Hoopfest

We are in Spokane for Hoopfest - the largest 3 on 3 street basketball tournament on the planet! :-) last night we checked in and saw some of the courts. The kids are sooo excited! We are staying with my friend's great grandparents. They are 88 and 90. Wouldn't you know, there are beautiful quilts on the beds.

The tournament starts tomorrow!

Kris

Finished Prism Patchwork Quilt!

I am so happy to have met the deadline for the linky party!  This QAL really helped me stay on task and finish this quilt.  I really like it!  It's my favorite quilt to date.  The pattern was easy enough to follow, but just time consuming as I plotted and plotted the colors and placement.  I used the same fabric for the center hexagon rather than different fabrics.  I wanted the colors to start with brown and then go brown/yellow, green, blue, purple, red, orange, pink.  I did an alternating red and outer ring scrap for the binding.  The back is a pretty pink. 

This was what it looked like a few weeks ago as just a top:

I decided on a backing and just got the binding finished last night!

Here you can see the binding and that is the back side of the quilt at the bottom of this photo.  It is a vintage sheet I found for $3.99!  The top of this quilt is full of designer fabrics and some "other" fabrics from my stash!  I ony had to buy about a yard worth of fabric total to make this quilt, supplementing some pink and orange that I was short on.  I quilted it with polyester thread since I used a sheet on the back and that worked great.  Thanks Jeni at In Color Order for the tip!

I did a stitch in the ditch quilting and then went back to each of the spider web shapes and added extra decorative quilting using some buttons on my machine that I had never tried before.  That was fun! I especially like the one that you see above on the left side bottom between the Kaffe Fasset circles and the non-designer wonky squares. (I think that was a fat quarter from JoAnn Fabrics).  The stitch is a zig zag with an extra little diamond.

Isn't that wavy stitch neat?  I did that through out the center brown hexagon.  That is an Anna Maria Horner fabric - and this is an AMH pattern.   I also did some pick stitching a la' Molly Flanders throughout the quilt.  (I love Mary's hand quilting over at www.mollyflanders.blogspot.com).

Wavy quilting in the center.

Duke "helping" me take pictures.

Do you instagram?  I took lots of pictures of the making of this quilt.  You can find my photo stream here:  @dukesayssewwhat

Thanks to Sweet Diesel Designs for leading this QAL!

Kris

Prism Quilt Top

I managed to finish the quilt top last week for the Prism Patchwork QAL! Most rows went together smoothly, too. A few triangles were a little on the small side which made joining rows a little challenging but I made it happen. :-) I've got it all sandwiched and ready to quilt. Hoping to finish before I leave to Spokane with my youngest for Hoopfest. This is his first year to play there with his team of friends and they are very excited!

Happy Fabric Tuesday! I'm linking up!

Kris

High School Graduation

Mitch graduated, with honors, this past Saturday. As Class President, he gave the opening remarks at the ceremony. He received the Department award (medal) for the Leadership Department. It was a great day!

The Prism and The Pooch

I'm doing my best to keep up with the QAL for the AMH Patchwork Prism pattern.  I first saw this quilt when she posted it on her blog and thought "Oh, I've got to make that."  I tend to think that about oh, at least one quilt a day that I see on blogs.  But this pattern really pulled me in because I do love her fabrics and the pattern seems like an extension of that sort of modern, bohemian, really unique feel that I get from her fabrics.  When I saw sweetdieseldesigns was hosting a QAL for this  pattern I decided to jump in!  The quilt is the biggest one I've ever made and it quickly outgrew my design wall.  Last night I moved it to the living room floor and pieced all of the smaller pieces together, which is Step 1 in the piecing proceess!  Hurray!

We are on to rows today, baby!  Here is the first row coming together.  I've got my assembly line set up to 1/double check the size of each cut piece before I sew 2/sew 3/iron.  The color map in front of me is a must to keep me on track.

I finished the first row and now have just 9 to go!  :p 

Duke didn't know what to think! 

Luckily, he had just had a bath and those paws are pretty darn clean. 

Kris

Mom's Quilt is DONE! Say What??

If you're a regular here, you know that I have been working on finishing a string quilt to send off to my Mom.  They say a quilt is a hug - and this is a hug for my Mom, who had a stroke recently.

There have been a few health issues around here recently.  It started with my oldest son getting gasoline in his eyes.  We called my Mom, who works for an eye doctor and she recommended immediate medical care so off we went to the ER.  (He's fine now.) I had already been experiencing a tightness in my chest, but the day after his ER visit, I started having electrifying zaps of pain from under my arm across my breast.  I called my Mom, who of course always has a way of calming me down when I get rather anxious about things.  I thought I had the symptoms of breast cancer - I really didn't know what those are, I just knew I had a pain like no other.  My Mom talked me through what I think was an anxiety attack over the chest pain - I was pacing the house in circles, mainly because I couldn't sit down since sitting down made it worse.  I could only sit on a hard chair.

