Family family family. And a quilt.

Life has been a bit of a whirl recently, though in a good way. We had my brother and sister-in-law to stay for a few days and I rushed to finish the quilt I've been making (since January) for my nephew and his young lady, who're currently visiting. Above, Mr Life holds it up and below, he recovers from holding his arms out while I ask him to stretch out just slightly further.

I enjoyed making it. The fiddliest bits were the stars, and though much of the rest was just squares, there were a lot of them and thus a lot of corners to get right. Ish. The most fun was the strippy border, which I've never done before, though seen in other people's quilts. This went together really quickly - no corners to match!! yah!! - and made me feel smug because I used up lots of bits from my scrap box. Of course, I could have just cut up some of my stash, which would have scarcely dented said stash, but it was satisfying to use little remaining pieces of some of my favourite fabrics - at least one of which came from Thimbleanna, years ago now. I'll definitely do strippy borders again. They were very soothing to do and look pretty (I think) and much more impressive than they really are.

In similar pseudo-thrifty vein, I decided to use strips from two of Mr L's discarded shirts for the binding. This was not a good idea, as I realised quite soon after starting. The shirts were quite similar colours - too similar, really, since they tend to look rather like a mistake rather than a contrast. Also, one of them was horribly apt to fray. But mainly, because there were lots of joins, this meant it was much more footery to do, since I had to avoid getting any of these joins at the corners, which are bulky enough without anything extra.

But it was fun anyway, and I like the colours, though I discovered that the yellow of the stars looks much more intense against the dark fabrics than the light ones. Of course I've read about colour values in quilting books but it was interesting to find that the experts were right... .

I wonder how long it'll take them to notice the homage to their cat in the quilting. 

On the last day of the school holidays, Son-in-Law 1 and I took the children to Jupiter Artland. We had a lovely time. Here, Grandson the Elder communes with one of the Weeping Girls.

Biggest Granddaughter climbs a ladder in the ladder orchard.

I admire them and some flowers.

And they play on the Landforms.

We had rather a long wait for lunch, during which Grandson did a technical bus drawing on a napkin. 

We were contacted recently by some distant cousins from America who were visiting Edinburgh and they came down for lunch the other day. When I say distant - the great-great-great-great-grandmother of the young lady visiting was the sister of my great-great-great-grandmother. So I doubt if we share too many genes.

I dug out this photo of this girl's - let's think now - great-great-great aunt Tina, on the extreme left, who was a cousin of my granny's mother (or something. I may have got the greats a bit wrong).

Anyway, here we all are in my grandparents' house in 1954. Next from the left is my lovely young Mum, in front of her my lovely smiling Granny, two visiting Americans in the blue cardigan and the grey jacket, my Grandpa standing on the right at the back and my Dad at the front with me and my brother. I remember the occasion. I was four. It was the first ever colour photo we'd seen - so advanced, those Americans. (We can't work out who actually took the photo, since we all seem to be in it.)

My brother and I are the only ones left alive, but I still have the blue and white vase on the mantelpiece.

Anyway, it was lovely, if a bit surprising, to meet up with these family members from Ohio.