Birthdays and Landscape Quilts

Kat and Greg drove down, with Evan and niece Crystal,to pick up Mandy today. Crystal is a month younger than Mandy, and they have grown up together, so she rode along as a surprise. (Mandy in back, Amber middle, Crystal front)

Yesterday was Kat's birthday. When she was born, a few years ago, her father worked at his family's weekly newspaper, "The Fowler Tribune", and since the paper was printed and mailed out on Thursdays, nothing else was ever supposed to happen that day. Kat, an independent young woman, chose to be born on Thursday afternoon, which complicated things considerably at the paper office. I did, however, have her in the old, since closed, Rocky Ford Hospital, instead of at the office. To celebrate her day, we picked up Mom, and had lunch at Big Daddy's Diner in Canon City.

Big Daddy's is in the local truck stop (actually, in Canon it is the tourist stop, more tourists than truckers here), which is a Fifties style diner decorated with Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, and James Dean memorabilia, as well as photos of restored automobiles from the era, and serves yummy comfort food. Amber was also with us since she spent Mandys last night here with her "slumbering". Three teenage girls with three cell phones; Joe and I think they were texting each other through the drive and meal.

Last night, while Amber was still at work at the Burger King, I showed Mandy the landscape quilts in the book, "Luscious Landscapes" which has a couple of our Allie Aller's lovely pieces. Then I showed her some of Rian's quilts and her tutorial of her method. It sure helps to have these talented, creative quilting buddies to help me teach Mandy, via their blogs.

For several years Mandy has been doing drawings of stylized mountainscapes that I believed would make wonderful quilt designs, so I had her draw one on freezer paper and number the pieces, which we then scanned and printed for the pattern; she then cut out each piece and ironed them on the backs of some fabrics that she chose from my stash. She then began cutting out each piece, leaving a quarter inch allowance around the freezer paper patterns. I think it is going to be quite nice, but will have to wait until she can visit again to see the finished piece. Anticipation!