Back to Quilting!

We've had a busy few days in our house. Yesterday our youngest son turned 7 and his birthday fun started over the weekend. My husband (Mike) works two jobs, one of them second shift so he's not here in the evening during the week. Birthday meals and other fun is often moved to the weekend so we can all be together for it.

Mike took off Monday night from work and the fun began Sunday afternoon. He tries to take the kids camping at least once during the summer (I stay home for this, I'm not a camping type of girl. Mike tells people my idea of roughing it is the Holiday Inn without a pool, LOL) but with a couple of the kids working and his schedule it can be tough to work out.

So we set up our tent in the backyard. We all went to a local state park and hiked the trails. Ruthie fell alseep on the short jaunt from one part of the park to another, so the girls and I visited in the car while the boys all fished for a bit. We ordered a pizza on the way home for a quick snack and then our older kids left for some softball games. Afterwards they all slept in the tent.

Monday, Mike took the available kids fishing, we barbequed hamburgers when they got home, they went to the last softball game and they slept in the tent again.

Yesterday was the actual birthday, we met up with Bren and some of her kids as today is her youngest son's birthday. We took the 6 of them (4 of mine, 2 of hers) to Chuck E Cheese for lunch and games...what fun! Last night our older kids had a few friends over, played games Lucas could play and they had birthday cake with him. He really enjoyed his 3 day birthday bash!

While I was able to quilt a bit the last few days, I'm ready to get back to it full force. The frame quilt has reached the point that I'm getting excited about finishing it. While I'm basting a quilt, I can hardly wait to get the first needle in, to feel how the quilt will go, to see those stitches giving texture to the top. Then the reality sets in of how much quilting there is on it and the fact that there is a long way to go to get it finished. Once I get past the halfway point, though, I start to get excited again. I often have to take the quilt off of the frame to do the last border, so I start focusing on getting it off and getting the next quilt ready to go on the frame. I've gotten to that point on this one and am very excited now, hoping to finish it up in the next couple of weeks.

I'm a tool junkie. I admit it. I love all the tools of the trade that go along with quilting. I have hoops in several sizes each having their own purpose (or just giving me a way to work more than one project without taking off the hoop!) I also have an end hoop, enabling me to get a stable edge to finish up my quilts.

I thought I'd leave a little teaser from the frame quilt, hopefully the finished product will be displayed soon!

I'm headed off to quilt, clean, cook, tend to my kids and make a grocery list. Mostly quilt today, I hope, the busy-ness of the last few days has left me tired and wanted to pop in a movie, rest and quilt.

And so I will.