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I am going to my very good friend's 50th birthday girls only celebration. She requested no gifts. I know that I'm supposed to honor that but I feel that since she is hosting me for the weekend at her home I should take a little something. I will tell her it is not a birthday present. :)

Her home is beautifully decorated in a cozy primitive country style. She has a real knack for decorating and design. She decorates for as many holidays as she can and rotates her accessories so that the decor always looks fresh. She has been very unwell for the past few years but she still manages to keep her home and garden up to standards that I can not attain. I don't know how she does it.

We met several years ago; she is the sister of one of my husband's former coworkers. They invited us to spend Thanksgiving with them one year (all of our family is in California). From the first moment that we met I knew that we would be good friends. We are similar in many ways. She has supported me through the loss of my parents, my in-laws, lay-offs, failed fertility treatments, the birth of my son, the list goes on and on. She remains positive and hopeful whilst dealing with her own illness and difficult times. To say that she is a good friend is not adequate. She is more like a sister.

I wanted to make something that would be red, white and blue in the spirit of the 4th of July but not directly stars and stripes. I found some beautiful civil war fabrics at my LQS that fit the bill perfectly. I just did a simple friendship star table topper. I love the way it turned out. I will make another table topper of the same fabrics for my table.

On another note. I have been machine binding my quilts lately so I have using the same fabric to back and bind and then selecting a thread that matches. I have been using the same thread to do the quilting. It basically looks like I have quilted with an invisible thread. I'm not sure how I feel about the effect. It is great for the machine stitched bindng but I don't know about what it does for the actual look of the quilt.