Girls Weekend in Phoenix

...It is finished.
I can't believe how incredible my "I Spy" quilt turned out. Better than anything I ever imagined! Let me recount the happenings for you that led to the completion.

Wednesday, July 4th, I had the day off. Now this is quite the treat, because for my office, July 4th is NOT a holiday. (Little background-July 5th is a holiday for us, called Bloody Thursday. I don't know a whole lot about it other than it being a huge strike back in the 1930's that led to the unionization of all of the West Coast ports of the United States. If you would like to learn more, you can read about it here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1934_West_Coast_waterfront_strike. Anyways, so normally we are open and working on the 4th and then we get the day off on July 5th. I know weird...how they would "honor" a strike, but not Independence Day. However, due to the loss of volume and the recession(?), bad economy-whatever you want to call it, our company decided to close for both days this year. This was fabulous news for me, one-because I wouldn't miss the annual "Cruddy BBQ" (if you didn't catch that, that's the mix of the Conger/Ruddy family) and two-because then I could take a long weekend and go visit my Aunt Melba in Phoenix, Arizona.

July 4th was a blast! Lots of family (Chris's side) came in from out of town to attend the BBQ. It's a very big deal for us. Wish I would have taken more pictures...but I slacked big time on that one. I was having too much fun just enjoying the moment. We ate food, visited, the kids swam, played Corn Hole and volleyball (of course), and then...ate some more food.
My fourth of July fruit kabobs.

Kids playing with bubbles.

Visiting

Resting in between volleyball games.

Showing Cody how to ride a tricycle.

We usually do fireworks late into the night also, but as of lately there have been several humongous wild fires. Utah has been extremely dry and it seems like the slightest little spark is causing the biggest fires. So we opted out on fireworks this year. The kids were a little disappointed but quickly forgot about it when they figured out they could see the fireworks from the trampoline, going off from two neighboring parks. The neighbors also challenged us to a few games in volleyball. We have a smaller court and lots of people wanting to play. They have a full size court but only a handful of people. So we all went next door to take on the challenge. We slaughtered them. It was so much fun. I had to bail out early though cause my flight for Phoenix was leaving at 9 am and I still wasn't packed yet.

July 5th I left for Phoenix. I was originally supposed to drive out with my brother in law Brian and his girlfriend Sharlene, but there was a small snag in their plans, so Chris let me fly. (Thanks hubby!) My Aunt Melba, Aunt Patti and my cousin Jordan picked me up from the airport to take me to their house. After stopping for a diet coke, we got right to work on the quilt. If you remember from my previous posts, I had pieced together the top portion of my quilt before I even got out to Phoenix. (Good thing, cause that saved us a whole day.)
The topside that I completed before going to Phoenix.

So now we had to decide if we were doing a solid back, or a pieced back; borders or no borders; colors; patterns, etc. We finally decided on a pieced back. So after raiding my Aunt's scraps and lots of cutting we got down to business. I had to lay out all the squares in the pattern I wanted and separate them into rows. It was pretty time consuming and a little draining. You probably wouldn't know otherwise but it takes a lot of math to put a quilt together. Thankfully Aunt Melba did all the math involved, but my brain was still kind of hurting, so we took a break and watched the moon rise while swimming in her pool. Then Melony and I took turns brushing each others' hair and scratching our backs. It was so very relaxing. Two of my most favorite ways to relax.

(Forgive me Aunt Melba if my time line is off a little bit-our weekend together went by so fast it all kind of blends together.)

The next day, we celebrated the 4th (per my Aunt's request) with lots of yummy food and diet cokes. I "skinned" Melony's toes with cute little skull and cross bone decorations.
These are my toes, "skinned". Don't have a pic of Melony's but they turned out cute too.

And then we spent hours sewing all the little squares together for the back of the quilt. Everyone wanted to help. :) Thanks James for unpicking all my mistakes!

We had three sewing machines going-mine, Melony's, and Aunt Melba's. It was so fun. I know that sounds cheesy but I really just loved visiting with the girls, doing what I love, and being in great great company. By the end of the day we had pieced and sewn together the entire back. What an accomplishment! Whew!

Saturday, we went shopping. We decided to add some borders to the front side of the my quilt. I also desperately needed a new sewing box and batting for the inside of the quilt. At JoAnn's, I found the perfect box, and even more perfect fabric for my borders.
My new sewing box.

We stopped for a diet coke and again got back to work. (If you can't tell by now, we kind of had a routine going with our Diet cokes, it definately helped to keep us on task.) We worked the entire day on the borders, batting, and binding.
The borders. Love the orange and the teal together. It tied in all the colors on the quilt quite nicely.

Aunt Melba taught me some very helpful and useful hints. Tips that would seriously shave off hours for me had I been doing this all by myself. After learning them, it kind of made me feel like everything I have done previously (previous projects), I've done backwards, upside down and sideways-so this was a big...no, HUGE, learning curve for me. By early evening, the quilt was in the final stages of being done. We decided to take turns machine stitching over the top of it, and I love how that turned out. (***)

While it was Aunt Melba's turn, we watched home videos. It was crazy seeing myself and my siblings pretty close to the ages of our own kids. I know I've got a spitting image of me in Clay and it's so funny to see that.

After machine quilting over the top, we finished up the binding with a decorative multi colored stitch.
The decorative stitch. I love it!!

We were under a lot of pressure, knowing that I had to leave early the next morning to drive back to Utah. So we worked until it was finished. We completed the quilt at 11:58pm Saturday night. I was completely amazed. I never thought we'd be able to finish it in such a short time span. I thought I would come out to Phoenix, she would show me some pointers, and then I would take the quilt home to finish up. But she pushed me, I pushed her and we made it. I am so proud of us.
The stitching over the top of the quilt.

The top/front.

The bottom/back.

***The top stitching turned out fabulous on one side of the quilt, and on the other side of the quilt it's not so bad. But it's like the stitching didn't actually stitch. Not sure that that makes any sense. But I'm kind of glad, cause it gives me a chance to play around with my own machine and a free motion foot. AND not to mention it keeps everything in place for me while I practice with my own machine. Either way, I'm really happy with how it turned out. ***

Sunday morning, Melony took me to meet up with Brian. We said our goodbyes and then Brian and I and Sharlene drove back to Utah. Aunt Melba, let me borrow The Hunger Games, books 1 and 2, so I read that a good portion of the way home.

All in all, I had a wonderful girls weekend. It was very enlightening. I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with my extended family and I've come to the conclusion that I NEED to do this at least once a year. I've also come to the realization that I need to invest in a new sewing machine, one that comes with directions. :) Thank you so much Aunt Melba for letting me come and stay with you; for feeding me and letting me take most of your attention away. Although, there was a certain appliance that seemed to be needing more attention than what I'm accustomed to. :D (just kidding) Thank you for all your hard work and insight; for your listening ear and opinions. When I get rich and don't have to work for a living, this kind of thing will have to happen WAY more than just once a year. Love you so much!!

Sometimes it's so nice to get away.