After a long time of quilt starvation...

I am so happy to be BACK quilting once again.

I feel as though my lifeblood has returned with the completion of this bright and beautiful baby:

This is a present for my Assistant Principal who will be leaving our school for a new position at a school I taught at for 3 years prior. It could be a difficult position for it is known to have had conflict in the past few years. I know that she will have no problem befriending the staff if she is simply her bright and cheery self. They will LOVE her! I want to encourage her as she moves on to her next endeavor, so I have named the quilt, "May You Remember to Shine".

I just so happened to pick pink as the border and backing before finding out it was her favorite color. I "knew" it just needed to be pink somehow.

I will be gifting it to her on Monday with the message that it is to serve as a reminder to be her bright and cheery self and for those days that may be a bit more difficult, she could wrap herself up in it and know that she is wrapped up in love.

There is a lot of love in this for my friend. I believe my son knows that already:

Love that kid.

It is not without mistakes. None of my quilts are. I quilted it all with a meandering stitch in order to complete it quickly. I wrapped this all up within a week and a half. It contains 128 charm squares in 8 rows of 16. I then added borders to have a finished quilt measuring approximately 95" by 90".

Last month, we moved to a new home - OUR OWN home. I finished this lovely flimsy right before we closed on the house. It has been completely hand pieced and is waiting to be quilted.

Each diamond is different and made from charm square fabric that I receive every month. It has been a wonderful hand project for me over the past year. I think that I started it sometime last summer, but I am not certain.

Here is progress in January:

Here is back in December:

I am now attending a new church which has a Quilters and Crafters group that meets every Wednesday. Since I am on Summer break from school, I can now take part in their weekly meetings and create along with them. I have only been there one week and have already unknowingly influenced one of the members to get a new sewing machine that she can drop the feed dogs and quilt with. I will be posting more as I work on a weekly project with these wonderful ladies.

More coming soon ...