a long break after the long weekend

Oops!  It's been a bit of a long break since my last post.  Oh well, I'm here now right?

Remember that long list?  Done.  That's right, I did it all.  (Okay, fine, I only washed one guest bed, but it's not like anyone is staying in the unwashed one.)  Gardening?  Check.  Clean house?  Check.  Work on wedding quilt?  Check.  More hexagons?  Check.  Actually, I guess I didn't write a post about the wedding quilt either.  So here it is.  Let's start with the weekend.



There was gardening.  Lots of it.  3 hours worth.  Just on one small kidney shaped garden bed in the front.  But in the end, it was worth it.  Last year I left the wedding until the end of June and we looked like trailer trash.  I learned my lesson.  This year I put my brother in law (who is living with us for the summer) to work on the lawn to get the dandelions taken care of.  It all looks much better.



See?  So pretty.  I still have much to live up to though.  Our nice neighbours next door have an immaculate lawn and a perfect garden and my goal is to get ours up to par so as to no longer embarrass them.  Unfortunately for us, we are dealing with roughly 5 years of neglect at the hands of the previous tenants so it might take a bit.

Not even a week after all my hard work, this happened:



It snowed for almost 3 days.  Not that all of it stuck, but still!  We are talking about the last weekend in May and the temperature dropped to 0 (celsius) and there was SNOW!  I really shouldn't be surprised.  I've lived here 6 years and every year I tell myself not to get excited about nice weather in the spring because it WILL snow again, and every year I think "Nah, it won't happen" and it does.  It's really not all bad though, because apparently it's going to be a really dry summer so we needed some big time moisture to start off the season and we got it.

There was some hexagon sewing, (pictures later) and some pot holder sewing (pictures later) and some quilt top sewing.  After weeks and weeks of painstaking work on this dang quilt, the top is finally done!  This was the original sketch:



And the original notes on fabric needs and measurements:



And this is how the top turned out:



I hope you noticed the little upside down scribble of finished measurements on the back of the sketch.  That's right, it reads 64x80.  Guess how big it is.  75x99!  How did this happen???  I think I forgot to account for the width of the stripes.  Oh well.  It's huge which will hopefully make it even better for snuggling under during movies.  Unfortunately, it's not quite big enough for a bed.

I am making this quilt for my friends Troy and Amanda.  Troy was our roommate for almost 2 years, and we love him dearly.  When we met his girlfriend (now wife) for the first time we just knew she was the one for him.  Together they make a wonderful couple and we couldn't have been happier when we saw them exchange vows just 1 month ago.

Obviously, that means this quilt is late, but there is not rushing me because when I do rush I screw things up.  A LOT.  I must have ripped out 30-40 lengths of stitches trying to put this thing together!  I didn't think it would be that hard when I decided on an argyle pattern, but I was wrong.  There are a lot of seams to match and looooooong straight lines to make, and SO much ironing.

I really, truly hope that the new Mr. & Mrs. Dunham love their quilt when they eventually get it and that it gets a place of honor in their home.  They definitely have a place of honor in my heart.  (Okay, I know that sounds cheesy but it's very true.