This has always been one of my favorite family pictures, taken at a wonderful surprise birthday party Gary threw for me in 2001.

The kids row –
Josiah’s college girlfriend, Abigail, Josiah (son), Tammy (new daughter-in-law), Toby (son), Lara (daughter).
The adults – Gary and I, and my sisters, Joie and Elna.
All people who are very precious to me.
But shortly after this party, Josiah broke up with his girlfriend. Now it wasn’t so much that he didn’t care for her any longer, but he just realized he was a too selfish to really be in a relationship. He told me he wasn’t going to date until after college – it was all just too distracting. And he stuck with that decision.
And I did what any good momma would do with a picture that she absolutely loved.
I got busy cropping.

Time passed.
Josiah graduated.
We left town.
Josiah began dating again.
As he said to me later, everytime he went out with a girl, he just kept comparing her to Abigail. And whoever she was, she (the new date) just wasn’t measuring up. He finally decided to to see if maybe Abigail would consider coming back into his life. Let me tell you, it was a pretty hard sell. Once burned…..you know how that goes.
I certainly don’t know all of the ins and outs of how it all worked out, I can tell you that it worked out well!
Three years ago today, they walked down the aisle and committed their lives to each other.

Today they are living in Lancaster, PA, and blooming beautifully where God has planted them.

And when we get together as a family, we make sure that Abigail isn’t on an end!

Oh, and that favorite photo from 2001?
It’s back to its beautiful original. Full of people all the more precious to me!

Happy Anniversary, Josiah and Abigail! You are a blessing to each other, and to our family!

I promise, this is the LAST crafty post for a while. But you see, there was a by-product of all those pieces of fabric I bought for my memory quilt. Left-over fabric. Lots and lots of left-over fabric. Now Gary’s been making some noises about getting rid of stuff because he thinks we’re a little over-weight. And I want to do my part to help. I mean, when you’re talking about 32,000 pounds (that’s 16 tons), I don’t want my fabric drawer to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
My plan to help is two-fold.
1. I won’t buy any fabric that doesn’t have a specific purpose. That means I’m allowed to buy fabric for a baby quilt for the grandbaby due in September (Toby and Tammy are expecting #4! ), but I’m not going to buy fabric just because, oh, my goodness, isn’t this just the most luscious green ever!
2. I am going to try use up as much of my fabric as I can over the next several months.
So, to that end, I’ve begun to make potholders.


These squares are ready for the final quilting -

(and then there’s the drawer full of fabric waiting to be cut…..(not shown to protect the innocent))
And here is where YOU can help.
As a thank-you for putting up with the last three posts that pretty much were all about -LOOK AT ME – SEE WHAT I’VE DONE, I’d love to send you one of these homemade potholders!
If you feel comfortable sending me your address (if you’re reading this on Facebook, send me a message with your address and if you’re on my blog you can either use the “contact me” spot, or just leave a comment and I’ll email you for your address), I’ll get one out in the mail to you. I can’t promise that it will be this week or next, but sometime, when you least expect it, there it will be in your mailbox!
And then you will know that you have done your part to help keep our house at her ideal weight!
Every little bit helps, right?

So, what has over 3000 pieces and has taken well over 5 years to complete?
The Memory Quilt!

It’s been almost two years since I first mentioned this project, making memory stars from fabric I would pick up along the way to remind me of the different places we’ve seen, SOWER projects we’ve worked, family and friends we’ve seen, and other things that I, well, just wanted to remember! I’d collect fabric, work on the stars about a dozen at a time, recalculate how many I still needed, and then keep on collecting! I had the main part sewn together (all 179 stars, in no apparent order!) by the time we left for Alaska, picked up the border fabric while we were in Alaska, and after the Christmas sewing rush, got back on track with sewing that baby together. And last month I finally got it to a local machine quilter. We picked it up on our way here (Palmdale, CA), and I got busy on the binding.

(Meals? Who needs meals!)
Yesterday, March 5, 2010 it was finally completed!
Here are some of my memories, up close and personal!

Some of the stars are pre-trip – quilting friends that contributed squares, or the base fabric from the wedding quilt for our son Toby and his bride, Tammy.

This one reminds me of our February 2008 project where it rained and rained and rained.

Ah, the sweet memories of a weekend with my nephew, his lovely wife and beautiful new daughter!

New Hampshire, Georgia
Arizona, Nashville

Gary’s flannel “lounging” pants (that finally wore out!), Cabin Curtains

I did have to add a couple of stars to cover our Alaska Adventure, but they worked well as corner blocks.

