It's Friday!!

The latest installment of the house blocks are up! Go and check it out!!

I let Hallie out the front door this morning and looked at the garden in the front of my house and as she bolted out the door a gigantic raccoon ran out of my garden and into the neighbor's garden. He turned around and looked back at the 2 of us as if to say, "Geesh, you guys scared the heck out of me!" Then he turned and scampered away. What a way to begin the day!

Last night I went to JAF, did I remember to bring my gift card? I did not, so I will be going back today! I found the cutest fabric with these great retro birdies on it. I *need* to have some of it. I think I may be designing a little appliqued quilt around this adorable fabric. Now if you want to go and buy some yourself, please make sure you leave about 2 yards worth for me! It is soooo adorable! I will post a picture of it once it makes its way home with me.

I am going to visit Crazy Quilt Girl's shop today and buy a Swanky jelly roll today too. I figured I can use it for the border I want to do and then use the rest for the binding!! Pretty sweet to not have to cut those strips for making binding too right??

I am hoping to get some mulch purchased and spread around while DD1 is still home. DD2 comes back from her trip next Friday and DD1 leaves for CA on the 8th, while DS has graduation on the 7th! So next weekend will be crazy busy!! In addition, LTW, CQG and I are going to the shindig at Checkers on the 5th. Do you know Checkers? They are a distributor of fabric, patterns, rulers, thread, and various other notions to quilt shops. If you have a business you can buy from them and they will send it to you or you can go and pick it up. They are having an "After Quilt Market Review" to show all the new stuff they found! It should be fun to go and see what is new huh?

Well, have a great weekend!

Wedding Wishes

I got Karen and Cory's quilt back from LTW and thought I would share the quilting on it with you. Here is a corner. I love the swag and the border treatment. She used a light aqua thread and it is just perfect with this quilt!


Here is my label and you can see the aqua thread up close.

LTW used an overall pantograph with large flowers for the center part. We wanted a large quilting pattern so the signed squares on the back would not get lost nor would the pieced squares on the front. She chose a beautiful couple of border patterns though to make it look a little more custom.

You can see the blocks a little better here.

This is LTW and Karen's attempt to hold it up so I could get a photograph! HAHAHA!!


Please remember that LTW will do quilts for you too all you have to do is contact her! Her work is beautiful. (See the link to her on my side bar)

I did all the hand stitching on the binding in about 3 hours last night and boy am I ever sorry today as my left shoulder is killing me! I am very happy with how it came out though. I gave it to Karen this morning when I got to work and she is just thrilled with it too!!

Lacrosse Banquet

The lacrosse banquet was last night. It was kind of a bitter sweet night for me and my DS. He ended his career on a sour note by becoming academically ineligible to play in the last 5 games of the season. For this his coach was a total jerk to him. I have been the president of the booster organization for the last 2 years. At the banquet last night, the coach did not thank me or any of the board. It was kind of sad. I went early to help decorate the room. We put the jerseys of the senior players up on a photo tripod and here you see my son (#15) with his friends. The boys sat at a table in front of these. It looked really nice.


This is Jake, Chris and Thadd (my son) at the banquet. They are all best friends. Thadd and Chris have been friends since elementary school when they played their first football game together. I have become really good friends with his mom too, she was the VP for the team. During the senior's speeches, Jake actually thanked me personally for my encouragement and for helping him with the sport (making sure he got to games, feeding him and just listening when he needed someone to talk to about things) What a great kid! Don't they all look handsome?

After saying that the varsity coaches were big jerks all year I have to say that the parents have been, for the most part, wonderful to work with. Everyone hugged me and told me how much they are going to miss me. One mom even wanted to know if I would be back for a game so she could get to see me. I got up and thanked my board and then my friend Terry (the VP) got up and gave me these beautiful flowers!

One of our members at large then began to speak and tell me how much they will all miss me and how much they appreciated everything I did for the team. He said lots of wonderful things about me and it was very nice to hear that all my time was so appreciated! Apparently the parents got together and took up a collection and gave me 2 gift cards. $50 to Joe's Crab Shack and $100 to JAF!!! How thoughtful and how nice that everyone thought so highly of me. I was in total shock! Then if that wasn't enough, one family, the one where she and I struggled during the golf outing time, came up to me and gave me a $25 gift certificate to Applebee's from her family! It truly made me understand how much they all appreciated my efforts.

The evening was fun, the food was good and I am walking away with a good feeling. Our treasurer was having a bad night though as her FIL was placed into Hospice last night when we were at the banquet. She and I have become good friends and her DH is planning on being my replacement as president next year. He is a great guy and will do a fabulous job. Please keep their family in your prayers as they go through this difficult time.

