Bowties Quilt--Final Chapter

My mom sent me the photos from my brother's birthday party and the quilt presentation.  For those sick of seeing this quilt, look away!  But I promise this is the last of the posts on Tyler's Bowties.

My mom said it was hard to get a photo of just the quilt and us because there were so many people in the room!  That's Tyler's son Joey getting the first cuddle in on the end of the quilt.

Happy quilt owner.

Perusing the label.  His son Christian in the striped shirt reading the writing on the backing fabric--he immediately identified it as by Mark Twain, which was pleasing!

All smiles! 

Birthday Gift

Family, a birthday party, seeing old friends, and quilting---all the ingredients for a wonderful weekend in my book! 

Finishing the quilt took most of Friday night:

The spacer strip got some curves to contrast with all the straight line crosshatching.

Resting the accordion folded binding in my desk's door trays worked great.

I machine sewed it from the front, catching the folded edge on the back. 

Finished quilt, 60" x 72". 

Though totally unplanned, each corner of the quilt ended up with red binding!  We had a lovely drive south (it takes 7 different freeways to get to my brother Tyler's city from here but traffic was not bad at all through L.A.  Nick drove and I sewed the quilt label on.  The final name was "50 Bowties of Many Colors My Sister Made for Me".

My brother Tyler, being sung Happy Birthday to. 

It was a job to blow out the 50 candles on this yummy Texas Sheet Cake.  I gave him his quilt right after the cake eating but those pics are on my mom's camera so will come later.  He was very happy with the quilt and appreciated all the work that went into it.  We had a good time at the party--there were some old friends to see and lots of nieces and nephews to hug. 

The darling daughters and wife of my youngest brother, standing at the rear and not looking the camera, who asked me at the party to make HIM a quilt.  Fortunately I have years until he turns 50!  

The Temecula Quilt Company quilt shop excursion was a worthwhile trip which I'll post about separately.

Design Wall Monday

On my design wall today are some bow tie blocks in the layout that I am using for my brother's quilt

Today I bought a few more reds and some surprise fabrics for the bow ties. I will be mixing in new scraps for the double four patch blocks so that is why they are not yet complete.  Doesn't look like much yet, does it!  The trip to my not-so-local quilt shop 25 miles away was just lovely.  I had the sunroof open and was enjoying the warm summer air as I drove through the backroads and farmland.  It helped that I was driving Grant's car, which has better seats and way better suspension than my poor 17 year old car (which had to be towed to the auto shop for a new ignition switch).  The Cotton and Chocolate Quilt Shop was pre-selling entry tickets to the International Quilt Festival and that was my main reason for going there.   

Lucky

A run of luck in giveaways means I have two new favorite numbers--40 and 64.  Coming my way from Kim is a lovely pack of Christmas fabric (thanks so much Kim!).  She advised I go out and buy a lottery ticket, words I planned to heed.  However, when I was leaving my house today to head to the lottery counter, my car wouldn't start.  At. All.  So I guess my luck has already run out.  Dang, and I really wanted to win that GO Cutter giveaway I entered too!  Oh well, at least I am lucky in love...and family. 

Speaking of family, I unearthed a WIP that has a deadline of October.  My other older brother, Tyler, turns 50 and since I made my other older brother a quilt, of course I said I'd make Tyler one.  My design includes 50 bowties, each in a different fabric, some solid background squares, and double four-patch blocks made from scraps and stash.  I am trying not to buy anything specifically for this quilt other than the background--yet--though a backing will be in order at some point! 

I am calling that center block a double four-patch, not really sure that's the right description though.  Green, blue, brown, red and "other" are my color groups, 10 bowties of each. 

Got the browns all picked out.

And the greens.  I may have to break down and purchase more reds since traditional prints are depleted from my stash and scraps presently.  Happily there will be plenty of opportunity at the Quilt Festival next weekend.  Plans are coming together for the big day, which we have decided will be Saturday.  The show is open until 7 pm so that gives an extra 4 hours over the Sunday schedule.  With nine folks going, we will need some of that just to find each other at times during the day!