Tripping Around the World Western Style

The binding is complete! Sound the trumpets! Cue the angelic choir! And then commence with the Snoopy dancing! To say that I am ecstatic does not even come close. Like many of you, I spent more time in front of the TV soaking in the Olympics than I have in the entire 2 years since the last one! And I stitched. And I stitched. And I stitched. Suddenly, the first stitch met the last and I was left with no stitches left to stitch. Then I jumped up and threw my arms into the air in triumph! DH was walking through the living room and asked who won a gold medal. Well that would be ME of course! I just bound the hugest quilt ever!  I know that Saska bound one as well, because she made one here and it was Saska that convinced me that I needed to make mine bigger than I had initially intended to. It's huge! She calls it a wagon quilt because it's big enough to cover a covered wagon! LOL. It's 123x135". Yep, I think Wagon Quilt describes it pretty well don'tcha think?

There are 100 blocks in this one...3600 2 1/2" squares to be exact, but who's counting. This is Bonnie Hunter's Many Scrappy Trips pattern. Here's the link to the tutorial. I used every western print I had and I still have a big container that won't close, filled with those prints.

So the other day I gathered it up and hauled it out for a photo shoot. Don't cringe. I make quilts to use and they had better be able to withstand a little ranch dirt every once in a while.

The horses heard that the chickens put their 2 cents worth in on the Scrap Jar Star top last week and they were having none of that. We're an equal opportunity ranch around here.

This colt has a nose for a good thing when he sees it:

This quilt is worth it's weight in gold. So is that hay sitting there. Can you say ouch on the price of hay right now?

OK, fella, let's stick with the hay:

This was not an easy picture to take. I'm telling you! There was ladder scaling ... and  hay climbing... and rock hauling (which was unnecessary since I was able to tuck the top of the quilt into the baling twine) . And yes, I did it without help which is why there are no pictures to tell of the tale...which is probably a good thing. DH was away and I was washing sheets and I thought...how hard could it be? 

When that thought pops into my head, I should heed it as a warning, but do I listen? Nope.  I worked up quite a sweat and then DH admonished me for not waiting for him, but the sun was setting and I was going to lose the light. He's heard that before.

We have a king-sized bed, but it sits up high and we have a really thick mattress so this quilt is just right.

 It's crazy heavy though, but I wanted a warm, heavy quilt and a warm, heavy quilt is what I got. Right now, when it's still 100+ in the afternoons, it's a bit much, but we just fling it to the foot of the bed at night and every morning, when I make the bed, I get a workout, but it makes me grin every day.

I am so excited to finally have a quilt I made on our bed! Those 3 little pillows look kind of lost though. I think this calls for some big tone on tone pillow shams. I thought about fringe, but I'm not really the fringe-y type although I just happen to have a whole lot of black piping that didn't make it's way into a previous project...

Now I really need to do something with those walls. Sigh. Anyone up for some home improvement?