It is finished!!!

Ready for the big finish? I am SO glad to have this all finished and in the mail. I got to open my own package today. It is incredible! Here are lots of pictures.



It's way too big to hold up, even if I had someone here at the time. That's our king sized bed it is spread out on. Six of us added borders to Judy's center of purple bowties. Mine is the last border of roses.







Gonna be a gorgeous quilt! I could hardly bear to pack it up and mail it. Well no, that's not true. I was glad to have it done, so I could see mine!



Isn't it gorgeous! I was just speechless when I first spread it out to look at it. There are wild geese flying in the sky, wonderful bears all over the place, really neat pinecones, happy fish swimming up a waterfall, goofy seagull hieroglyphics that seem to spell out my name, even a beautiful mariner's compass as a north star. Everything is just exquisitely done!



Mariner's compass/North star.



Happy fish swimming up stream.



Wild Geese in the night sky.



Very cool pinecones.



Fishing bear.



Silly seagulls.

So what do you think? It's been quite a day for me. Judy is now counting the hours until her package gets there. I can't wait to hear how she likes it! I'm tired and need to knit! G'night friends!

Roses are growing!

Just a quick little post for progress watchers. Two pictures, the second one is for scale. See how big it is!

Bloomin' Crazy!

All quilters are crazy, you know that don't you? I mean, they buy big chunks of perfectly good fabric, cut it up into little pieces and sew the pieces together again. Crazy!

Well, sometimes a quilter has got to do whatever works. See, I had this perfect fabric for the rose leaves. And I cut every little bit of it. This fabric has been in my stash for at least 20 years and I owed it to myself not to waste any of it.

I'm down to piecing the last little unit I need to finish the rose blocks. Had some problems on one of the bud blocks before and had to do some cannibalizing, but I thought I was being careful not to cannibalize any of the pieces for the big roses. Well, looks like I made a big booboo with this last piece for the last leaf. It's not the right size or shape. I don't have anymore of this fabric and I can't afford to buy more even if I could find a match. What to do??

It's supposed to be a 1-5/16 inch square. What I have is a bunch of 1 x 1-1/8 inch rectangles. But there are more than 24 pieces so I decided to sew the pieces together and see what I could get out of it. What I got was 24 pieces that were 1-5/16 inch on one side and 1-1/8 inch on the other, 3/16 short on one side. This square is for a sew and flip corner. Since some of it will be cut off after it is sewn I can afford to fudge the seam a little and make it work. So, one little piece has a seam. There are already a bazillion seams in these blocks so one more won't hurt. Here's a pic of the back.



And here's a pic of the front.



And here is a pic of the TWO blocks that are finished so far. Only 22 to go!



And lastly here are my 2 roommates, at peace with one another, asleep in their cozy beds and within my reach if they need a little loving. I love a peaceful night!

Coming up roses!

Hope everyone had a nice Easter and/or Passover. Ours was quiet. We did brunch with a few family. Enjoyed the day. But I couldn't stay away from the roses!



This is where I am as of tonight. You're looking at 24 half roses, 12 are mirror image. So far (knock on wood) I've had very little trouble with the mirror image thing. Here's a close-up.



Still to do is the other half of the rose and leaves and stems underneath.

Going to bed early tonight (for me). Step brother Greg is coming over tomorrow to brush up on his sewing skills and learn to piece a quilt. I have just the machine for him and hope he will end up taking it home. He is even willing to learn to knit! He wants to make an afghan. I told him how my Dad used to knit socks, argyle no less. He misses my Dad nearly as much as I do. Gone 4 years last month. Greg's visits are always so relaxing and comfortable. We can chat about anything! He says I'm a lot like my Dad. He's so nice.

Anyway, lots to do tomorrow so I have to (ugh) get up early. Anyone want to come over and help me move sewing machines around? :o)