College Tour, Binding and a Birthday!

The first picture is Hannah at the hospital in Fort Carson, Colorado in February of 1990! This second picture is my daughter Hannah after we toured UWEC, her soon to be college. She and her friend Ashley are planning to room in the dorms and they picked out a matching outfit to celebrate their new U. The rear end of these pants says "Blugold" but shy Hannah opted to not let me photo that for you! The school colors are Blue and Gold, but the girls didn't go with the traditional stuff because they fell in love with girlie pink. We had a great day touring and I got to know Ashley's mom. We enjoyed a cup of coffee (Carmel latte) together while the girls hiked (and I mean hiked) up the hill. I took some pictures of them there and embarrassed Hannah but hey, I am only going on one college tour with her (I graduated from there and teach there so I definitely didn't need the tour, lol) so I want us to remember it!

Saturday was Hannah's 18th birthday! I cannot believe she has turned 18 on me. Seems only yesterday I was going into labor with her and held her in my arms. She was feisty from the start though and I know she will always do okay in the world which makes me feel pretty good about her going off to college. It will be hard to leave her here and move to Arizona, but I am hoping she will follow in a few years. She likes the smaller town world of here though so I don't know. You can see all that snow out the window behind her, and I can't wait to leave it!

I got the Burgoyne Star quilt back from my awesome longarmer (Jen Bauer in Rice Lake) on Friday and spent last night and this morning finishing the binding. I used a bunch of leftover binding in different colors to make it look even more scrappy. I love how it turned out. My favorite sister Tina in AZ has been having a rough year, many many problems with finances and such and last week two of her dogs escaped her fenced yard and both were hit and killed on Carefree Highway. Last week her son had a major tooth infection and had to get a root canal, then on Superbowl Sunday she fell over a cooler in the dark and hit her face and now two of her teeth need root canals and replacing. She needs any prayers you will send her way that things settle down in her life. I am hoping this quilt gives her a few smiles in this otherwise difficult time. She is an amazing sister and deserves an easier time!

Here is a close up in the afternoon light/dark of my living room. The quilting looks great and I am very pleased with this mystery quilt designed by Dorothy Young. If you want the pattern you can join the yahoo mystery group called "APocketFullofMysteries" and then you will have access to information about Dorothy's designs and prices. I don't think she has a website at this time. I have done several of her mysteries and have liked every one, her directions are clear and she includes pictures which is a real help to me. I have done some other mysteries where I have had a hard time due to foggy directions or bad pictures and I have learned to discriminate whose mysteries I want to join! I wish I had the skill to write a mystery pattern, but I am still trying to learn my EQ5 so I can do a medallion quilt. I will have to post a picture of what I want to try to replicate...big dreams I know!
I forgot to mention I *won* the vote on my yahoo NewQuiltingClub group for favorite finished quilt project of the month with Mac's Love Bead's quilt (from Modern Quilt Workshop)! They posted my quilt top pic on the homepage for a week and will send me some kind of winner blue ribbon block...which I am excited to see! I just joined this group a bit ago so it was pretty exciting for me. I guess it is my first quilt contest and I didn't even realize it!
We have been working hard on the house too. The downstairs bathroom is just about done--regrouting is not a job Kathy or I enjoy. It does look so much better though! Will be posting some pics on that soon. We changed around the living room and rehung just two pictures the other day. I need to get a new loveseat and ditch the old couch since with this arrangement (recommended by our stager) the couch just is too big. We have to ditch the coffee table too but not sure where to put all the stuff that is in it. I need to work on Hannah's graduation scrapbook and all the stuff for it is in the coffee table. More totes here I come I guess.
Randy is coming over and we are going to watch the ProBowl today. Kathy made bbq chicken and potato salad, so I may work on binding my mom's heart quilt and relax a bit!

And My Sister's Decision is...

Here is how it looks after Tina made her decision...now to figure out the border!

Making Progress on Another Quilt

I spent about six hours yesterday (and two today) working on a mystery that I didn't participate in awhile back. I think I might not have been with the group at the time they did it. It was created by Dorothy Young and is called "Burgoyne's Stars" I saw the finished quilts in the photo album and knew I needed to do one with a different color in each block using up some of my quilt leftovers. I think this one will go to my sister Tina in AZ. She used to have an Irish Chain quilt I made (way back before I knew what I was doing) that fell apart on me so I passed it on to her. She can't find it and always talks about how she wishes she could find it. So I am hoping she will like this one since it will be similar when it is done. Here are the three completed blocks I have so far--the rest of the blocks are about half together...they are huge blocks!

Mac (my 15 year old son) went skiing with the church group and Randy and I went to help my aunt and uncle move across town. Wore me out and killed my back even though I tried hard not to lift too much. Came home all excited to quilt, but my get up and go went fast so I think I may save the next six blocks for tomorrow...usually when I get closer to the end I can't stop, but I am ready to head to bed with a book (and it is only 10 my time hahahaha!)

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