Quilted Diamond ... and Seeing my Family In the Morning

Hi! Checking in! I have been doing many different things lately. I have been crocheting... and working on this block above... it is an appliqué’ and I will show you mine when it is finished.
In the morning, I am headed south to West Palm Beach, to visit with my parents, to see my daughter and her husband. They flew in late this evening from MD. I am just so excited. I have not seen my baby girl for a year. Then there is the puppy, which I will get to hold and play with. I just cannot wait to see her. I should call her by her name Cheri. She is starting to get a wee bigger. My parents are just in love with her. I miss her a lot.. All those days feeding her every three hours I did get so attached to her.
I will post some new pictures of her. My daughter and family. Before I close, here, I wanted to ask for prayers for a dear friend of mine, her daughter –in- law and the baby she is carrying is having troubles. She needs prayer now and her husband Adam too. To my friend, just trust God is working here right now for Jenna and the baby. All of my prayers and love are being sent. Hugs Morgan

Oh Whip It....

I just had to buy it today, and I'm definitely enjoying all the wacky Hollywood shenanigans. However, there are two things that consistently make me scream at the television, much to the chagrin of my pug:

1. It's called A whip, not THE whip! Do you call an uppercut "the uppercut," or a home run "the home run?" Of course not, because it sounds stupid.

2. Does ANYONE watch the inside line in these bouts?

However, there is one thing that totally makes me tear up and get all sappy:

1. The scene in the alterna-hipster-shop where she first sees roller derby skaters. I remember that exact moment in my life - sitting on my couch, flipping through the channels, and catching a glimpse of a tattooed chick in a helmet smashing into another tattooed chick in a helmet.

I wonder how many other girls have already had that moment while watching this movie. I'd like to think a lot have, or will when they rent it or get it from Netflix. Maybe watching that absurdly open inside line will help them learn to guard it a bit more closely when they decide to be their own heroes.

Now for the Quilting! (The Skyis Blue, the Sea is Blue)

Over the last week I have made a pieced backing for the quilt and have started the quilting process. The pieced backing was made of left over fabric from the quilt, plus some of the screen printed practise runs that I didn't use on the quilt top. It was fun making the backing as I didn't have to worry a great deal about how it would turn out, I just enjoyed using all the colours. I incorporated a detailed label which was printed on fabric in the ink jet printer. This means I won't have to add my name address etc to enter the quilt in a show. It's all on there, including the finishing date. How confident is that! Actually, I don't feel all that confident at the moment, because when I am quilting, it's like looking at the work with a magnifying glass! However, I am sure it will be fine in the end.

Too busy - but I can fix that!
Once I had quilted around the basic shapes, I hung it up again to have a good look. I'm glad I did this, as it made me realize that this piece needs a LOT of quilting. That is because, believe it or not, if you only do a little quilting, the background starts to look busy and I didn't want that. So when I do the next session, I will be infilling the areas I have createdand adding intense quilting. The further away the section is, the more quilting it will need to have. So there will be lots of tiny waves in the ocean, and heaps of cloud detail as well. The sand will be flat at the back, textured at the front. I think there will be about 20 hours of quilting still to go.......

Quilt label pieced into the backing, before quilting.

Overall view of the pieced backing, before quilting

Bits and pieces of screen printing, cut up to piece into the quilt backing.