Visiting Home

 We had to go home for a family wedding at the end of Octobedr.

It was such a beautiful ceremony and fun reception.

The reception was at the Detroit Yacht Club.

I had never been there before and it was a fabulous venue.

I got about 4" cut off my hair and had it highlighted.

I was very happy with how it turned out.

I had to go see the doctor later in the week (Halloween)

I had a weird rash all across my tummy that was SO itchy.

Turns out it was a fungal rash.

Used the atheltes foot cream and now it is gone!!

I was pretty congested so the doc did a Covid test.

Sure enough I was Covid + AGAIN!

This is the third time in as many years that I have had it.

Always presents like a cold for me.

She put me on Paxlovid to shorten the duration.

That was great but the entire time it made everything taste like chemicals.

YUCK!

I did manage to get Theo's Christmas stocking finished.

I have used C & S fabrics for the linings for each stocking.

I love the mice!

The fawn was taken from a Tasha Noel fabric line.

I got her permission to enlarge it and use it for Theo's stocking.

I am so pleased with how it turned out!

There is a woods behind our house.

The path takes you to the elementary school and branches off to the next door neighborhood.

My friend, Cori, lives in that neighborhood so I walk this path often.

She owns an online fabric shop, Crazy Quilt Girl Fabric Shop.

Check her out!

Michigan fall colors were in full display while we were home.

My photo does not even do it justice!

I hope you are all enjoying the fall and my million updates.

Hop on and say hello!

I've missed y'all!

~XOP~

She's Engaged!!!

My daughter got engaged last weekend on Saturday!  

My hubby and I knew it was supposed to happen.  

We were so happy and excited when they called us on Sunday!

I love the look on his face in this photo!

Congratulations to the happy couple!

He did a great job choosing the ring!

Let the wedding planning begin!!

~XOP~

Wedding Weekend

My niece got married this past weekend.  

It was a beautiful day and she was radiant! 

 I don't have very many photos of her but thought this one was nice of her and her daddy.

I was very entertained by all the little people that were at the wedding.  

There are 4 littles that belong to one of my other nieces.  

Adorable too.  

This little one loved my husband so much!

This is her brother.

Just look at that face!  I love her she is so hilarious and quirky!!

You can see the baby sister in this photo too, being held by her mom. 

 Their grandma is in the white sweater, another niece in the wedding and

 my husband's aunt on the end.  Look at the pure joy on that little girl's face!

We also got to see my husband's aunt and uncle that we seldom get to see and

 it was so nice catching up with them!

More littles.  This one is always happy and smiling!  

Baby with grandma and Uncle James.

Grandma with Jame's daughter.

My son (blue shirt) and his cousin love to hang out together.

They love it even more when they can annoy their Aunt = )

The tables were beautiful!  I even got our name cards!  Happy accident.

I was finally able to gift the quilt. 

 I will share more of that later this week. 

 Here it is all wrapped (with the matching pillowcases) and ready to gift!

Such a fun time!  Congratulations Ashley and Christopher!  We wish you every happiness.

~XOP~

Kara and Dan's Wedding Quilt

I am sorry I have been MIA, but I have had jury duty for the last 7 business days

 in downtown Detroit!  

It was a very serious case and we deliberated a long time but in the end the jury was hung.  

 It was interesting to get to see how things work.  

Even though no one wants to go it is important to serve.  

A truly awesome responsibility.  

Enough of that! 

 Now back to my regular life, so to speak.

I was finally able to gift that purple and gray wedding quilt!!  

I can now show you a photo of the entire quilt all finished!!!  

It was a BEAST of a quilt finishing at 102" X 102".

This first photo is of the top before it was quilted.  The background is really white.

My lawn was the only place large enough to lay it out for a photo!

Close up of the center.  My awesome quilter, quilted the center with hearts.

Of course it had to be inspected and the proper amount of cat fur deposited before gifting!

I used up my entire stash of Kona Ash for the back and 

it still needed a strip of fabric to make it long enough!

Label sewn into the back

Another close up.

I especially love the feathers and "pearls" in the borders!  Right next to the X and O borders!!

 Kara and Dan and the big reveal at Kara's parents home the day after the wedding.  

