Emerson's Quilt

Emerson's quilt is complete and waiting to be wrapped around her! It will not be today though. We expected to have her for a few hours while her parents took her brother on a fall outing, but the wind here is really fierce. Not good to take little kids out into. I will give it to her on Tuesday or Wednesday, when I see her next. Like I said, I am very pleased with how it turned out. The hand quilting really stands out.Now in my humble opinion, a quilt is not finished until it has been washed and dried. This last step really makes a difference in the appearance of the quilt. I loved how Alesha said "When you start talking quilting, I hear Charlie Brown's teacher's voice." I know I have many readers who are not quilters, so bear with me here. Wah wah wah...wah wah...is that clear Alesha??!! I could not resist!!! Really here is an example of what I am talking about. This picture is BEFORE I washed it. The binding is not on yet, but the quilting is complete.....
Now, same quilt AFTER being washed...... The back of this quilt showed NO quilting, it was so busy. That is always disappointing to me, as I love the back of a finished quilt. After washing and drying, you can even see the texture through the busy-ness of the fabric.So what is next??? Well, I have my UFO list on my sidebar. I plan to finish this little baby quilt for a friend's first grandchild. I will do both hand and machine quilting (hidden completely in the ditch cause I am not great at machine quilting), as I have little time.And then there is the pink and brown quilt, which is in the hoop already. Did you notice the new header on my blog??? It is VERY plain, and not too exciting....unless you are a hand quilter. It is there for a reason. It is to keep me focused on my goal to finish the pink and brown....it is the back of that quilt, basting stitches and all! See the 4 solid pink squares??? That is where I am...everything from the center out to those 4 solid squares is finished...except 2 of the solid squares. Still a long way to go (alot of the quilt has been cropped just to keep you in suspense), but I have until New Years Eve, right!!??

I thought I would share a couple of pics of the little kids....

Charlotte is working hard on a poster for Awanas. She is done with it now and even had her brother help her...that is huge! She did a nice job. Other than helping Charlotte for a short time, Zachary has pretty much played outside in the wind. He said he had to wear his "wind-breaker" and he would be fine! The sun is shining, but the leaves are blowing....all over the place!!I spent most of the morning nursing a headache that finally went away after my second cup of coffee. I felt energized and washed the kitchen floor, dusted and vacuumed, and then watched Anne of Green Gables on PBS while working on the pink and brown. Kyle has a "horror" movie about a killer grizzly bear for us to watch with him tonight...no little kids are invited...and I will quilt through that movie for sure!!

I will be sure to get a pic of Emerson with her new quilt, but in the meantime, here is one from the other day...no cross eyes, or smile, but cute just the same!