I’m really happy with the machine quilting! I had it done at Georgia’s Quilting Obsession in Beaumont, CA, and I think she did a really nice job!
See where the binding changes from blue to green in the above photo? Here’s a close-up-

That’s to remind me to always cut an extra strip of binding before you use up all your extra fabric on other projects!

Although I had planned to use it on our bed, now that it’s finished, I realize it’s actually a little more than our little bedroom can handle!

But even though it may not have a (visible) place of honor in this little house of ours, it still is a treasure to me.
Ah, the sweet memories……

Since we have a day or so until our March project really kicks in, I thought I’d share some recent crafty things I’ve completed lately. Ok, so actually they were from last year and were mostly Christmas gifts and yes, it is March, but somethings just don’t get organized so easily! (Like a “show and tell” post!). But, because some of my faithful readers are my quilting buddies from my previous lifetime, I thought I’d do a little sharing.
Today it’s all about Alaska. I know, I know, you heard about Alaska for 4 months. But this is about Alaska memories! Have you ever heard of a “Shop Hop”? A Shop Hop is where area shops (in this case quilt shops) join together in some group marketing plan to entice shoppers to visit all of the shops and purchase stuff! With quilt shops the plan is often to purchase a particular block kit at each shop that can be sewn together into one large quilt. In Alaska, the Shop Hop covered the entire state, and while we made it to lots of those shops, we didn’t make it to all. But that didn’t stop us – my quilting buddy Naomi and I still managed to pick up (or have shipped to us!) 12 kits! If I had followed their directions, I would have ended up with a quilt that looked (more or less) like this -

But I didn’t really want an Alaska quilt. So I decided to add borders and make individual wallhangings. A plan much more suitable for someone who lives in less than 400 square feet.
So, to help me remember the bears that we saw,

I made the bear wallhanging.

To help me remember the moose we saw (and oh, how l loved the moose!)

I put this together -

And my favorite fireweed…


The towering mountains -


The ancient glaciers -


the serene loons -


and while we never did see any Eskimos in kayaks, we did see some of those wonderful jackets -


Oh, and the outhouses…..


(This one is headed to our Vermont Cabin, where we do indeed have an outhouse!)
And then the last three -

Out of the eleven that I completed, five of them went to my unsuspecting family as gifts. The other six are in my wallhanging “stash”. And every time I pull one of them out, I’ll be reminded of the wonderful summer we spent in Alaska!

Tomorrow – the rest of the Crafty Story!

On the road again…..Ah, those are lovely words to us. As much as we enjoy our projects, there is still the wanderlust in our veins. New roads, new places, new friends……
Here’s Gary pulling out the drive (we need a nice level spot to hook-up, so we were driving separately until after we got diesel.)

Our last drive down Dillon Road -

Our last time down the hill toward Palm Springs -

And then on to takin’ care of business -
Propane

Diesel

(Did you know that many fuel pumps will only let you pump $75.00 at a time. Trust me, that wasn’t nearly enough!)

And then comes the “hook-up”. While Gary is busy attaching the truck to the tow bar on the rig,

my job is to do the “inside work”. That means putting on the auxiliary brake (every time Gary hits the brakes on Lizzie, this brake also pushes on the brake in the truck. That way we don’t have a 5000lb. truck pushing us down the mountains.)

After I get the brake in place, then I have to do all the transmission “stuff”.

You can bet I stand outside while Gary pulls Lizzie forward, making sure that the wheels are turning and the steering wheel isn’t locked.

That would be bad. Really bad.
So, here’s the driver, all ready to hit the road.

Here we are, driving through the fields of windmills for the last time.

(And loving that we got to follow an In-N-Out truck for part of the way. We LOVE In-N-Out!)
We weren’t going all that far – only about 175 miles, but it did involve going up those mountains -

and then coming back down-

(when we really appreciated that auxiliary brake!)
We were headed to Palmdale, CA, which is located about 70 miles north of Los Angeles, in the “high desert”.

Those were pretty impressive high-tension wires – we think they probably came from the Hoover Dam.
We made it to our resting place, a Walmart parking lot in Palmdale.
And that is the nuts and bolts of our day!

Propane – $78.98
Diesel Fuel – $218.01 (but then again, we hadn’t filled up since November!)
Garlic Bread from Walmart (ah, small pleasures) – 1.74

Being on the road again (even if it wasn’t very far) – Priceless!