Finally I Can Post This!

I have finally finished the project that I have been working on for what seems like years! I was not able to post any pictures of it as I did not want a certain someone to see it! Well, now that someone has received it as their birthday gift. That certain someone is my brother, Freddy! I talked about my brother having his 51st birthday on Jan. 19Th in my last post. My brother has always been an Alabama football fan.
When our Mama was alive she would always buy him something representing Alabama football every year for Christmas. After she died and I was cleaning out some closets I came across a Christmas ornament that was still in the box. It was a little Alabama airplane with a little elephant flying it. I knew she had ordered that for Freddy for Christmas. So just before Christmas I wrapped it and wrote to Freddy, love Mama on it and mailed it to him. I am sure it hangs on his tree every year now.
Now on to what I made for Freddy. It is an Alabama Football quilt! I had been planning the project for years, but just could not find a pattern. It is very hard to find an applique' pattern for Alabama! My 86 year old friend has made all her grandsons Alabama quilts, but she likes to machine piece and so her quilts are mostly machine pieced with only a little applique. I kept searching and searching. Then one day this older lady who was a member of my church died. Her daughter gave my 86 year old friend a lot of her sewing stuff. Imagine our surprise when we found an Alabama Quilt pattern among the things she was given! I was so excited to find out that is was applique. I really liked it and decided to use it for Freddy's quilt. I did change it up a little, but over-all it is the same pattern. I hand appliqued the blocks using the blanket stitch and then I hand quilted it. The hand quilting seemed to take forever! I don't really care for hand quilting and have only hand quilted a few very special quilts.
Here is a picture of the finished quilt.

Here is a close-up of the Elephant that is in the middle of the quilt. I just love him! Don't look too closely at my hand-quilting as it is not the best in the world! But it was all done with love!
This is a close-up of one of the footballs.
And here is my son, Keith, holding the quilt.

I finished this quilt the day before my brother's birthday. I mailed it the day after his birthday since his birthday fell on a National holiday and the post office was closed. He just got to pick it up at his post office yesterday. He called me as soon as he got it and was so excited about it! He told me it was AWESOME! He just loved it and couldn't believe all the work I had put into it! He will never know just how much it means to me that he loves it so! His wife took pictures of him opening his present and of him holding the quilt. So she is suppose to upload them to walmart.com so I can print them out. I can hardly wait to see them!
My brother had also called me on Tuesday to wish me a Happy Birthday. I was sitting here at work and the phone rang. My hubby had already called me twice and so I figured it was him calling me again. Imagine my surprise when I pick up the phone and my brother starts singing Happy Birthday to me! I just laughed and laughed! It has really been a very special birthday for us both. Oh, and my brother told me that he was late mailing me my present so I haven't gotten it yet!