It's Not Just St. Patricks Day

Anyone that gets hung with a birthday on any kind of holiday is sorta screwed from the get go. No matter what, people tend to have the tendency to align your birthday with the holiday and in the end you end up feeling "shorted" because of the conflict of the two occasions. You're probably wondering what all this BS is leading up to. Well, it's my wife Sally's birthday.

Over the years she's been hung with the green cards and green presents and shamrocks and leprechauns etc etc, just because her day is the 17th of March. Needless to say, it got old a few decades ago. Don't get me wrong... she takes it like a man, smiles politely, shrugs her shoulders, says please and thank you, and moves on with her birthday. Whatta gal.

I know theres' a lotta quilter gals that are consistent readers of my blog, so I just wanna kinda flaunt Sal's artistic gift and talent this birthday. I'll probably get "the look" when she sees it, but I couldn't be prouder if I had a blue ribbon pig than I am of my lovely bride.

I'm a big analogy fan.

Sal does "normal" quilting like most of you do, but one thing she tackles that most don't... is Christian banners. These things are huge. 4 or 5 feet wide by 6 to 8 feet tall. She makes her own patterns and designs them all herself. It absolutely boggles my mind when I see her making her patterns and laying them all out. All of the colors on her banners are fabric, the only thing painted is a little bit of airbrush work I've done on a couple of them for her. Often times she does her own background muslin... using dyes and sea salt to get the colors of a stormy sky or a morning sunrise to start with as her base. And then, after she's all done... it's quilted and bound.

Some pics...

A worship banner using the profiles of 3 boys, all brothers, that have since moved away but will always be at the church. She posed them, took a shot and went from there.





A new beginnings banner...





An Eagle banner that she made in honor of Michael, a local fallen soldier in Iraq and close friend of our family. This hung in one of the local banks for quite some time last year. She has since gifted it away. This was the second of these that she made, but this one was much larger than the first. Each feather, star, etc. is a separate piece of fabric... I counted this one up and I can't remember now, but hundreds of pieces to it.









A praise banner that was done from an amalgamation of these two pics of these girls at the church.





This one just floors me with the artistry and vision that she has... and again, that's all fabric, just different patterns and colors.





And finally, just a couple of silly photobooth pics that we did when we were dating several years ago.... because they always make me smile.




Happy Birthday sweetie, I'm glad you finally gave up and just married me. :-)

XOXO