My Idea of Heaven

Since it was my birthday yesterday I reflected on what I believe about life....life after death, to be more specific. I know what happens to my body. I'll be buried in the ground and my headstone will say,

"See I told you I was sick."

And hopefully if I do enough good deeds, I believe my spirit will go to heaven. That's it in a nutshell.

Well, many years ago I told a friend that in heaven we won't have our physical bodies, so we can go round the clock, right? No sleeping. No eating. I told her I'm planning on quilting and doing all the things I love 24/7. That would be my idea of heaven.

My friend said, "No way! Not me. I'm hoping we can take naps and eat ice cream all day." So my heaven would be her hell. And her heaven would my hell.

Seriously though...I do wish I could quilt round the clock. I love it so much. Today I worked on this:

And here's what I watched...in the background as I quilted...I know they'll have Steve Martin movies my heaven! (BTW: Did you ever notice the beautiful quilts in Roxanne's house? Rent the DVD and take a look! They are lovely.) And for your viewing enjoyment, here's one of my favorite parts:

All in a Machine Quilter's Day's Work

As a machine quilter, I get all kinds of quilts come through my studio door. I enhance them. I embellish them. I help finish them. Here's one I got a kick out of. I hope this puts a smile on your face too.

This is a "medallion" quilt. This customer really did a ton of piecing. Every row all around is something different. I got to do different freemotion quilting designs throughout. So much fun. This is the top.

Let's roll the quilt a little more and see more of her piecing.

Let's see what I did close up on one of the rows. Fun. Fun. Fun. (I'm not kidding! I'd rather do machine quilting than anything else!)

Let's roll it down a little more.

Wait a minute! Hold the presses! What is that in the center? What is the 'medallion' in this medallion quilt? Let's take a closer look.

Keep going....

Keep scrolling...

You're almost there...

Hey! Isn't that the "Mudflap Girl"? Do you need a closer look?

How about an even closer look and you can see how I quilted around her. No, I didn't quilt on her, just around her.

This quilt is for my customer's nephew. He's in his late 20's. She told him she would put whatever he wanted in the center of his quilt. As they were driving down the highway behind a semi-truck, he pointed and said, "That's what I want in the center of my quilt." And his dear aunt put exactly what he asked for in the center. The Mudflap Girl.

I wonder if my great-great grandmother, Ann Midgley McCune, professional quilter and weaver from England (later Nephi, Utah...pictured seated) ever saw such a quilt come through her studio.

Did they have "Mudflap Girl" mudflaps on wagons???

Have a great day! :)

The Party's Over

The party's over...thank God!

My daughters (both in their 20's) had a huge party at our house last night. They said they invited just a few friends. Well I guess their friends told their friends...and so on and so on. (you remember how it goes!) So there was a time last night when my son (the almost-17-year-old) took a head count. There were 125 people in my home!

I was upstairs trying to watch TV. The music was so loud. So I popped in the ol' iPod. Thank God for that, I would've never gotten any sleep. I'm really surprised the neighbors didn't call the police. Last year we got new insulated windows. I guess that's what saved us. Maybe I should have called the cops myself! After all, isn't there a law against disturbing someone's beauty sleep???

As for quilting...I didn't get any done. But to straighten things up for the party, I got on a cleaning streak. So rare. So I cleaned out my entire quilt studio. Vacuumed, reorganized, etc. I told myself I'll just work on it a little. Maybe a half hour or so. Then the half hour turned into the entire day. So much dust. Cough, cough.

To keep me company, I popped in a couple of DVDs...those kind you can work and have them playing in the background. "Sixteen Candles" and "Love Actually." (Favorite scene of Sixteen Candles: the end of course. I replayed that 3 times. Samantha Baker is standing in front of the church and looks out and sees dreamy Jake Ryan standing there in front of his Porsche! And later they kiss on the dining room table over the 16 candles! Stuff like that happens all the time, right? I wish!!!) (Favorite scene of Love Actually: Hugh Grant dancing around to "Jump" by the Pointer Sisters. Classic!)

Well, anyway, I feel all clean and organized and ready to get quilting again. Just no more parties for awhile. Please!