The Eagle

We just got back this afternoon from having our belated Christmas get-together at one of my daughter’s. We had such fun and it’s so nice when we can all get together. One daughter and her family live about 9 hours drive from us and after that ice storm and power outage I was a little worried they wouldn’t make it, but they did. We had our gift exchange in the afternoon which takes awhile. We don’t go overboard buying presents so we open them one at a time so it takes a couple or three hours. Do the small kids get antsy? Yes, but it teaches them patience so that’s a bonus as well.

Of course, something funny had to happen - I mean, after all, it's my family!! After we finally got the presents opened and everyone had a chance to relax and look things over, my son-in-law and daughter started to turn on burners and appliances to cook supper (they had everything prepared and waiting – so organized) and …..the lights went out! Oh boy. What now? Well, we had three choices; try to wait it out; try to cook  it all on the barbeque and gas stove top; or order in a pizza. They opted to cook it so the casserole dishes went on the barbecue and other things were transferred to pots for the stove top. This took a little longer than the oven and pressure cooker but it finally got cooked and we sat down to eat – and the lights came back on. Too funny.

I made all the adults and the two oldest grandchildren a hand-crafted gift. The girls got the casserole cover/holders that I posted awhile back and they were a big hit. The sons-in-law and my oldest grandson got pillow covers – appliquéd and quilted ones. All the pillow tops I made were from a book called Quilts for Wilderness Kids of all ages by Debbie Field. This is a great book and I love her patterns.

Here’s the first one I made.

 

I tried to find patterns for the guys that would mean something to them. This son-in-law and my daughter live in what is known as a “green belt” and they quite often see bald eagles fly around their house and even land in the ravine right behind their house so I picked this pattern for him. The head of the bald eagle does not show up as well as I thought it would but oh well, once fused down, it’s down! Most of the appliquéd pieces came from my fabric stash. The only thing I had to buy was the dark brown for the outer border. Now in the book she has half-square triangles around the centre plain block but I had a huge pile of these four patches that came in a bag of scraps I picked up at our quilt guild garage sale that needed to be used. I thought they would be perfect for these smaller projects so I made the adjustment and used them. (Gee, what a surprise I didn’t follow the pattern!!!) I put plain light brown in the corners and then dark brown all around the edge as a border. Once the image was fused down I did a small zigzag stitch around each and every piece. The dark brown border was quilted in straight lines all around the edges to form a flange. I love making these and Ross really liked it so that’s the main thing!

More pillows to follow on later posts so stay tuned.

Cheers

Violet