Weren't summers long and lazy when we were growing up???

Well, summers aren't long and lazy now!  That was a busy summer!  My plan is to get caught up on the blog this week.  Write a memory each day?  We'll see, won't we! Tee-hee!

On Facebook I was tagged to share my favorite books.  No comments, just a picture of the cover ... you know me, oh, yeah, I'm leaving a little comment!  But here are the books I recommended:

 

Stephanie Plum (26 books in the series - so far!) is perfect for a rainy day and giggling.  Forty Signs of Rain is not recommended to read during a NW Winter storm!!  Just saying - good 3 book series, but read it in normal weather!!

 

Dies the Fire series (15 books) is based in Oregon!!  So fun to be able to picture the locations he mentioned.  Engines of God was printed in 1994!  Great space adventure that is all about the people, not technology!! Just went out to see how many books are in this series.  Now 8 - two I haven't read yet!!  SCORE!

But the big news this day is:   (insert suspenseful drum roll here)

Welcome to the Neighborhood has been accepted into the Santa Clara International Quilt Festival!!  It will be in the Traditional Category. Whoo-hoo!

Here's how it came about:  Quiltmania Magazine ran a BOM by Yoko Saito in 2012.  There were 6 blocks in that series.  But no schoolhouse!  That was the first block I designed and added.  I wasn't wild about the final layout of the quilt.  So I recombined the houses into new extra blocks.  Then I went to Yoko's "Houses, Houses, Houses" book and made houses out of that.  I DO have a collection of house patterns and other books, so I dived into them too.  I had to resize up and down to get them all to fit!  Just between us (wink, wink) there is a "cheater" house in it - cut from pre-printed fabric!  No one has found it yet!!

I absolutely loved adding the hand embroidery touches.  I could have done that for a few more years ... but I decided that this was the year - I was going to take this project out of time-out and finish it!  I still wasn't happy with the shape, it was wider than long.  I was trying to avoid making more squares, but I knew it would look better.  So I bit the bullet and made 3 more blocks (bottom row) and added top and bottom borders.  

Then I handed it over to my friend, Cindy Young, Riverjoy Quilting.  She had fun researching the other quilts from the BOM that were lo-o-o-ng finished.  And came up with the whimsical quilting that differs from block to block.  Cindy really made it come to life!  There are cobblestone paths leading to some of the houses.  She loved discovering all the little details as she quilted it.  And I loved all the details she quilted into it!  We had fun celebrating each other's work!!

It was very successful at both Brookings and Newport guild shows.  Two blue ribbons so far!  I'm not expecting a ribbon at an Intl Quilt show - but it's probably the only time I'll be accepted into one ~ so let's make hay while the sun shines!!  Let the party begin.

I'll be at the show, so I'll send pictures from there too!  October 11-14, 2018

But now for the scary part ... mailing it to them!

I have to share - you know I'm addicted to the free online game Wheel of Fortune.  The day after I got the news about Santa Clara - this was one of the puzzles I solved!!  LOL!  Everyone's celebrating!!!