Happy Birthday and a completed quilt

Today is my mother's birthday. Happy 89th birthday Mom! I had a chance to talk with her briefly on Christmas day and she seemed happy to have most of her family and friends surrounding her. Leiya made a surprise visit to California so Grandma got to have all four grandchildren for Christmas dinner.

On this side of the world I have finally birthed the Feathered Star quilt!!!!

This quilt is so old that its conception isn't even recorded on this blog. My first post about it was in November 2006 (I started blogging at the end of Oct. 2006) and even then I'd begun drawing lines on fabric for doing the hand piecing. Mrs. Furui and Mrs. Harada were going to make similar quilts and Mrs. Harada did get a wall hanging made with one Feathered Star block. Mrs. Furui has 5 of her 6 blocks made and her quilt is still on hold.

In August of 2007 I FINISHED hand piecing all the 12 star blocks. Whew!

In April of 2008 I had made sashing for the blocks and suddenly decided I DIDN'T LIKE the sashing and took it all apart again!

In March of 2009 I finally had a flimsy! And two months later I was drawing quilting motifs on the quilt for hand quilting. Talk about sabotaging plans for a finished quilt.

In August of 2009 I had to wash the half quilted quilt because Velvet had peed on it! Since then it has been off and on quilting...

And yesterday I put the binding on and have declared this a finished quilt!!!!! I really wanted to get this finished in 2010. I mean come on... Four years is long enough. I really need to start something else.

*****

I think I was getting better at putting together a new year card. Of course we had less animals back in 2008. All I can say about me is that the picture of Tetsu and me was taken immediately after a 10 hour flight and three hour bus ride from California to our town. Falling asleep on my feet! Hmm. I just noticed that Tetsu is wearing the same t-shirt as the last year...