to spend a few hours with a great young man.

It made me want - even more than before - to learn my camera.

I can also see why photographers charge so much for senior pics ;-)

My prayer for Andrew is that he will be filled with the knowledge of God's will through spiritual wisdom and understanding.

natural dam

I don't look at sidebars ~ okay, well, once I did, but as a general rule,

nope; I just don't see 'em.

All that advertising is lost on the likes of me.

But.

One day, I happened to see my sister's name pop up on the side bar on facebook.

She'd commented on a picture, so I went and looked at it.

A friend of hers had gone camping near some waterfalls and the pictures were just gorgeous!

And ever since,

I've wanted to go visit some of the waterfalls nearby.

Friday, Tyler had taken the day off 

(he loses his vacation days if he doesn't take them by the end of the year. We usually try to save some for emergencies, 

but in the absence of emergencies, well, he ends up needing to take a few days off still as the year draws to an end)

and the weather was fantastic,

so we just up and decided to take a picnic and head to a waterfall.

I wanted something fairly close (2 hours or so) and an easy hike.

After a quick search,

Tyler had settled on Petit Jean.

Close, but the hike to get to the fall was listed as 'moderate to strenuous' and 2 1/2 miles round trip.

I wasn't sure my foot was up to that.

So he found a smaller, closer one, with no hiking required

and we took off.

We had a fabulously restful time exploring and enjoying all the beauty God created.

Lexi kept saying, "Don't worry about me. I've got this."

That driftwood was heavy! The girls worked together to get it down from the dam. They wanted to bring it home,
but Tyler said we'd just burn it. So we left it. But I loved that they loved the driftwood.

On the drive - Josiah kept calling out that he'd seen a 'rainbow tree' ~ this tree truly was.
There were plum colored leaves, oranges and reds and yellows and greens. I wish I were a better photographer!

The boys were sliding down that big flat rock behind the one they're climbing on. I was just waiting for a crash...

pinwheels in Autumn

This quilt has been a long time coming.

I started collecting fabrics back in February of last year.

I finally acquired enough to suit my fancy 

and cut them all when I went on my lovely weekend away in early August.

(I cut way more than I needed.... shocker ;-)

I started sewing the pinwheels not long after.

I pieced the patchwork squares in late September. 

I finally got it all put together and basted in January of this year.

I started quilting it  right away.

In mid- March, I'd finished hand-quilting in red perle cotton, and moved on to aqua in the red pinwheels.

I finished the quilting, except for the outer border and corner pinwheels in June

and set it aside, again paralyzed with indecision.

I really wanted to enter it in the Bloggers Quilt Festival, so I pulled it back out last week

and decided how I would finish the quilting,

and an hour later, that part was done.

Then I made a scrappy binding, sewed it on by machine, then sewed it down on the back by hand.

Then I remembered I still needed to add the addresses to the 5 verses in the inner border.

So, over the course of a few days,  I did that too.

And last night, I  finished it!

(But not in time to enter it in the festival. pooh.)

It's far from perfect, but I love it anyways.

And I'm so happy to finally be done ;-)

linking up with Elizabeth's with needle and thREAD, (but no reading has been happening ;-)
and AmandaJean's Finish it Fridays