Thankful Thursday #3

As always, I have a ton of things to be thankful for today.  Here are a few:

The sun is shining and the sky is mostly blue with a few fluffy white clouds floating on by.

Very good friends, our next-door neighbours, are coming over for supper tonight.  We are having one of my favourite salads: Romaine, spinach, with fruit (today it's raspberries, blueberries and mango), sliced almonds, Vidalia onion, grated sharp cheddar, chia seeds, sunflower seeds, topped with Mango Chipotle dressing. . .

Before dressing

and spaghetti (long-time favourite dish of mine).  Two sauces, both of which have been slow-cooking all day:  meat, made by husband. . .

and marinara (or marijuana sauce, as Dayna used to call it when she was about 6!)made by moi. . .

Of course there will be a choice of fresh grated Asiago, or grated Parmesan and Romano to sprinkle on the spaghetti, and a baguette.  Dessert is apple pie (not homemade) and butter pecan ice cream!  Yum.

I am also thankful for my yoga teacher from Rosemary Court Yoga in Sarasota, Florida, with whom I keep in weekly contact every Thursday.  I do the Ashtanga Primary Series on my own here, sometimes the Full practice, sometimes Half Primary, and I check in with her to let her know I did it and how it went.  She is a wonderful teacher, good friend, and now my email "practice-buddy".

Most of all today, I am so thankful and ecstatic, to be honest, that my caption was one of two chosen in Fat Quarter Shop's first Caption This! Contest at Quilt Market this year!  I WON!!!!  I WON!!!!  Each day they posted an interesting photo, and asked blog followers to send in a caption.  I missed one of the days, but sent comments on the others.  You can see them all here.  This is the picture with my caption that won:

My husband used to say this to our girls, minus the "for potential quilt patterns" phrase if they caught him nodding off!  Since I've been meditating on a daily basis, one of the things I notice, is that sometimes I do see flowing colours on the insides of MY eyelids, so this just seemed a perfect pic to combine his saying with my experience.  Oh I'm sure I've left myself wide open for a sarcastic comment from my loving sister, Linda....

What do I win?  A Moda fabrics bundle of Miss Kate Flannels by Bonnie and Camille!  EEEEK!!  I am just a tad excited about this!  Cannot wait until it arrives!  I adore Moda fabrics, always have, so this means a lot to me.
:-)

Summer Days (Daze) A Finish!

And. . . the name of this quilt got hit by??  my menopausal melon. . . sigh.

The pattern is called "Summer Daze" and I blogged about it already here.  I loved the name; I adored the display quilt in Guildcrafters Quilt Shop.  Well, as I was writing on my label, getting it ready to sew into the backing (those of you who have read my blog know that's what I pretty much always do), this is what I wrote:

Happy Birthday to Me!

My birthday was actually April 3, but I have been a little remiss in writing my blog.  This year I treated myself to a few prezzies, as they say in England.  Ha!  Great opener!  I love it when my brain is ahead of myself.  Look!

Winter Night

This is "Winter Night", one of three 5" charm square quilts I brought to construct.  I did not ever dream I would have 2 finished and bound, and the third top nearly done this winter!

I wrote a post about its construction here.

I did not pay as much attention to detail in the basting process as I usually do; I thought (mistakenly) that it was only 36.5" and the flannel backing was uber-clingy....  So I simply spread the layers flat, smoothing them all out, pinning around the inner border.  Checked the back, and all looked good.  Started to stitch in the ditch, checked the back. . . uh oh.  Not looking so smooth.  Unpicked quilting stitches, got a little basting spray in there, taped it down this time, smoothed. . . better.  But not perfect, as my quilts usually are (as far as the basting process).

Moral of the story:  always tape down the backing.  Always spray or pin baste carefully.  Never skimp to save time.  Kind of a life lesson here, no?

Still, it turned out quite nicely, all things considered.

Here is the back:

I didn't go crazy (I nearly did, with fanciful meandering feathers planned) because I wanted the piecing to show (I love the interplay of all the darks with a few lights - your eye just zings around the quilt), I was worried some tucks might happen in the backing, and I just wanted it done!  I've been getting carried away, in a good way, with quilting the heck out of all my quilts lately, but once in a while it's good to simplify.

I love the back.  It's "Bear Hugs", a flannel by Henry Glass I picked up on sale from Fat Quarter Shop.  And the good news?  No tucks whatsoever in the backing.  The front has a few puckery spots, however, drat.

Here is my label, once again integrated into the backing fabric, and a part of that strip of leftover quarter-square triangle blocks and flying geese.

The quilt is named "Winter Night" in Another Bite of Schnibbles, and the charm square pack is Winter Rose fabric, so I didn't get creative with the name at all, as it was already perfect.

Trying to get some light on the quilting

I stitched in the ditch along each of the vertical and horizontal rows and cross-hatched through all the quarter-square triangle blocks.  In the flying geese, I swooped from point to point to give a little softness to all the straight lines and angles.

In the borders I decided to incorporate the leaf motif in the purple fabric bought at Alma Sue's to further soften the lines.

The light was fading fast, so I tried to get an angle to show the border.  I did a flowing leafy vine with a few curlicue vine-ish doo-dads here and there.

 Because it's not too tightly quilted, the quilt is nice and soft and cuddly.  I haven't washed this one or "Hidden in Plaid Sight" yet, but I will shortly and post pics of them all crinkled up.

What am I going to do with this baby?  I'd thought of perhaps starting up an Etsy store, and these two might just go up for sale there.  Not sure.  I get so attached to them!  This one also has a "sit-upon" purpose in my mind:  I can take it with me when I teach Yin yoga.  I like to sit on something fairly flat but with a little lift as it helps my knees and my hips open further.

Off to finish a bag I'm making for a special person.