February Journal Quilt

I went for the obvious and did a Valentine for my February journal quilt. In my continuing play with photos I altered a photo Michael took of us kissing. He held the camera in one hand at arm's length and caught me by surprise both with the kiss and the photo.

I printed two black and white versions of the photo and some lyrics from the Beatle's song "In My Life." I love this song because it speaks to the experience of falling in love when you're older. I threw in some black and white squares I had floating around on my design wall.



I actually made the back side first. I trapped some cotton hearts behind the white lace and free-motion quilted the whole thing. I like the looks of the white against the red background. I added the three blue hearts on the top--they represent new love, and the hearts behind the lace are love in the past.

Daffodils

What do you know, we had sun over the weekend. And Allison was right, the daffodils are budding. These are growing in a pot in my very own front yard, so they cheer my up as I come and go.

Sunday was a beautiful day. I had brunch with a group of women I get together with once a month. We're all teachers, three of us teach college, and two are elementary school teachers. We've all got kids who are high school and college age. Three of us are married and two of us are divorced. Although we don't all stay in touch with each other in between get-togethers, we are always glad to see each other and to catch up. We were trying to remember how long we've been doing this, and we think it's been five years, but no one can quite remember. It's become a very pleasant routine, to sit and eat and talk and to see who's grappling with what challenges or triumphs at the moment. We all know that whatever it is, we have either been there, or will likely be there some day.

Here's a photo taken last October. That's me with the glasses, and from left to right there's Susan, Stephanie and Catherine. Nancy didn't make it that time. We usually meet in each other's homes, but this one time we met in a restaurant.

I feel very fortunate to be a part of this circle of smart and compasionate friends. Like the daffodils, they are a great source of joy and optimism.

A Quilt of My Very Own

I told the story a few posts ago about how I'd made a king-sized quilt, had it professionally quilted, and then it languished, unbound, in the sewing room as a cat mattress. Well, the cats are still napping on it, but now it's bound and it's on my bed.

I really love this quilt. It's made in part from a ton of 3" squares that I found in a thrift store. It has all kinds of oddball fabrics in it from the 60s and 70s that keep cropping up in my quilts. I used all the red ones in this quilt, as well as some of the others.

This quilt is very warm and cozy, and the cat hair hardly shows up at all. Incidentally, I run my quilts through the dryer with no heat for 20-30 minutes about once a week, which very successfully removes the cat hair.

I'm glad to have my finished quilt because, given the weather, I need the extra comfort. These days I'm ready to grow gills. I can't count the number of straight days of rain we've had. Tonight I drove home past a pasture which has become a large pond. The symphony of frogs was so loud that even with the windows up it drowned out the radio.