A patriotic table runner & distractions

 This table runner can finally be checked off my UFO list after a couple of years just being moved around in my sewing room from place to place.  It's small but it's done.  Yay!!

The final stitches went into the binding Sunday evening while watching college basketball on TV.  The light in my kitchen doesn't do it justice.  When I made the blocks about 3 or 4 years ago I had no clue what I wanted them to become.  But I did fussy cut the centers to make sure I had good flag graphics. The blocks hung on the design wall for at least a year before I sewed them together - and that is where the progress stalled out until this weekend.  

I quilted this using a decorative stitch, in the ditch.  And I used a great stripe for the binding.  This closeup photo actually gives a pretty accurate idea of the colors in this one.  

My distraction this week, besides work, has been tied to my genealogy hunt.  I've been kind of stuck on a possible 4x great-grandmother.  The slightly different dates and vastly different locations identified by various sources have me stumped.  And ironically I think the 2 people are really the same because I have DNA matches via both family lines.  But which information is correct?  Was she born and died on the French island of Reunion off the coast of Africa?  Or was she born in France and died in Ireland?  And how did her family end up in Canada then?  Genealogy can be a black hole that swallows me up for hours sometimes, but it is fascinating.