Memory Eye Candy

The weekend is coming! The weekend is coming!! :-)
And it's gonna be a good one!!
I've gotten several things done this week, and I'm as pleased as punch about it! Nothing like actually finishing something (I am, after all, Queen Starts-a-lot) to make me feel that I'm not THE most useless person on the planet right now!

AND! I'm getting company! My friend Jennifer and her boys are coming up for a special Memorial Run for my Sam...more about that in a minute....

Look what I've done!! :-D
This is a "Little Jo" pattern from Jo Morton. I've had it pieced for a while, and finally machine quilted it on my Bernina.  I used the walking foot on the 4-patches, and did some free-motion "L's" and "U's" in the sashing strips and some curly waves in the borders.  I used matching thread, of course! So you can't see my blunders, but I'm thrilled with the finish!


I also managed to complete two t-shirt quilts I had in the works for a friend.  One is bound (yippee!) and the other is at the quilter.









They are for members of the same family, so they are similar, but uniquely their own with their memories represented in those wonderful t-shirts.  The mom asked for quotations on her son's quilt.  It was fun figuring out how to do the letters, and they turned out really cool....

So much so that I used them on Jennifer's quilt -- which is actually finished in time for her visit here this weekend!!  I've called the quilt "The Best of Times" -- and it is representative of the many places we went and memories our families made together.  I wanted the quilt to be a kind of scrap book of our time together.

A dear friend of mine, Mary Greene, made a scrap book for me of Sam...She is such an artist!! Look at some of the pages she created:

The rest of the album is just as beautiful, like memory eye-candy!  My quilt doesn't approach Mary's kind of artistry, but at least it brings to mind many of our adventures together.  We'll reminisce while they are here.

Also this weekend, Cumberland Homeschool Athletic Teams (CHAT :-) is hosting the Sam Casada Trail Blazer Memorial Run.  This is the organization through which Sam and Jennifer's boys got to compete in cross country and basketball.  Jennifer and her boys are coming up to participate in the run and spend some time with us.

A local girl drew a likeness of Sam for the run's t-shirt.

It's gonna be a great weekend!

The book of Proverbs tells us that "The memory of the righteous will be a blessing, but the name of the wicked will rot."  (Proverbs 10:7 NIV)
Love it!!

At the end of the story of Esther, that brave queen who intervened for her people in the Old Testament, the writer admonishes us, "These days should be remembered and observed in every generation, by every family..." (Esther 9:28 NIV)

How are you making memory eye candy?  Will your memory be a blessing?

Blessings!

Another one bites the dust...

The fifth one done!!
I'd planned to get "five in a row" quilt tops completed by the end of the first week of November.  I'm only a little behind that goal.  The three tops for a family who lost a mom to breast cancer will be delivered for quilting on Saturday.  The Sun Bonnett Sue is awaiting its owner's pick-up.

And late Sunday night (well, actually, early Monday morning! :-D)  I finished the t-shirt quilt!! YAAAAYYY! LOL

Finishing feels so good, doesn't it!?

I've got more in the works to be completed.  I'm super busy, so many things to do this week as I get ready to travel to Hattiesburg, MS for Thanksgiving (how cool is that! I and my 3 children are crashing my friend Jennifer's family reunion with about 150 people and some of the best southern cooks in the world!!).  I've got house cleaning, and homeschooling, and bookkeeping work to do. Yet, I'm also in some kind of sewing frenzy.  (I promise I'm not on any kind of stimulant except Pepsi and truvia-sweetened tea!!!!!)

Rack 'em, stack em' and pack 'em!  Head 'em in, and move 'em out!!

Another one bites the dust!!

Isn't that an interesting phrase?  I "googled" it ("Google is the source of all wisdom," I say with tongue in cheek.).  Here's what I found at UCLA's Daily Bruin:

Strangely enough, “bite the dust” has been around since the King James Bible was published in 1611. According to the Bible, “They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before Him; and His enemies shall lick the dust” (Psalms 72.9). While “lick the dust” is a variation of the phrase we know today, it still contains the similar meaning of falling to the ground in defeat.

One of the first uses of the phrase as we know it today was in Tobias Smollett’s translated version of “The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane,” published in 1748, as it appeared in a quote: “We made the two of them bite the dust, and the others prepare themselves to fight.”

But one of the more familiar associations is with Samuel Butler’s translation of Homer’s “The Iliad,” as Butler uses “bite the dust” to describe the death of Roman soldiers in battle. Probably the most recent uses of the phrase (not counting the Queen song) occur in old Western films to describe fallen cowboys.

So from the Bible to Queen, “bite the dust” has been making a reputation for itself for more than 300 years. With phrases that have histories like “bite the dust,” it is a wonder that they are still in use today.

Cool, huh?

But I prefer that first prophecy of the coming of Jesus in Genesis 3:14-15:

14 So the LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, "Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. 15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."



Rosalinda Celentano as Satan in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ.
Mel did a great job of portraying how Jesus crushed the head of Satan!

The Lord bascially told the serpent (the devil, himself!), "Eat my dust!"  And with every enemy He defeats in our lives, He says, "Another one bites the dust!"

Freddy Mercury and Queen got nothing on Jesus! LOL

Now, back to my sewing frenzy!! (Oh! and I'll sweep and dust while the iron heats.)  I've got 9-patches, and sashing, and LeMoyne stars to work on!! And Circuit Rider blocks to prep to take with me on the ten-hour drive.  Maybe I'll have another finish to share before leaving for M-I-crooked letter-crooked letter-I ....

Blessings!

Crooked letter-crooked letter-I humpback-humpback-I. (Does it ever end!?!)