"Cultivation" of Texas Wildflowers Continues

All borders are on my wildflower quilt, and a lot of quilting has been done on it since my last blog post, but I still have a long way to go to finish; in fact, I'm beginning to wonder whether I'll have it finished by Spring 2016!  I've re-discovered that quilting a big quilt takes a lot more time and persistence than a table topper does.  I quilted quite a lot for several days in a row, and then life got in the way for a couple of days.  Then on Friday evening late, I managed to slice off the thin skin on the top of my right hand!  I was mowing the grass and my hand got caught between the mower handle and a crepe myrtle that had been trimmed.  My hand came out looking really bad.  I cleaned the skin and rolled it back onto my hand, covered it with neosporin and BIG bandaids.  It's beginning to heal, but will probably have a dark ugly scar for a long time.

Then there was a quilt show and the Firemen's Award Banquet on Saturday.  (You may recall that I was the Chief's secretary before I retired, so not only was I sort of expected to be there, I really had a ball with all those good-looking young guys.  I'm old enough to be the mother of almost all of them, except two or three! *frown*)  Of course, a few of them are beginning to turn gray around the ears too.  (*giggle*)  Not many days are better than a quilt show and then enjoy being in the company of about 50 or 60 great firemen and their wives that night!  But...boy, was I tired all day Sunday!

Anyway, I'm back into quilting again today, after a brief diversion just to see what I might come up with from some left-over patriotic fabric (flags) cut into four-patch stack and whack blocks.  The second picture is the same eight sets, but just turned around.  I think these simple blocks are so intriguing because, like kaleidoscope patterns, you never know what surprises you will discover, with much less work!    I just had to play with them a little bit; then I stacked and pinned them back into eight sets of four to put together another time, probably in June.  I'll probably play with them several times before I finish quilting the wildflowers!  Of course, they can be turned two more ways before I make a final decision.

The quilt show in Arlington, TX was great again, as it is every year.  Here's just a few I really liked.  I missed the names on a couple of them, but they were beautiful!

Best of Show-"Little Brown Bird" made and quilted by Mickey King

Close-up of Best of Show

Another Close-up; pictures do not do justice!

This one fascinates me!

Christmas Sparkle, made by Margaret James, quilted by Susan Corbett

The Stars At Night, made by Jill Matyastic; quilted by Sabina Thompson
Very unusual -- Made to hang in a Dallas executive's office 

There were many more gorgeous quilts, but this is getting really long, so I'll stop.

Looks like we are awaiting another 6-7 days of rain starting tomorrow, through Mother's Day.  Last Sunday our County was struck by multiple small tornadoes.  I spent about four hours in my bathroom on the hall (my safe room in the middle of the house).  The storm just hung over us and would not move on.  Thank God, I had no damage, but friends just a few miles away had major damage, and lots of rain.  Finally our lakes are recovering from the drought, and we needed that, but the sunshine has really been nice today!

Guess I'll get back to the wildflowers tomorrow.  Hope everyone is having a good week!

---"Love"