Tooting my own horn

I've gotten quite a lot done on the Songbird's Garden quilt the past few days and I am happy to report that it is officially a flimsy!  

And it has turned out to be much larger than I'd expected so now I will have to decide how I'm going to quilt it...  by hand or by machine...  Decisions, decisions.  It is larger than even my design wall so the only way I could take photos is by laying it out on our bed, but maybe you can get the idea...  (or not as there is nothing there to compare it with).

Can you spot my fabric additions to make the borders fit?  

Those borders of triangles turned out 1 1/2 inches too small so I ended up adding 3/4 of an inch to each side of them...  and then they sort of blend into the corner squares...  It took a lot of scribbling on scrap paper but once on the sewing machine, the borders matched up nicely and that's as good as I can do.  Yeah! 

This week I also got two text messages, one from Mrs. Furui and one from Julieta.

Last week, Mrs. Furui and I had met for tea and chatting for the first time in over two years.  We've had brief meetings where we've exchanged quilt patterns and picked up batting and held up finished quilts for each other to admire, but we haven't had a sit down, spend time together chat because of Corona.  I wanted to tell Mrs. Furui about our visit with Luka and to show her the blog/album of photos I'd made, and I also rather boldly asked if she wouldn't like to display one of my quilts at the hospital where she does volunteer work.  

For years, Mrs. Furui and I and our patchwork group had made quilts to be displayed in the children's ward waiting room and I know that Mrs. Furui still regularly changes over the quilts with the seasons.  I had recently taken down the McKenna Farm quilt that I'd had up on my wall and I thought it was a shame for it to be put into the closet for who knows how long especially as there hadn't been many people visiting my house to even see it.  There are not many walls large enough for it to be displayed (it barely fit in my house) but the hospital has a big wall... wouldn't they like to hang it there for the summer months?  Nothing like being forward!

Mrs. Furui hadn't seen the finished quilt and she rewarded me with oohs and ahhs and said that, yes, she'd love to take it to the hospital and hang it in the waiting room so I left it with her.  This week she and some other volunteers got the quilt mounted on the wall and she sent me a picture.  I'm very happy that for the next month or so, my quilt will be enjoyed by patients and their parents who stream in and out of the waiting room!

The text message from Julieta also gave me a twinkle because she wrote to say that she'd given one of my quilts to her aunt.  Oh good!  We'd taken so many quilts to the States this time, so I just told Julieta that she could give them to people if she thought they'd like one.  I was surprised that her brother wanted one, and a couple of weeks ago she gave a quilt to her aunt who lives in Mexico.  

Well!  The aunt had it FRAMED!!!!  FRAMED, I tell you!  FRAMED!!!  Oh my gosh!  Think of the cost!  

There are people installing it on her wall!  Can you believe!  I don't even know when I made that quilt, so it's been around awhile.  I remember I just wanted to make all the different colored blocks that I could with the curved seams and I'm pretty sure I spent one summer in California making blocks while I chatted with my mother.  It must have taken a long time to make but I didn't really have a plan once all the blocks were made and because I hadn't thought about color, there were light blocks and dark blocks that didn't really go together.  I must say though, flat and framed it's an eye catcher!  I'm so glad it is out of the closet and has a good home!!!   I feel so honored!