 After a trip to urgent care I was diagnosed with a pinched nerve and given pain and anti-inflammatory medications.  Good thing I went in because it only got worse before it got better.  By the next day I could hardly sit in the car to drive.  The pain came in waves and I couldn't help but gasp or sometimes scream!  What a nutcase I had become! Just ask my husband!

That's when my Dad called to say my Mom was in the hospital and they were running tests to see if it was anxiety or a stroke.  She was feeling odd and couldn't speak in a normal manner.  When the doctors asked her if she was worried about anything in particular, she said "my daughter is having pain in her chest".  OH NO!  Now SHE was worried about ME!  I was very worried for her - but did my best not to cry because crying uses your chest muscles and mine were on fire!  What a mess this had become!  The thought of sitting for a 3.5 hour plane ride to go be with her was out of the question.

Test showed a blood clot in her brain but it was small, and physically she was not experiencing any problems.  The only challenge for her was her words. As it turned out, this was not an anxiety attack but I still felt badly for any part I played in it. 

That night I got a call from my Mom.  She was in the hospital room by herself - Dad had just gone home.  She wanted to let me know that she was okay and for me not to worry.  She told me this in words that I completely understood, but some of them weren't quite right. 

We've since been told that Mom was extremely fortunate to have had so little problems following this mini stroke.  She's home and doing much better.  She still gets a tad frustrated when speaking or writing, but is expected to fully recover.  She sounds better and better.

We are all so relieved that she is doing so well.  The only thing that has us all a bit sad is my parents have had to cancel their trip to come stay with us and attend Mitch's High School Graduation.  There's no where my Mom would rather be - she adores her grandchildren, but she's not ready to travel this far in a plane. 

We will be glad to have them come visit us and enjoy themselves fully when Mom is 100%. 

Until then, I made this quilt for Mom.  She loves pink so this quilt is filled with it!  Mom had a great support group of my friends praying for her and I can't thank them enough.  I'm also thankful for all of the medical staff that treated her and of course, my Dad, who is her rock!  My Dad provides a comfort to the family like no other. 

I love you Mom and Dad!

xxoo  Kris

PS - Linking up to Fabric Tuesdsay at Quilt Story!
http://www.quiltstory.blogspot.com/2012/06/fabric-tuesday-fun.html

And while I'm at it, I'm linking up to WIP Wednesday (see sidebar). My new WIP is a gingham creation. Join in! Use #projectgingham as your hash tag on instagram. Visit KristaStitched for details.

Senior Prom

Mitch's Senior Prom was this weekend!  The Gig Harbor High School prom was held on a ship that boarded at Pier 56 in Seattle.  I think that is so cool!  Back in "my day" prom was held at a local place, heck I can't even remember where it was.  These Seniors will surely always remember their prom on a ship sailing around for three hours.  The ticket price was so reasonable - $25 per person.  Can you believe that?  Of course you took your date to dinner somewhere first so that expense isn't included.  Mitch took Emily to The Canlis in Seattle.  They had dessert at prom and of course alcohol free drinks and dancing!  The ship had three levels and you could go out on the deck and enjoy the view.  They had a magician walking around that he said was very entertaining. 

Here is the ship!

I just loved her dress.  It had really pretty beading down the front.  Just gorgeous, really!  Mitch taught himself to tie his own bow tie.  He had his laptop open on the counter and looked into the mirror and followed the steps.  Then he would untie it and tie it again until he had it mastered. 

I really HAD to take lots of pictures because my teenage boy is actually smiling for a picture!  Now the countdown begins for graduation (this coming Saturday).

I finished the quilt!  I'm going to write a blog post tomorrow about the quilt and why I am giving it to my Mom.  It will be loaded with pictures!!

Duke getting in on the action!

Kris

Getting there!

I'm having a blast with this quilt. It feels soooo good to reach a stage of the quilting process which is beyond piecing the top.

Have you made ice cream by shaking ingredients in a zip lock bag? I helped Jack's Art class do this yesterday. It's actually good!

Mitch has prom tonight and graduates next Saturday. The High School chapter is coming to a close for him.

Thanks KristaStitched for my winning bundle of gingham! Can't wait to get it and start sewing. Join us in creating with gingham and post your pics on instagram at #projectgingham. This will be fun!!

Kris