What do you do for a person that makes and gives spectacular and symbolic mandalas as birthday presents?
For HER birthday, I turned the table, and the mandala metaphor became a quilted crown with the symbols sewn on. Spoons for tasting, whistles for coordinating our local emergency readiness efforts, flowers for fabulousness, and fabric with symbols of more food, coffee, pastries, and sports and school team colors.
Happy Birthday!
Between 11/11/11 feasting, appreciating corduroy, completion of the Totoro Quilt, (on top of my normal daily obligations including driving in circles, proofreading and correcting homework, keeping family members from sugar crashing, volunteering, and dog wrangling, to name a few) I decided that I needed to challenge myself with a quilt with diamond shaped pieces and exacting seam matching.
All that improv piecing and corduroy quilting had me approximating a whole lot. Sometimes a quilter needs to balance things out. 
11:11am on 11/11/11 could not pass by without food with friends. We came bearing food representing parallel lines, wearing our corduroy and our stripes, and feasted.
This one was my contribution. 
Find the recipe for Cinnamon Pull Apart Bread and pretty pictures at Joy the Baker. Her Pull Apart is way nicer and neater than mine. My Pull Apart sections plotted to escape. They were yummy nonetheless.
piecedgoods 