Joseph and Grandpa
Joseph and Sophie get acquainted
I think Joseph likes his quilt!
Yep - I think this is the seal of approval!
Uncle Jeremy is reading the story of Noah's Ark to his daughter Sophie and her new cousin Joseph. They are only 33 days apart in age. We hope they will be great friends and playmates as they grow up.
Our little guy is finally home and adjusting well! It's very hard for Grandma to stay home and let them bond into a little family of three - I want to be over there cuddling him all the time! He's such a happy little guy - with a smile that lights up the entire room. All three of them are tired - not at all surprising! The trip to Guatemala and back was certainly stressful for Rick and Rebecca so neither of them slept well. Trying to negotiate through LAX when no one seemed to 
be able to tell them where they should be - trying to find the proper gate for their LAX to Guatemala City connection and learning the name of the airline was entirely different than what was listed on their itinerary - standing in line forever at immigration and almost missing their flight home - having their luggage miss the flight home - bad airline food - no wonder they were tired and stressed! I think of the three of them it was the least stressful on Joseph. However, having so many new relatives all wanting to cuddle and hold him immediately was hard on the little guy - and he let us know when he'd had enough.
I finished quilting Joseph's quilt this morning and put the binding and the label on this afternoon. Now it just needs to be washed to remove the quilters chalk and it will be all ready for the little guy. Guatemala's part of the process is now complete - they have received both his birth certificate and passport. The remaining steps are all U.S. Embassy steps which - hopefully - will be completed in the next 4-5 weeks. I just can't wait to get my grandma hands on this precious little boy!
I've had quite a few people comment since I first mentioned the drawing - problem is that I have no way to identify or contact some of you. So . . . in order to be eligible for the give away I need to be able to contact you via email. If you have your blog set for "no reply" or if you don't have a blog at all, then click on the link to my profile and send me a private email with your full name. Good luck everyone!
Tonight was the first North Star Quilters "Sew Along". Our little guild has had four "Sew Frenzies" a year - one every quarter - since before I joined. At the last one there were a lot of comments from people wishing we got together more often to sew. Thus we decided to have a "Sew Along" half way between each "Sew Frenzy". Both happen Friday nights from 6:30 until midnight - though we very rarely make it that late. There is usually always a planned activity for the frenzies, and a potluck dinner. We decided for the new days we'd work on whatever we wanted, and have dinner before we came. 
We had 9 turn out tonight, which is more than have made it to the last several frenzies.
twice if not more. The good news is that I did find the perfect outside border in my stash, and the top is now done. Nothing was accomplished on the mile-a-minute blocks as I didn't finish the baby top until after 10:30. By then most everyone was packing up. At least I got exercise toting the rest of the stuff back and forth from the sewing room to the car - three times!
Last night I finished the last two blocks of Joseph's quilt. These are the two heart blocks I had to do over because the hearts were fused on in the wrong direction. I don't have the sashing strips cut out yet but I couldn't resist laying them out to see how they look. I really like the way it all fits together! The rest should be easy - except for one thing. In my entire stash it doesn't appear that I have a good fabric for the outside border. I'm hoping when I get the rest of it together that I'll find something that works. I really wanted to make this entire quilt from stash.
I've been plugging away on Joseph's quilt when I've not been upstairs quilting. I think this quilt must be jinxed. I'm not sewing things together wrong like I did with Sophie's quilt - I'm not reading directions correctly to start with! Every mistake concerns the same part of the quilt - the red strips with blue hearts. First I cut blue strips and red hearts. Whoops! Too much blue. Next I cut red strips but cut them all too narrow. So 
I recut the red strips and used every remaining scrap of the red fabric. I cut blue hearts and fused them on and figured I was finally in good shape. That was way last month. Since then I've done the blanket stitching on all four animals and the sun block. I started blanket stitching the hearts on Friday night during the Mariners game and finished two of the four strips. I couldn't believe it when I looked at my progress on Saturday morning. One of the red 
strips was the wrong length. And I'd fused all the hearts going the same direction. Oh dear - two red strips are sewn vertically on each side of the duck block - my hearts are laying on their sides! So now I have to choose a different red from my stash, cut new strips and new blue hearts and fuse them again. And of course Murphy's law was in effect - one of the pieces I'd already blanket stitched was wrong. At least it wasn't both of them! I've got all my fingers and toes crossed that this is the last mistake I make on this quilt. I'm not crazy about the bunny's nose - that's the way it's done on the pattern - but after all the rest of my troubles I'm not changing it!
This morning I had to have Shadow at the groomers at 8:00 so it was a short night. I sat in the car working on Joseph's quilt. Usually it takes about 90 minutes but today they'd overbooked so it was almost 3 hours! It got REALLY hot in the car but I refused to leave - I knew if I did so I'd head right to the quilt shop down the street! So Saturday morning coffee with my daughter was more like noon time coffee, but at 
least I got another block finished. This one represents the kids' cat Mara, named after Luke Skywalker's wife. I couldn't find a gold and white fabric I liked so I compromised with this. At least it has her pink nose! (In her portrait Mara is laying on the quilt I made for Rebecca when she went off for college. She picked out the colors and fabrics - her tastes are very different from mine.)
I need to get a UFO done this weekend also so I don't have to pay a penalty at guild on Thursday. I thought I could quickly finish quilting the one on the longarm but I ran into problems. It's a round robin that I'd hoped to have quilted for Easter - that didn't happen! Unfortunately the person who added the four large triangles when she put the center on point didn't measure 
too well. Two of them quilted beautifully but the other two are WAY too full. If I quilted them this way there's be tucks all over that part of the quilt. So I took it off the machine so I could carefully take out a couple seams and take the fullness out of the pieces. I'll have to stitch it back up carefully by hand because all the borders outside the triangles are already quilted. My goal is to finish that tonight so I can get it back on the machine tomorrow morning and finish the quilting. That will leave only the binding and the label - which I hope won't take too long. I have four charity quilts to quilt for guild too, and I'd like to get at least one of those done before Thursday.
I'd forgotten how much I enjoy this kind of appliqué - fuse the shapes and blanket stitch by hand. I used the "doughnut" method of fusing so there is only about 1/4" fusible all around the outside of the shape. This holds the piece in place but assure the quilt remains soft and cuddly. I usually always match the embroidery thread to each piece but when I tried using white on this block I just didn't like 
it. I switched to black and decided immediately that I liked it much better. This is a quick method of appliqué - the block was done in about 3 hours.
One of my UFT's - Rosewood Cottage - is this kind of appliqué. The whole top is finished except for the bottom border and a bit of blanket stitch on the left border. When I finish Joseph's quilt maybe I'll get out this top and finish it. It shouldn't take too long.
Now that our kids are back from Guatemala and we have seen lots and lots of still pictures as well as video of our grandson Diogenes, I figured it was time I really got started on his quilt. I pulled a bunch of fabrics last weekend - as many primary and secondary crayon box colors as I could find in my stash. I was very surprised to find that there weren't all that many! I pulled a few more last night and started on the blocks.
Just a short post to let you know I'm still here at home, but am finally starting to feel a bit better. I slept half the day yesterday so I couldn't go to sleep until after midnight last night - so of course I slept in until 10:00 this morning. Still trying to wake up!
