HALLELUYAH!!!! and WHOOP WHOOP!!

She did it.  My oldest, my baby girl, my favorite daughter (lol, I only have one girl), my hilarious (I kid you not), beautiful, creative, funloving girl has graduated from college.  We are a low key, low maintenance family and don't make a big hoopla very often.  By the time we found Olivia after the ceremony she already had her cap and gown off.  I made her put it back on, hee hee.

I hope I was more excited about her degree in Fine Arts and Photography than I was that I finally got to show her the SSP.  It was close though.

A couple of months ago, I was cleaning out Olivia's room  (why on earth would a quilter be eager to clear out her child's room? lol) and I found a little memo book all decorated.  She used to paint everything with nail polish. One mother's day I got a rock all painted like an alien because I was such an X-Files fan.  It was painted with scented nail polish too, whooo!   Ok, just a smidge off topic, back to the memo book.  When I opened it up, there was a list.  In lovely silver gel pen with a touch of sparkle, she had written a list of things to do one summer.  The summer of 1999 actually.  It was so cute and funny I saved it to show to her.  When I gave it to her, we had such a laugh.  The kind of moment that we'll never forget.  As she read through the list out loud, we howled and gasped for air and rolled on the floor as tears ran down our faces.  I know it won't be as funny to you, but for us it was hilarious.  So the SSP?  I don't know how or why I got my brainstorm but I'm glad I did.  I turned that list into a quilt.  

            So thank you all for being patient and here it is................unfinished, bleh.  This is how far I got when it went into the gift bag.  I still needed to put a solid border around it to make it bigger.

She Loved it!!!!

I think this first block had a lot to do with all the laughing.  She has NO recollection of wanting rabbit's feet. It's my favorite block I think. 

 

We had two new kittens that summer.  We liked to see how much they grew.

Yes, she painted the mailbox that summer, with flowers and a rainbow on the front.  Sadly, it's gone now.  It's not a good idea to have a good looking mailbox out here.  Bored teenagers like to give mailboxes a beat down now and then.  For a while it was all dented and twisted and we had it tied to a tree even, lol.

Awww,  Claudia was our old lady cat.  We miss her.

We have no clue what clock this is and as far as I know, she has never done any embroidery.

This one gave Liv another big laugh. 

Oh yes,  we had many floss friendship bracelets that summer.

 

There is really nowhere to ride a bike out here.  Our driveway is gravel and the roads have no shoulders.  Oh well.

Putting these blocks together was one of my biggest challenges.  I put the kona charcoal background up on the design wall and started playing. And staring.

I made a few little filler blocks so I wouldn't have big open spaces.  The little gal is from a Don't Look Now pattern.  I love Kelly's patterns!!  Love love love them.

Back in the decision making stage.  I didn't make a firm plan ahead of time,  I just started piecing words and then put them together in blocks.  Even deciding the word grouping took me lots of thinking time.

And let's not forget the Arithmatic.   Lmao!  Remember the days before it was mathematics?  I ended up with a tall skinny quilt so I needed to make side borders.  I am getting braver about piecing borders.  I wanted to keep it fairly simple and not distracting.

And of course I wanted it to be complimentary, so I used these purty fabrics.

And then,  omg,  the quilt still wasn't big enough, so I had to audition fabrics for the outside border.

Hmmm,  too much green.

Eh,   I don't think so.

Oooo,  possibly.

Nope.

Nah.

I love this Denise Schmidt fabric (from the Joann's collection) and I used it for the little dress in the quilt, but it's too busy.  Rats.

Bigger auditions.  The print on the left is also Denise's and again I chickened out of a print.  Liking that red more and more.

Had to try the dots again, tryin to make them work, ha ha. 

And just for fun,  I also gave Olivia fifty rabbit's feet.  I got her to open this first, just to get her thinking about the list.  I'll keep you posted if we do anything with these.  Under consideration is a garland or maybe a Christmas tree.

Yesterday,  I got the borders on.  Yup, I went with red.  I kinda think of red as a neutral.  The quilt now measues 76 by 95 inches.  Guess that will do.

My kids.  (this was after I made her put her cap and gown back on)

 

Proud dad.

Proud mom (and dad).

And what does the future hold?  No clue but I predict something awesome.