Thursday Happiness and My Diary Quilt

Today is another opportunity to make the most of one blog post. ;- ) It's time to share a couple of things that make me happy along with LeeAnn over at Not Afraid of Color. One of those things is my Diary Quilt, my take on Audrey's Quilty 365 quilt along over at Quilty Folk. Another is novelty prints.

So far my Diary Quilt is still just rows or columns of 2.5" x 6.5" strips, one for each day of the past year. I put the last strip on the last row on November 19.

I have 13 rows/columns in total but they won't all fit on the design wall until I get them sewn together. Therein lies the challenge: what to use to set the rows? I've got every color in the rainbow in the strips. I used white for Sundays and wrote a scripture verse reference on each one. Whatever I use to set the rows needs to recede into the background, not compete for attention with the rows. I can't sew them together until I've made that decision because each row needs a compensating strip added to the top and bottom to make them all the same length. Whether or not there will be an outer border remains to be seen.

I'm already missing the act of choosing a strip a day. There were days when sewing a few strips together was just the ticket to get my day started. One of the fun things about choosing strips was the chance to feature a novelty print.

Sometimes those novelty prints were actually going into a quilt I was working on at the time!

I mentioned how much I enjoy fussy cutting novelty prints in a recent post. I've been making stars featuring prints that reflect the interests and activities of my daughter's FIL. He's a fan of science fiction and a follower of Dr. Who. Here's the Doctor's space ship, the TARDIS:

The star points were cut from a separate Dr. Who print that has the sound the TARDIS makes as it materializes and dematerializes. There have been special episodes of Dr. Who on television for Christmas every year for the last few years. Naturally I had to use a Dr. Who TARDIS print around a Santa print!

He also owned more than one diner throughout his lifetime, which involved pouring a lot of coffee.

Everyone should have lots of money in their lives.

You can't have enough Peanuts either. ;- )

I'll be linking up with both LeeAnn and Audrey. Do yourself a favor and go have a look for yourself!

Thursday Happiness

It's Thanksgiving Thursday here in the States. Our small turkey will be ready in a couple of hours. On Thanksgiving - and Christmas - I'm particularly grateful for my husband's willingness to roast a turkey for me because this panel pretty much says it all:

I'm very fortunate to have a husband who cares enough to go the extra mile for me. Even better, he makes me laugh. Like Elizabeth Bennet, I dearly love to laugh. He appreciates and supports my artistic endeavors too. Yup, I'm a lucky woman. ;- )

Another thing that makes me happy is completing a quilt top (bet you didn't see that coming!). Remember those pink Patience Corner blocks I started a little while ago? And then they took over and became a whole set for a twin size quilt? I played around with the traditional setting for those blocks but was never happy with the results.

So then I decided to throw caution to the winds and turn some of the blocks ninety degrees.

That didn't thrill me either. I kept moving them around and eventually stumbled on this layout:

And after some tweaking of block placements this was the result:

Yes, there's a narrow black border all the way around. The dots are tiny white flowers with pink centers. It couldn't be more perfect! I love a happy ending. That goes for the books and movies I most enjoy too. I'll have to be sure to cover those topics on another Happy Thursday.

To continue your journey on the happy train hop over to LeeAnn's blog to see what's making her happy this week. Oh, and have a warm and cozy Thanksgiving Day wherever you are!

Thursday Happiness

LeeAnn over at Not Afraid of Color recently began a series of posts on Thursdays in which she celebrates the things that make her happy. I've enjoyed her posts and thought it would be beneficial to follow her good example. I don't get out as much as everyone else so it might be a bit more challenging but let's start with...

Fabric for a new project!

This pile (or most of it) was recently acquired for a quilt for my daughter's father-in-law. This is going to be a fun quilt to make as it caters to my natural inclination to fussy-cut novelty prints. The prints reflect Tom's tastes and experiences in life. My plan is to feature them in more sawtooth stars. Part of the fun of this  project will be the fact that our tastes often run along the same lines. :- ) I'll have to show you some of the blocks next Thursday!

We've had a ton of rain and cloud cover lately. So it was a particular happiness when the skies cleared and the sun shone brightly. And then I heard the swans commuting overhead.

You might be able to see them better by double-clicking on the picture. That morning there was flock after flock after flock of them. They spend winters here, gleaning food from the fields around us where potatoes and peas and tulips and other good things are grown.

There are a couple of other bloggers who've responded to LeeAnn's invitation. Pop over to her blog to see who else is playing along and to see what's making her happy this week.