We were so fortunate to be able to be there when they opened it!

I think they are pretty happy with their new quilt! 

We stayed around while they opened all their gifts and when they were all finished I snapped this 

Collier Studios did their photos and these were two of my favorites!

My beautiful daughter is the first one on the left.

It was an amazing weekend and we were so blessed to be able to share in the celebration!

I have LOTS more to share about the things I have been doing so stay tuned.

~XOP~

Wedding Party!

My nephew got married in a destination wedding last Dec.  You may recall the tumbler quilt I made for their wedding gift.  I blogged about it here.  The reception/party to celebrate the wedding was on Saturday.  It was held at my SIL house in their back yard.  They had a tent, good food, an open bar and a DJ.  It was a lot of fun.  Here is my nephew and his wife with my MIL and FIL

We got to meet our other nephew's new girlfriend too and she was a real sweetie.

My SIL and BIL brought their 4 kids, who we hardly get to see. You may remember Jessie, I made her a graduation quilt from the LCQAL. This is the 4 cousins with my DD2 in the middle of all of them. They were making somores.
My DD1 brought her BF and I managed to actually get a nice shot of them together.

And just because he might feel left out, this is my son (in the white) with his cousin. The two of them are always together at family functions!

I thought you might like to see what I did for the label on the tumbler quilt too. I had made a two row strip across the back and there happened to be one white tumbler. I used that for the label!

I put a Gaelic saying on it too:

Beannachd Dia dhuit! 

OR

Blessings of God be with you!

I'm told the bride cried when she read the label. My favorite response to gifting a quilt! How about you? What kind of reaction do you like to see? ~XOP~

The BIG, Scary Statler and the Brave New Quilter

You all know that I went to LTW's farm this weekend to work on the sampler quilt I made for my friend's wedding. I thought I would share some of the pictures LTW took of me learning how to use the BIG, SCARY Statler. We should have gotten some near the end where I look MUCH more confident, but it was late!
Here I am trying to figure out which buttons on the machine match the grid on the computer.

OK now you can see my very first element going in.

This is what it looked like stitching it in the sashing

Taking all my concentration to do this


My DH and DD1 were with me at the farm too but were getting bored after about 2 hours so they wanted to go home. Oddly enough, PTM called to let me know that her DH would be going back to Canada, bring their DGD home and she was staying in town. So my DD suggested I go back home with them, go and pick PTM up and go back to the farm to play! GREAT IDEA!! I called PTM and she was up for it. I got home and thought about it and asked if I could drive the red, Mustang convertible to the farm. It was a go. You should have seen PTM's face when I drove up in that car. I don't think she recognized me! So the two cool chicks left for the farm. It reminded us of Thelma and Lousie (I got to be Thelma). We made it back to the farm, with the top down and the tunes up in no time. I meant to have LTW take our picture but forgot and by the time we finished the quilt it was dark, = ( Next time I will get the picture!

Anyhoo, I managed to get the entire quilt finished!!! LTW did the outside border, and outlined a few of the stars, but I did everything else. I did manage to snap a picture of each half of the back of the quilt to show you but none of the front. (It was around 10:30pm when we got done). I have to trim the top tonight and will get some pictures then. Here is the back in each half.

I chose each element for the quilt and I showed you that previously. I chose some designs with hearts in them because this is a wedding quilt. I also learned a LOT about design choice. Would I do them all the same way again? Probably not. There is one with a straight edge that I would probably have eliminated as it really shows if your piecing is not exact. Mine was not bad but it was slightly off. I liked the designs that filled the big block squares better than those that left the corners emptier except for the feather wreath. That fit that particular block perfectly. I will try to take photos of each block tonight and explain my thought process and choices, if you want to know.I can even show you where my piecing is not exact, lol. Although you can tweak the design if you really want to, I didn't feel it was off enough to do that. You may be bored of it already, but I have a new appreciation for all the design planning that goes into a quilt like this with all this custom quilting. I chose Quilter's Dream cotton batting, the light weight one, and a light gold, 50 wt thread. It is also amazing how the thread changes color on the quilt. Some colors I hated as a spool were nice on the quilt. Go figure!

I want to let you know about a couple of other things that are going on in my life at the moment too but will save that for another post.