Finishes, Family and Felines

Wow, it’s been another crazy busy week. I am actually looking forward to things slowing down next week. All the sewing and quilting I did this week happened from Saturday through Wednesday. Once Thursday rolled around, my daughter Megan arrived for a five-day visit from Seattle. So there have been family visits, shopping, restaurants and lots of hanging out. She’s heading over to her dad’s place later today and will be there until he takes her to the airport on Monday. 

On Thursday evening, we had a full family dinner at our favorite Bavarian-style restaurant and brewery,  The Bohemian. The lighting was bad for photos, but we did take a few as we were on the way out. 

Granddaughter London and me

My kids Shane (London’s dad), Megan and Ryan

It was an interesting and hilarious evening with a lot of reminiscing and laughter. 

Bruce spent two days this week volunteering at a company called Motion Control that makes electronics for prosthetics. He actually worked with Motion Control during his working career with Symbion and University of Utah /Sarcos as they developed medical devices and prosthetics. MC was hosting an event for current and future prosthetists to come and learn to cast and fit the missing limbs of amputees. There were people from as far away as New Zealand to learn, but most of the amputees were local. Some had lost arms, some arms and shoulders (the shoulder joint), others had lost a leg or forearms. Accidents, fires, cancer. The amputees were giving back, helping the technicians identify nerve endings, sitting for casts for prosthetics practice, and more.  Bruce even ran into a guy at Motion Control that he used to work with back in the day, and they laughed about the irony of Bruce  having once been on the science end and now as an amputee using that very science. 

Now let me show you my finishes. First up is the quilt I finally got bound and finished for my granddaughter Lauren. I showed some of the leaf and vine quilting in my last post. 

Framed Pinwheels finished at 61x75”. The fabrics were mostly by Lella Boutique for Moda, but I added in a couple others as well. The backing was a lovely yellow floral. You can see it in the border and the turned corner of the picture below. 

The second quilt I finished was Dinosaurs for Brody.  First we took pictures outdoors. 

I used an ombre fabric for the background because I thought it added some interest to the small, repeating Dino squares. The Dino squares themselves were framed in alternating orange and yellow strips. 

The top and bottom strips and binding were also from the ombre fabric. The backing was a dinosaur footprint fabric from the same line, all bought several years ago on clearance. I quilted it with a tighter-than-usual (for me) stipple, and I think it added wonderful texture. The quilt finished at 40x52. 

Both the dinos quilt and the Rainbow Cats quilt have now been turned over to London’s other grandma. I wouldn’t let her pay me, so she brought me this beautiful poinsettia as thanks. I’ve never seen one in this color before, and I think it’s drop dead gorgeous!

Unfortunately, our silly cats keep trying to eat them (they’re poisonous), so now it’s put up way high on top of the vitrine (china cabinet) where they can’t reach it. This was their reaction to that.

Darla

Alfie

Last but not least is a shot of the 16-patch brown checkerboard quilt I’ve been working on. It turns out that I only needed 35 blocks instead of the 42 I mentioned last week. And I had so much fun pairing different colors with the never ending brown chevron print and then sewing them, that I just whizzed right through them. They were quilted with loops, and now I’m ready to trim and bind. 

This will be a finish this afternoon. I also have two more quilts all basted up and ready to be quilted (the one with brown strips and the multi-colored Crossed Strings). So I’ll have at least three finishes by next weekend!  Once those are complete, I’ll begin working on brown string blocks and brown elephant blocks. If there’s time after that, these waffle blocks, sewn this year for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, are next up.

Thanks for dropping by!! See you next weekend…

Linking up to Rainbow Scrap Challenge Scrappy Saturday