Anniversary quilt

I woke up yesterday morning with a new attitude. I decided that life was going to get back to normal—the sooner the better. We've spent a year working on houses, trying to sell houses, trying to rent houses. The old house is rented, the new house is home. Time to move on. Life as normal. (Except with a lot less money, ha!) I decided I need to start working on more art and posting more interesting things on my blog. Have you seen anything interesting here in awhile? No, I didn't think so. OK, so here's something, if not interesting, at least art/quilt/fiber-related.

Now hanging in our den/cave/TV watching/vegging room is the quilt my brother, sister and I made for our parents' 50th anniversary. We wanted to give them something really nostalgic and something a whole lot of people could participate in, but kind of hated those quilts people make where everyone makes a block and the whole motley assortment gets pieced together. Also, not so big on the ones with tons of old photos printed on fabric. I like the old photos, but better in an album. So here's what we did. We chose a block pattern with lots of small "background" triangles. We marked the triangle sizes on unbleached muslin and sent bunches of them out to family and friends, along with a brown permanent marker and asked them to write on them and send them back. Some wrote good wishes, some related favorite memories, some just signed their names. My sibs and I did a bunch with memorable phrases, names of family pets, addresses where Mom and Dad lived, family activities and memories, etc. and then we worked in the names and dates of the three of us, our spouses and children throughout the quilt.

The three of us pieced the blocks when we got all the muslin pieces back—yes, even my brother, who had never sewn before—and I put it together. I did most of the hand-quilting, then we took it to give to them when we celebrated their anniversary with a big family get together. I had left some unquilted areas, so everyone, including all the grandchildren could put a few stitches into it.

click for a closer look

Mom and Dad loved it. They spent hours poring over it and reading all the stuff on it. It hung in their hallway until they died and I brought it home. I still love to read what everyone wrote.

And speaking of anniversaries—I noticed the date this morning and realized that yesterday was Ray's and my anniversary. Thirty eight years and we both forgot. Geez, we're dotty these days. We went out for margueritas and Mexican food last night. Had a good time, but didn't realize we were celebrating our anniversary. First the shoes and now this. I worry about myself. Ray has always been forgetful.

And good news on the money front—got an email this morning telling me I won 450 million Euros in the European lottery. All I have to do to claim it is send all my personal info, bank acct #s and SS#!