A Happy Birthday to You...

 This is a picture of my mother when she turned 18--it is also a picture of her wedding day.  Recently, my mom celebrated her 75th birthday and many many years of marriage to my father...This year, we are throwing a birthday bash for my mother next weekend...which necessitated this next picture...

I started this banner last year and had lofty goals of hand quilting it.  I got about 1/2 way through--which I might add took many painful hours because, although it is embarrassing, I don't know how to hand quilt.  Because the special party is coming up, I machine quilted over the hand quilting and threw on the binding and presto--the banner is complete and ready to go for the birthday bash....May it see many a birthday and bring a smile to many a face in the coming years....

Birthday Banner...

I've been wanting to make a Birthday Banner for some time now--My sister and I went to the Suppose Quilt shop on Memorial day and I collected these fun fabrics...the plan was to use the large polka dot for the background---however, when I auditioned the birthday graphics on it, it was way too busy, so it will have to do as a border...

I had a hard time getting a good picture as the wind was blowing and I didn't have very good cooperation, but you get the idea. I found the graphics in a wonderful quilt book called "Toppers" by Possibilities. I switched up the layout and then changed it to say Happy Birthday. I used the Jokerman font at 300 and then copied it with a mirror image to reverse the letters for applique. The plan is to put the polka dot fabric on with a 3 to 3 1/2" border with jumbo red ric rac. I'm really excited to get this finished. I spend the better part of Saturday stitching down all the applique. So what do you think???