Spring.....

........a time for rebirth....

 

...A time of growth, renewal, of new life.....

  

and also "the term is also used more generally as a metaphor for the start of better times"....

All I can say is "I certainly hope so." Yesterday we were dealt a tough blow. After 19.5 years with Boeing the Bearded One, along with 1023 other fellow employees were given their 60 day layoff  notices. At least 500 of these IT people are all from the Puget Sound area.  A lot of these people have many more years with the company than the Bearded One has....some close to 30 years. Others just a couple years from retirement. 

And, on a quilty note, I have actually finished something. 

 

As you can see from the VW bus, actually a Syncro (AWD), this is for a fellow VW friend who is facing some tough times health wise. All of the fabrics came from my stash. And, even tho, 3 years ago, I swore that I would NEVER, EVER quilt another quilt with meandering pine boughs, I just had to for this quilt. A lot of the green fabrics are pine bough prints (this IS the evergreen state afterall.)

The pattern is from Mary Johnson's website, Double 4-Patch. 

The Bearded One had some very specific input on this quilt. He said it must contain the VW bus and it needed to be climbing some rocks or a hill. He also was quite adamant that the block was NOT centered. He specifically wanted it off center and down towards the bottom. Whew! All that presented a few challenges to my stressed brain as the Double 4-Patch blocks are 8" and the bus block was 12". Easy, right, getting the correct placement of the partial lit and dark 4-patches was more than my stressed out brain could handle.....but, the 3rd time seemed to be the charm. 

So, let's hope that this truly is the start of better times, and hopefully SOONER rather than later.

Missed the Deadline

Back in October I joined the red & white snowball challenge.Unfortunately life got in the way. After I'd made just a few blocks I decided that I wanted to make my quilt large enough for the bed, that means queen size. Or, as it translates to this quilt: 169 blocks or 784 red and white half square triangles (includes all the partial blocks around outer edge.)

I also decided I'd put an outer border on this. You can see a red & cream floral in the centers of some of the red blocks. This will be the outer border.

Due to juggling several other things at the same time and being down and out with the crud for 3 weeks, I didn't even try to make this deadline. Instead I'm using this project as my leaders and enders in between other projects. First up is the high school senior quilt for church and those blasted "bitches britches" (doggie panties) for Mary-Lynn.

Years ago, back when we had an unspayed, female, show dog I bought her a pair of panties for when she was in season. Since my house is all carpeted it was either that or she lived in a crate for 3 weeks. After she promptly chewed a hole through that first pair we came to an understanding. She tolerated wearing them so she could be free in the house and only ever chewed one other pair. But, because she destroyed the first panties, I was forced to make my own. I redesigned them to fit better and the rest is history.....

in the mid 90's Disney released 101 Dalmatians with real dogs, not the cartoon version. this was soon followed by the sequel 102 Dalmatians. This created a Dalmatian craze and Dalmatians were in high demand. Due to this, the number of Dals in need of rescue skyrocketed. So, I spent several years making panties which we sold at Dalmatian Specialty shows. I donated all my time and materials so that 100% of the profits could go to Dalmatian Rescue. Now, 15+ years later I'm still called upon from time to time by breeder and show friends to re-supply their "bitches britches". By my guess I've probably made well over 100 pair. Have I mentioned that I HATE making them? They are tedious and not at all fun to make. Consequently I put off the task as long as I can....Yes M-L, I really AM working on them....albeit rather slowly......