A Mother’s Day Finish

Happy Mother’s Day to you all; be you mother, father, grandmother, aunt, son, daughter or person who has shared special time with a child. The days of the stereotype are fading but to me Mothers Day has always been a day where I try to let my children and grandchildren know how much I love them and appreciate being part of their lives. My circle has expanded over the years to include son and daughters in law. I enjoy writing letters to my elder sons wife on these occasions to let her know how special she is and how much I value her inclusion in our family. She is an amazing example of a strong competent young woman. My other daughter in law is also very competent and creative. Today she managed to spend the day in Galveston with my grandkids and my younger son who was there on a course before he headed back to Saudi Arabia. My daughters husband is a sweet funny man and today he was busy cooking for all of my many kids, grandkids and great grandchildren who all went home to see Nanny and Poppa for the day.

Today I finished the last stitch in the hand sewing on the hanging sleeve on the first of three quilts for the fundraiser for our local golf course. It was exciting to have this bright, cheerful quilt completely finished. Pictures will follow in tomorrow’s post with the other two fundraising flimsies.

The pattern is Night Eyes by Teresa Mairal Barreu who blogs as Teresa Down Under and posts incredible how to videos under the name of All Sewn Up. Recently Teresa published a book “Turnabout Patchwork”. It’s quite a fun book with some great ideas to play with some traditional blocks to amazing results. I did test the “Night Eyes” pattern for Teresa and can highly recommend it for a quick on point pattern that is wonderful to showcase larger prints.

The back of the quilt was a beautiful 100% cotton sheet I had found and washed before sandwiching the quilt. I used a polyester/cotton batting in this quilt. After sandwiching and pin basting the quilt, I started with a simple stitch I the ditch around the black portions of the blocks to provide some stabilization in order to quilt it quickly. I did some generic wavy lines with red Aurifil thread in the rectangular shoe fabric borders and a beige thread in the bobbin. Then I did more wavy lines in the opposing green blocks. All in all I was satisfied with the airy feeling the quilting gave. The end result is a nice cuddly quilt with not too dense quilting.

On to piecing the next two flimsies. By this evening I had put a good dent in getting the blocks finished. One quilt is all done with pinks, yellow and white in a trellis style on point setting. I’m not sure what pattern I saw somewhere inspired the pattern, but ai think I managed to duplicate fairly closely what I remembered. The third quilt will be scrappy with blues, browns and light/neutrals/white. I’m designing it as I go so fingers crossed it will come out the way I am envisioning it!

If the skies are as clear tomorrow as they are predicting I should be able to get some good daylight outdoor photos!

Happy Mother’s Day to you all. I hope your day was filled with calls and visits from family. Mine was! In between calls much fabric fondling occurred! Thanks for stopping by! 😉 Carol