Saturday, July 15, 2006

Giving the quilt

We surprised Mrs. P with the quilt tonight at dinner. She didn't even know that I was in town. :)

We met her and her husband at Chef Chu's, a chinese resturant. I gave her the quilt first thing, she's thrilled with it. :)

We spent over 2 hours just talking (that's my mom's head on the left of the picture) and visiting. When we got our fortune cookies, mine read something like "You have a gift of seeing beauty in ordinary things". Mrs. P's read "Some unexpected visitor will bring you good blessings". We all had a good laugh, because I'm the unexpected visitor and I brought her a quilt. :)

Helen in the UK: No, my arms weren't too sore from the quilting - I used low loft batting. But my bum and legs were REALLY sore from crawling all over the floor to pin the quilt. :D

Anne K: I had to laugh at your comment about how sqaure the blocks look... because Mrs. P is the one who cut out all the strips the old fashioned way: scissors. :P So they're probably not as straight and true as rotary cutters can be. It wasn't a problem though, I just sewed them like if they were any other block. The strips were cut at 2.5", so if I needed to, I could stretch and "make it fit" as needed. If I try to sew a log cabin with logs smaller than 2", then yeah... mine will be wonky too. :) Oh, and I ironed after each strip.

My parents got a laptop and it found my camera to be agreeable with its hardware... but in the photo program, I just couldn't find the crop button! At least I was able to resize it to less than 33% of the original. But this makes me want a laptop... just cuz. ;)

Turns out that my brother isn't going to have a Court of Honor yet, cuz his Eagle Scout project didn't work out... he has about a month to get his new one finished (Once you turn 18, no Eagle).

I've been having a blast and have been chatting with my mom and sister til my throat is sore. I still can't believe how alike my baby sister and I are, even though I haven't communicated with her since October. When she picked us up at the airport, we were both wearing similar outfits. A light shirt with an image and words and dark blue pants. She just got contacts, and we both had our hair pulled back. Twins, with 4 years between us. ;) Oh, and it turns out that we both bought ourselves new bathing suits recently and we both got new purses - she was walking into Safeway a week ago and her strap broke. I was walking into WalMart Thursday and MY strap broke on my purse. Just too funny. :)

Today I spent the afternoon with my mom. We went to WalMart for certain dyeing supplies - like measuring cup, buckets and I picked up some flower stencils. Then we went to JoAnn's to get muslin for dyeing, and phooey! They only had about 1 yard of white 44" left. I ended up buying a bolt of 90" wide and we'll just have to cut down to what size we want. But I'm glad my mom is so excited about dyeing fabric. She also wants to make a miniture quilt while I'm here too. :)

Time to catch up on email!

Leah

6 comments:

Evelyn aka Starfishy said...

Sounds like you are having lots of fun! I have 4 sisters and 1 year 3 of us all went to the same store and bought the exact same sheets - seperately! We thought that was just too funny - some sort of sister connection, so I had a good chuckle about your sister connection stories!

Have fun with your dying projects... I so want to get back to dying but the timing is just not right for me right now...

Cheers!

Evelyn

Quilts And Pieces said...

Oh it sounds like you are having a wonderful time! How fun! Enjoy your dyeing!

Shelina said...

Wow, those certainly are interesting coincidences. Glad you are enjoying time with your family.

Laura said...

The quilt turned out beautifully! You did a great job, I bet she was so pleased! Glad you are having a great time with your family!

QuiltingFitzy said...

Were you at Chef Chu's in Palo Alto? It's only 2 miles from my office! (If not, I didn't know there were any others, lol!)

Sounds like you had a wonderful time...I bet Mrs. P was overjoyed!

Anonymous said...

Leah.... I don't think I will ever be able to thank you enough for the beautiful quilt you finished for me - it is gorgeous and everything I ever wanted it to be. As much as I wanted to keep it for myself, I was making the quilt for my son who was born on July 6 and loves the colors red, white, and blue. When I presented it to him, he was as thrilled as I was when you put it in my arms - he loves it! The look on his face was priceless and I have you to thank for it. I had forgotten everything I had learned back in 1991 and so it was doomed never to be finished. You have an awesome gift and it is apparent in every quilt you make - each will forever be a part of you. I am truly, deeply thankful for my gift and hope to return the favor to you one day, in my own way. It was so good to see you & Chris. I am happy that you both could come out to visit your family and included us. I hope we can keep in touch now that I know about your blog site. I love your quilting and want to continue to admire your work. You are the BEST!!! Mrs. P