Quilt Retrieval

Today I had to pick up the quilts between 5:30 and 6:30 pm. I had to pick up mine and my mom’s, since she’s out of the country.

So I fed the girls and headed for the South Hall around 5:40 or so, hoping for the best (that hour of the day is always a crapshoot — sometimes they’re sweet, sometimes they’re little hellions)… Today they were sweet, thankfully. Alice did notice (after about 45 minutes of running around in the lobby) that one of the doors to the outside was open, and she made a break for it. Quilters from all over Huntsville cracked up to see me SPRINT for that door — I got there just after Alice did, but before she reached the top of the concrete steps. Knowing her as I do, I knew that if I put her back down to run around anymore, she’d just bolt for that door again. So she spent the rest of the time strapped in the stroller.

Alice found the elevators particularly baffling. People kept walking up to these silver doors, getting in, and then they’d just go AWAY. The doors would open again, and there’d be nobody in there! She stood there for a long time trying to figure it out. I’d love to know what was going on in her little head as she tried to think through that, because the quizzical look on her face was hilarious.

Helen had a rough night last night (tummy troubles), so she ran out of steam and sat in the stroller for a while, as we waited for the quilts to be taken down from the displays and carefully folded and put back in their bags for distribution. She was precious, keeping track of Alice and waving to people she knew.

I got all 5 quilts and we ventured back to the car around 6:30, and I ferried the kids home for bathtime and bedtime. Helen wanted to go to bed immediately after her bath, which is weird. Usually she stalls and stalls and tries to get me to let her stay up. But not tonight. So both dogs are on the bed with her and they’re listening to her bedtime music.

And I’m going to have an artichoke for dinner. And maybe an English muffin with shredded ham and cheddar cheese, broiled. Not really sure. But definitely the artichoke.

Oh– the judge puts comments/critiques in with each quilt, and some of them were amusing. She observed that there was distortion on parts of my star. Uh, yeah. I stuffed parts of the star. I know that I didn’t stuff it enough if she saw it as a flaw. That was the only negative on Rhapsody. The other one had a critique that I didn’t miter the binding on the back. My, aren’t we splitting hairs?! It’s the freaking BACK. Comments on my mom’s were funny, too — she said that some of the handwriting was smudged. Well, yeah — the letters were between 60-80 years old, and Mom scanned them and printed them. Funny stuff.

Here are some pictures, for your enjoyment…
Me with Sticks (and the ribbon!):

Me with Rhapsody:

Mom’s Service Flag quilt — which includes hand-drawn portraits of my grandparents and love letters they wrote back and forth during the 39 years he was on active duty with the US Army during their 59-year marriage: