time marches on

My mom and Bill are moving Gramma Joyce

into a swanky nursing home tomorrow.

It's time.

It's actually past time;

she probably should've moved a year and a half ago.

Even so,

I feel quite sad about it.

For Mom. 

For Gramma.

For me.

For all of us.

I didn't expect that.

Razorback Fan

Immediately upon finishing

the Block of the Day quilt,

I sat down and drew up a quilt 

that's been in my head for quite some time.

Then I went on a fabric collecting spree.

digging through every box, shelf, bag, and tub

that even might contain a red, black, or gray fabric.

I amassed a ridiculously large pile boxful,

having previously made

a red quilt,

a gray (and black) (with purple) quilt,

another gray (and blue) quilt,

and a black and white quilt,

and, oh, another quilt that heavily featured gray.

I've made a block here 

That churndash in the upper right didn't make the cut. Not enough contrast.

and a block there,

yes! I found the perfect spot for a bit of Jenean Morrison's fabric :-)

and cut background strips

 when I had a couple of decent chunks of time

(I spent 4 hours just cutting all those suckers!)

Once I had my little design wall filled up,

I made a real (expandable!) design wall

and threw everything up on it,

very neatly arranged the blocks on it

and realized - 

I still had a (very) long way to go!

 I made more blocks every chance I got,

and sewed some together with their background strips.

Sometimes I only had 5 minutes at a time,

sometimes an hour or more.

Then I sewed some more blocks,

and some more pieces together,

and here we are,

3 weeks later,

with a finished
one of a kind
Razorback Fan quilt top!!

There are 122 fabrics

and 52 hours (and 46 minutes) represented
in this 66" x 78" top.

That 52:46 doesn't count any of the hours spent 

designing the quilt

(or any of the blocks that I drew up  myself).

It doesn't include the hours spent gathering fabric,

or driving out to Mulberry in search of actual  Razorback fabric.
(which, incidentally, is rather ugly until you chop it up)

that embroidered white patch was commissioned from a friend :-) and the pink razorback fabric is from Stars for a Star :-)

It doesn't include the time spent
prewashing any fabrics that might bleed
(I'm looking at you, ugly razorback fabric!)

or choosing fabrics for each individual block

(it takes longer than you might think)

That big block is an 'Arkansas Star' - I couldn't find one the size I needed,
and didn't trust my maths to enlarge it and get it just right, so I drafted it myself.
It's paper pieced. Foundation Paper Pieced. Y'all know how much I love that 😏

or re-folding the fabric

after I've cut what I need from it

(when you use over 100 fabrics,

and cut fabric for each block as you make it

 that adds up to a lot of folding)

and it definitely doesn't include time spent

standing in front of the design wall,

pondering.

I will say,
I like it better when I don't know
quite how much time I spend on a project 😉
but
Razorback Fan
 will be for sale as soon as I get it finished
so it seemed prudent to keep track.

I'm eager to get to the quilting;
I've already got a pretty good idea
of what I'm wanting to do.

joining Amanda Jean and the other finishers

life, lately

Wow

life is just zooming by, isn't it?!

I admit I rarely feel like blogging lately.

Unless it's a super quick note,

writing a post

and adding pictures

(especially when one's camera isn't working properly

so all photos have to be taken with the phone,

and then sent via FB messenger

to oneself,

and then saved to computer

before being added to blog...)

takes a lot longer than you might think.

It does for me, anyways....

~

I think I'll just go through phone pictures,

and work my way backwards.

Hadley was here on Sunday!

She is getting so big,

and she talks

pretty much non-stop.

We can interpret maybe 20% of what she's saying.

She's a little bit sassy

and a lotta bit sweet.

Friday and Saturday,

we built the butcherblock style countertop 

out of the black walnut flooring we bought

on our last trip to Harrison to get the rest of the oak we needed.

It's so pretty!!

A few weeks ago,

the kids wanted to surprise Dad,

and cleaned out the pool

all by themselves!!

They worked together so nicely,

for several hours,

motivated by the knowledge

 that they were blessing their Papa

who has been soooo busy with work.

They already had it filling up,

when he went out to start cleaning it.

I was so proud of them!

With the new pipes,

 our water pressure is amazing

and we had the pool refilled in record time.

Seeing that we skipped Spring

 and went straight to Summer,

it's already gotten tons of use.

~

I got a clothesline for Mother's Day!!!

And Tyler even added a little flower garden to each post!!

It makes me happy.

~

Our property hasn't gotten much any attention

the past two years,

and it's getting a bit wild,

but man, 

I love it!!

And I feel so thankful for it,

and this beautiful house

and these people

several times a day.

Inside Out, a finished quilt top

So.

You remember how I up and decided

(a month ago today, actually)

that I was going to participate in a Block of the Day,

after Tyler found me a sewing space in the new house??

Well,

I kept up with the 30 blocks

(of course, 

the blocks were all super simple,

so it wasn't too hard)

and then immediately sewed them into a quilt top

after adding in a 3 inch strip of background fabric(2)

to each row.

When Lexi saw it all together,

she said she wanted it.

Considering I'd just posted on Instagram

that the poor girl had outgrown both of her quilts,

and I really had no reason for making it,

except that I needed to sew,

I figured I should let her have it.

Except that at 52.5 x 60,

it wasn't much bigger than the last quilt I made her.

So,

I quickly drew up another 5 blocks

that would go with the other 30,

then dug around for 5 more fabrics

and sewed those blocks up too

and added the row to the quilt.

Then I added three borders,

(making the width of the horizontal borders

just a smidge wider than the vertical borders)

and now,

I've got a  71 x 90 quilt top

for my baby girl

linking up with amanda jean again,
and DrEAMi Sandra :-)