Blogger's Quilt Festival

 The quilt I chose to share for the festival is the first quilt I ever attempted to put together (it's not even top-stitched), but has the most sentimental value.  I made it for my mom - each patch is heat transferred pictures of our family (They all bring back memories of some pretty funny vacations and/or stories of our family while growing up).  There are also a couple pictures from my parent's wedding and of them when they were younger.

The top row consists of a square dedicated to each of the five children in my family with an "S" in the corner for "Stuetz" (my maiden name).  The colors match the colors of my parent's room (the back of the quilt is a forest green).  The quilt is completely different than anything else I've ever done, but it makes me smile every time I see it because of the memories it evokes.

What to do?

 For Amy's Challenge this week I was going to come up with some type of Halloween decoration idea with the fabric that I've had for years sitting at the bottom of my fabric bin.  I decided to put together a quilted wall hanging, but now that I've quilted it together I'm having quilters doubt.  I can't decide if I like it- I was thinking it was too wide and big for my taste, but then it didn't seem quite as huge when I put it on the floor to take a picture.  Bleh- what do you think? Should I bind it and hang it up?

Customer Complaints

There are just certain places I don't want to see animals or insects and recently I've seen them in a couple of establishments that seen a bit out of place.
The first was during Nathan's well-baby check up.  There was an ant scurrying across the room.  I admit it entertained Nathan while we waited for the doctor to come in, but there's just something wrong with seeing an insect in a place where you'd like to think of it as a sterile environment.  The room where they do all of the child measurements also smelt like a month's worth of nasty body odor, so the cleanliness factor was already in question.  After a couple of other concerns and issues, this particular doctor's office is a one and done experience.  We're looking for a new pediatrician.
Secondly, I was thinking about that particular incidence when a bird flew over my head.  This may not seem like an abnormal experience except for the fact that I was in the grocery store at the time.  Don't get me wrong, I don't feel like I'm in danger of getting the Bird Flu or anything, but something about live birds and food just don't mix well.  Birds poop- as evidenced on my car and home, and quite frankly I don't want to find bird poop on myself or anything else in the store.  I was already slightly put out about this when I noticed they were already taking down the Halloween items.  Does anyone else remember when they actually used to wait until AFTER the holiday to take everything down and put it on clearance?  I know they skip over Thanksgiving because there's not much marketing value (one of the reasons I love it so much), but could they at least wait until Halloween is over to display all of the Christmas stuff?  Please?  Next year they may decide to skip Halloween altogether and put up Christmas items after the 4th of July.
Third- this has nothing to do with animals and insects, but I went to the Dollar Store to pick up a bunch of Halloween themed party favors for Nathan's playgroup, but much to my chagrin the majority of the stuff in the store was not $1.  Really?  Joel says I need to take into account inflation, but if that's the case then they need to change their name because it's not really a dollar store.  To which Joel replied, "Two Dollar Store just doesn't have the same ring to it."  He may have a point there.

Quilting Update

I finished piecing Nathan's toddler bed quilt a while ago, but ran into a couple snags when trying to top stitch it.  I confess top stitching is the part I enjoy the least, so after a couple machine mishaps I'm taking a break from this quilt until I get the inspiration to finish it up.  Luckily, there's no rush.  We're more than happy with Nathan in the crib.

In the meantime, I remembered that I had Halloween material at the very bottom of my pile.  I bought it on clearance a couple of years ago and never did anything with it.  In an effort to lower the material stash that is slowly taking over my closet, I thought I would make some type of wall hanging with it.  I think that will be this week's project since Halloween is only a couple of weeks away.