Road to California in rose and pink

Just a short note before I head to bed. Here is block number 2 of Jamie and Jeff's Road to California wedding quilt. This duo tone thing worked out so well that I am revamping square number one to coincide. I have already ripped it apart once, might as well do it again!


And a final note tonight, as you may recall (or may not) my day job is as Museum Shop Manager at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art here in Greensburg where we live. The holiday season is fast approaching and I invested in a good pair of cross trainers in black from Dr. Scholls, just for the crazy days leading up to Christmas. Black so I can pass them off as regular shoes. Purdy, huh??

From sea to shining sea ...and the mountains

I have not been blogging for awhile as I have been quite busy with many things, some of them quilting related. Here are the ocean waves and the mountains around San Francisco which, depending on the season, are golden brown or green. This section makes up the left hand side of Jamie and Jeff's wedding quilt (now almost 4 years late). This will be another attempt at an art quilt and the name is "Road to California." My next endeavor on this will be the three different versions of the actual block called "Road to California." Stay tuned for updates.

The third quilt and the nephew arrives

As promised, here is the third quilt. I think it is some version of a compass quilt and the material is men's shirts. It is pretty big, a full or twin size and it is in excellent shape, only a few spots and worn fabric. I love it!

Also, Nic has arrived for his visit with us. We had a wonderful barbeque chicken dinner and then a great night together - many more to come!

We are back from California, one quilt lighter then three quilts richer

A word to the wise. After the age of 55, never take a redeye home from the West Coast that includes three different flights. I am and was exhausted with our 18 hour trek home. But now we are back again and I find myself at loose ends with no urgent quilt project going. I will take a short hiatus and then dive into Jamie and Jeff's wedding quilt with a goal to finish it by Christmas when we head out to California again!

One of the great things I did get to do in California was visit "Paris Flea Market" with Jamie's mother-in-law, Pat, one of Wyatt's other grammas (he has three) and there I lucked upon three beautiful quilts, which I bought, of course. In this post, I have shown you two of them. The third one (and the best of the bunch) I will photograph tomorrow and post. It is in the washer getting cleaned up. The first one above is a version of Birds in Flight and it looks slightly Amish. Very small, measures about one yard square. I bought this one for $28 at Pat's booth.

The second one, pictured below is a yo-yo quilt about 5 foot by 4 foot in blues and white, for which I paid $33. What a steal! I had packed Wyatt's quilt in my carry on luggage as I did not want to risk the airlines losing it so since I had given away that quilt, I had plenty of room to take home these beauties.

They came in very handy during that night of too many flights to come home. We left San Jose at 7 PM, arrived in Phoenix at 9:30 PM, had to hang around the airport for the next flight to Charlotte, NC that did not leave until 1:00 AM. About 10:30, I pulled out the quilts, make a pillow out of the two smaller ones and covered myself up with the larger one (not shown here yet). I then slept on the airport row of seats, wrapped in my quilt until midnight or so. Packed the smaller ones away with my handbag in the carry on luggage and took the big quilt onto the plane where I wrapped both George and I up for the 4 hour flight to NC. Slept pretty well, all things considered!

We arrived home about 1:30. George went right up to bed and I put our lives back in order which took most of the afternoon. He picked up the cats and we were in bed pretty early for us (11 PM) but I was still too keyed up to sleep. Finally crashed about 1 AM. Today was hectic at work and I am ready for bed now.

Stayed tuned for pictures of the 3rd (and bestest!) quilt. G'night, little man Wyatt. Gramma loves you here so very far away....

Wyatt (and his parents) get his quilt today!

We have been in California visiting the kids and Wyatt for a few days now and having so much fun, it took us awhile to take pictures of the quilt WITH the baby but here they are. More details to follow but suffice it to say everyone was pleased!

Wyatt's quilt is finished!

It is Wednesday morning and the quilt is finished at last. After quilting all day Saturday, I took the day "off" on Sunday, right - I spent 8 hours cleaning the house - and came back to the quilt on Monday and Tuesday to finish it up. Monday night I started the hand quilting of the cross stitched blocks right after I got home from work and fed the cat boys. I quilted from 5:30 - 10:30 on those blocks and then started on the picture block and name block for the back. Finished stitching those two blocks on at 1:30 and went to bed.

Tuesday, I started up again at 6:30 PM quilting the back blocks. I finished by midnight but I was so excited to have the quilt done, I was awake until 2 AM. Since I couldn't sleep, I decided to pack for the trip to California.

We will give Jamie, Jeff and Wyatt the quilt on Friday night at their house and after that time, I will post this blog. Stay tuned for their reaction! The final pictures here are my two lovely daughters who are looking more alike all the time and Wyatt with his Aunt Becky (Aunt Boo), who is the fabulous cross stitcher. I am so blessed!

The quilting begins (or how I took over the living room)

The quilting has begun. Tomorrow will be the first day I have had off of work at the museum (or on museum business) since Sunday, July 16 when I finished the quilt top so you can imagine how eager I am to start quilting!

We have been very busy this week getting the house ready for a guest who will arrive in August. Nick Walker, George's nephew from Peoria, Illinois will be spending a semester with us as he prepares for a possible graduate school chapter in his life. Since we always want to have a guest bedroom in case the kids or others pop in, we decided to change the TV room (the fourth bedroom upstairs) into Nick's room. We borrowed a twin bed, moved my desk in and got him all set up. This meant, however, moving the TV elsewhere so now it is in the living room, a situation George is not too fond of but realizes the necessity. We also had to put the loveseat from the TV room into our bedroom which meant moving other furniture out of there and into the guest room. It was a game of musical furniture. A big thank you goes out to our friend and around the house handyman, Tim Jones for helping with all the moves.

So the TV is in the living room and as I like to watch movies as I quilt, I set up my quilting station smack dab in the middle of the living room. As the quilt will be finished this weekend, George knows this is only a temporary take-over. He is planning to ride all weekend as he is in training for a 420 mile ride on the Blue Ridge Highway next month so I can quilt this weekend to my heart's content. Somewhere in here I need to clean house, however. Ugh!

I just noticed as I proofread this post that you can see my watermelon quilt, finished in 1996, on the green checked couch behind me (see first picture in this post). Cool! Actually, it is very warm ...90+ degrees for today and this weekend so I will be wearing my hair like this all day and night, especially as I quilt, to keep it out of the way and keep my neck cool. I wear a long sleeve shirt to keep myself from looking like a junkie, scratched and pricked from all the pins int the quilt.

Well, I am off to quilt so ta-ta for now!