IT'S ALL ABOUT ME!!!!!!! The Big Reveal!

The big day is here and now it's all about ME!!!!!!! What an incredibly fun and creative blog hop this is and has been! I'm sending out a big THANK YOU to Mdm. Samm at Sew We Quilt and Marlene at Stitchin By The Lake (Marlene has the full schedule posted at her link) for their organizing and cheerleading skills, and to Amy Bradley for the adorable lady she so generously offered to the participants to play with!

I'll be honest, I've been looking at my pattern sitting on my desk for several weeks and got nothing. The hop started and I knew my reveal day was still a week away, so no sweat, right? Then, there was that heart-attack causing KU-OSU basketball game last week (2 overtimes and KU won by one point!!!) and when it was all over at 11pm I was all wound up and excited! So, off to the sewing room I went. It was also the night of the (first) huge midwest snowstorm, so I knew Jacob wouldn't be coming in the morning, so why go to bed early? Geez... So, at 2:30am, I finally stopped and was all of a sudden to the point of sandwiching my creation! She's wonderful, she's marvelous, and she's all ME!

 Despite being a die-hard KU Jayhawks fan (crimson & blue), my favorite color happens to be purple and has been for years. That's all good and fine until my kids come around and see me wearing KSU's color! Hey, I have a right to wear KSU purple! It's where I'm getting my Master's degree! No, we don't have a "house divided" between the University of Kansas and Kansas State University. The kids are ALL KU! But I am a "person divided" loving the KU Jayhawks AND the KSU Wildcats. Such is life in Kansas. As my daughter says, "Oh, Momma, it's okay, I'll cheer for KSU, as long as they're NOT playing KU!" LOL!

So, purple was the first color out of the box for this project. While I didn't find any particular stripe to use (I'm not biased, am I?!?), I did find this lovely psychedelic plaid for my dress that has moves in all the right places! You might notice, she's not quite as buxom as she used to be. I may have curves, but not THAT kind of curves! LOL! Being a child of the 60s, I had to have my little peace sign on my pincushion pin. And then there's the Beatles--I remember being in front of the TV the first time they were on the Ed Sullivan Show. In tribute to their mod-style, I had to go with the round wire-rim glasses (which I actually wore for years!) with the moon and the stars in her eyes. Not quite Lucy (no diamonds on this girl), but still a pretty far out kinda gal! Don't you think? And that hair! Yes, it's a pretty close match to my spiky, naturally strawberry blonde locks that rarely stay where I tell them to. And of course, her final touch was the pair of amethyst earrings to match her shirt. The orchid Fairy Frost made a perfect backdrop to set off the gold and white Fairy Frost moon shining down on her. Finding a picture of me without my grandkids is pretty hard, so little Jacob gets to join me in my comparison shot. As my girls say, "Thanks, Mom, for that great double chin!" (yes, they got it too! LOL!)

It's so hard to find one song that really says it all to you, you know? Aside from a long list of Beatles songs (who can choose?!?), one of my top 5 is Moondance by Van Morrison--both the song and the album. Some of you may have wondered about my blog name--Gypsy Dreamer Quilts. Well, since this blog hop is all about ME, I'll tell you that it's tied in with this song, a dear friend, a moon-lit night on the Blue Ridge Parkway, and dancing! For about ten years I was totally addicted to contra dancing. I danced every Saturday night somewhere in Kansas and went to at least six dance weekends (think 18-20 hours of dancing, plus pot-lucks and music jams from Friday at 8pm to Sunday at 4pm) in a five-state area per year, plus several vacations expanded my dancing to nine states. My closet held nothing but broomstick and circle skirts that would flow as I twirled through the moves, not to mention my two pair of suede-soled shoes that slip and slide nicely over the wood dance floors! I even became a caller and started calling 2 or 3 of these Saturday night dances per month. My life revolved around working all week just so I could get away to dance somewhere on the weekend! I had dreams of becoming a dance gypsy!

Well, all that changed when I returned to California in 2004 to care for my folks--Mom had dementia and Dad was just darned old! Being a full time, live-in caregiver is a huge commitment that has to be made in love and compassion if you're to maintain who you are on the journey. I gave up dancing  and took up quilting, and embraced a mostly sedentary lifestyle, being in the house (usually in the sewing room) where they could easily find me if needed, while working half time in the mornings when they were good and I could get away for a few hours. After 7-1/2 years, needless to say my knees aren't the same. In fact, not much of me is the same! I've returned to Kansas with a new dream and a new passion for quilting, but still hold tight to my memories of that special night, in the moonlight, on a magic night...

Now, don't forget to visit the rest of the lovely ladies being revealed today on the It's All About ME blog hop! There's two more days, not to mention all the lovely reveals we've already had--click here for a full schedule! I hope you'll leave me a comment and visit again soon!

Tuesday, February 26
Pat Sloan's Blog
To Love Handmade
Feathered Nest Studio
Selina Quilts
Gypsy Dreamer Quilts ** That's ME!!!**
Sheila's Quilt World
Meadowbrook
13 Woodhouse Road
Zellerwear
Stitches of Love
Janice at That Other Blog
In The Sewing Basket


More snippets from the sewing room soon,
Liz