Retirement Quilt

I have been working on a quilt for my brother who is retiring from the military after 26 years. We are headed down to Florida in January for his ceremony. We are turning it into a family vacation and are meeting my sister and her family there. We have not decided where we are going yet but I am sure that Epcot Center and possibly Busch Gardens will be in our plans. My husband likes museums so I am sure we will check out the Kennedy Space Center again. We were down there about 10 years ago and went to Disney World so I know we are not going there again, even though my 9 yr old has not been there.

So this is the quilt so far. I have been figuring it out as I go as I do not have a specific pattern that I am following. Now I am trying to decide what kind of border to add to make it longer. I was thinking about just doing strips of the blue but am also toying with the idea of doing half red and half blue with a diagonal seam. I will have to play with it on my bed to see what it looks like.

Anyone else have any suggestions? I could not get the corners on the first border to be uniform because of the odd numbers of blocks. Frustrating but I am not going to worry about it overly. This will be a lap quilt and so won't be hanging on the wall or anything. I hope he likes it. Oh I forgot to mention that the center of the stars is signed by family members, with messages for my brother on it.

Well off to have some ice cream and relax so that I can wind down and get ready for the week ahead.

Quilts for Ukraine

This is a top that will be donated to the orphanages in the Ukraine. They are going to the missionary on December 7th. So far I have 42 quilts that are completed and if time permits I may finish up one or two more. I think that is being a little amibitous with my job right now but I can always try. Most of the tops were done by others and quilted by me, or else completed by others all way. I started this project last winter so it has been an ogoing project for a year now. It has been fun but I am not sure if I will take on that project for next year or not.

I started working full time last July and my husband and I are discussing right now whether or not I am keeping my job. I may try to find a job part time instead. This job is really stressful and being a Personal Banker for the new bank is not at all like it was for the old bank before we merged. This position is more into the sales and making sales goals. Not really sure being a sales person is what I want to do with my life right now with my youngest son being 9 yrs old. If I work only part time then I will be able to devote more time to my charity quilting! That would make me much happier.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We are having a small family dinner at home with my oldest son and his wife coming over for dinner.

Quilt completed

I completed another quilt for a friend of mine. These are Dresden quilt blocks hand sewed by her Grandmother (probably 40 year old blocks). I made them into a quilt top and then machine quilted it. I am not completely happy with how it turned out but she is pleased with it. I know from this experience I will never make 16 in square blocks and set them on point again. I have one more quilt to finish for her using some more of the dresden quilt blocks. That quilt the blocks will not be set on point.

I am working more than ever with 48 hours last week working 6 days. I long for the days when I was part time or was able to stay at home! I am not leaving my job at this point but I think I see a change will have to happen sometime in the future. As a Personal Banker I don't really want to be a sales person but someone that provides customer service to our customers. The new bank is very aggressive in sales and I am not sure I like that. I will wait and see how things progress. We have a new branch manager starting on Monday and that may change things drastically. Today I worked on quilting a top that I completed a long time ago. I am giving it to a friend that is going in for hip surgery on Tuesday.

Orphanage in Baja, Mexico

Pictures from the orphanage in Mexico. A sweet little boy in the nursery.
This are kids in a casa coloring in quilt squares that I will sew into baby quilts and then send back to the orphanage.

Above is in the nursery (cuna). Aren't they all just adorable. We spent the morning playing with the babies in the nursery. They really enjoyed reading the books.
This is the sign for the orphanage.

Back to the sewing room

This picture is not a quilt but some art work by my youngest son in third grade. I really like his color choices and have hung this picture in my office/sewing room. I am finally getting some energy back after being sick from Mexico. My work schedule has been very demanding and has not given me much down time to recover. I went to a local quilt guild's quilt show and enjoyed looking at everyone's accomplishments.

I needed some motivation to get back into the sewing room. I am currently working on a quilt for my brother's retirement after 26 years in the Navy. We are headed down to Florida in January to go to his ceremony and I have some muslin squares signed by family members and am putting them into a red/white/blue quilt. I have all the fabric and started cutting and sewing tonight after a 10 hour workday. I am making myself work on it as it is the only way I am going to get going again. I am also finishing up an antique quilt for a friend so will post a picture of that in my next post. Well back to the sewing machine and then off to bed!