Needles and Pens

I finished a project this month that was a long time coming. For my son's 23rd birthday, I gave him what was supposed to be his high school graduation quilt. Better late than never, I guess. I blogged a bit about this quilt last fall, and if you'd like to know at least part of the reason this gift was so late, you can read the backstory in Part One and Part Two . In a nutshell, my round robin flew the coop, and this is round two... I made the new ( Blackford's Beauty ) center block sometime last October: Then, working from photos of the original quilt, I remade the first border, designed by my friend, Maura: I was buying fabric for the next border when I learned that Hancock Fabrics was hiring. I started my new job the following Monday, and from there on, work on the quilt slowed considerably. I finished the appliqued music border sometime in February or March: By April, I was scrambling to put together the 20 blocks that would make up the last border. I decided to repe...

As in, never updating my blog... Never checking my email... Some days, never even turning on the computer (can you imagine???) For the past three weeks, graduation has taken over my life. And it's all over now -- sweet relief! My daughter has graduated and her grad party is a pleasant memory. It's amazing what we've accomplished around here in just three weeks; cleaning, gardening, painting and staining decks, sheetrocking and painting the garage. Much more than I had originally planned on, for sure. Grad parties are great for that. It's a little like selling your house, when you finally fix all of those broken things that you hardly ever noticed before. You look at your home through a newcomer's eyes, suddenly all of the flaws become glaringly obvious, and the mad dash is on. Thankfully, our mad dash is done. Graduation day was a blessing, the party, a success. I couldn't be more relieved, but of course, I'm not the only one: Apparently the posting issu...