A little bitty quilt completed

I had hoped for lots of sewing time this weekend, but that didn't work out too well. But I did get a few things accomplished, most important being finishing a 9x12-inch quilt to donate to the Alzheimer's Quilt Initiative. 

This was a challenge on one of my email lists, to create at least one small quilt to donate, as there is a goal of 1,000 quilts to take to the Houston show to auction to raise money for Alzheimer's research. This is a great effort and I had an idea I wanted to try, so I started work a couple of weeks ago on two little quiltlets.

Tybee Fireworks 1 is a combin

ation of pieced nine-patches, bias-pieced waves and an appliqued lighthouse. It is heavily quilted/free-motion embroidered to

 create the shading on the lighthouse, the fireworks and the ocean waves, with just a few beads to add some sparkle. 

Tybee Fireworks II, which is very similar, is almost finished, just need to add the beads.

Other than that, my quilty activities this weekend included finishing washing and folding the fabric I bought the previous weekend; selecting fabric and pre-cutting for a Twisted Bargello class I'm taking with my guild next weekend; making a few blocks for a Split Nine-Patch and working on some exchange blocks. 

I had hoped to do more, but my very elderly dog 

had a bad weekend. I was up most of the night Saturday night with her, and spent a lot of time helping her get in and out of the house, etc., all weekend. It's very difficult for me to see her declining, as she's been my constant companion since she and her sisters were adopted as puppies in fall 1992. We've always considered October 1st as her birthday, which makes her 16 years, 10 and a half months old. She had surgery last year in October to remove a tumor on her neck. That gave us a good 10 months more together, but it's still difficult. This is a picture of her shortly after her surgery last year.