You are all so wonderful I know your prayers will help them, even if they don't know you are doing it for them, I'll know! THANKS!!

What did I do over the holiday weekend?

Saturday saw my DH turn 51. What did he want to do for his BD you ask? Well he wanted to go antiquing, so we piled into the Mustang and went on a road trip. Final destination was his brother's house in Portage about 2 hours away. We stopped for lunch at Randy's Roadhouse. Here is my sweetie enjoying his ribs.


mmmmm...doesn't this look yummy? It sure was!

Once we arrived at the lake his whole family was there. One of his sisters brought cupcakes and we all sang to him. His parents were there from Florida as they are home for the summer. We also got to meet our newest niece Evelyn during this trip. It was a fun day! Happy birthday honey!

Sunday I decided I needed to choose a project to work on. So I chose this lone star that I had begun in a class 2 summers ago (wow was it really that long ago??) I chose that amazing dragon fabric for DD1 and her favorite color is purple, so there you go. I was trying to decide what to do for the back and she said, "I don't want a plain dragon back, can't you piece it like the aqua and brown one?" ARGH! I *can* but I didn't really want to. In the end I did piece it and had zero purple left over and very very little of the dragon fabirc either. I was not sure I was going to be able to make a back big enough with what I had left over. This quilt is 81" X 91". I had enough of the dragon fabric to make the binding too and the rest went to the scrap bin. (See Annemiek, I do really use lots of fabric when I am quilting! This took over 12 yards).

This meant that I had 2 empty project boxes in my LR that I promptly filled with projects that were in a bag in the LR. I have decided that once they hit the project box they are "next" on the hit list. At least that's my plan. Now that being said, there are 2 projects that are not in a project box that I really need to do first, one is a Halloween quilt cut out by my friend Ellen for my birthday last year and a Christmas quilt I cut out 2 years ago and gave one to her. Eventually!

Then on Monday I thought now what am I going to work on? I had received the final block for the Designer BOM from the FQ shop so thought I would make those. Here is block 11.

Here is block 12. I also got out the finishing kit and did all the cutting for that too.

As if this was not enough the Swanky turnovers were looking at me saying, "You know you want to play with me", and they were right. So I got my Kona white bolt out and cut out some white triangles to use with the turnover. I am going to use 2 turnovers and do this pattern. I got all the HST sewn for one turnover (80) and this is the layout I want to use.

The lacrosse banquet is tonight and then I just have one more parent meeting to go to and that is over too. I am so thankful that is coming to a close. Too much drama for me! I heard from DD2 who is in the Galapagos Islands and she is having a blast. Told me it was her dream trip! She is swimming with the sea lions, biking to the caldera of a volcano and snorkeling in the lava tunnels with the marine iguanas! I can't wait to see all her photos when she gets home.

I hope you all had a good weekend too. What did you do?

And the winner is...

Here is DD drawing from the jar the winner of the scraps!


And it's BECKY!!! Becky, please contact me with your address so I can send them to you. Thanks to everyone that has left the nice comments for me!

This is what I worked on last night. It is the little companion quilt for the anniversary quilt of Karen and Cory's for her parents (in Brazil). Didn't it turn out so cute? I love how it finished. Especially the multi colored border between the 2 white borders.

I had to piece the back and now I have none of this fabric left except for the white. I have some of that but it is for other projects too. Of the Simplicity fabric I have virtually none. YEAH!!

I would like to know what you all think of this little quilt! Have a wonderful holiday weekend!

"What Did You Say Was In The Bag?"

Ok, I have spared you all the latest "gifts" from the cats. But a few days ago when I stepped out the front door on to my front porch there was a young bunny. I hate seeing dead things so early in the morning. Then 2 nights ago, Autumn, the calico in my header, was seen dragging a poor bunny from my deck (that she was trying to bring me and it was half dead). So last night DH came to me while I was sewing with his travel bag. He had been gone for an overnight trip, came home and left his bag in my living room near my sewing stuff. He had emptied it out but was taking it back upstairs to repack. Then a few minutes later he came to me and announced,"the cats brought you a present". I was so afraid so I carefully peeked inside the bag and found THIS! Looking back at me!! A baby bunny!!!



Isn't it so sweet? But I knew we should not keep it. I was terrified to put it outside since not all my cats were in the house. DD1 is holding it to show you how little it was.


We got an aquarium to put it in but I felt she would probably not make it through the night because she had no food or water all day the day before but I had to try. look who was curious about what was in there. (sorry for the blurry pic)



As it turns out, she didn't make it through the night and I buried her in the garden with a little prayer before I left for work today. RIP little bunny!

What's New?

Funny you should ask that! I just received 2 new (to me) books in the mail. One is by Piece 'O Cake. It has some really fun quilts inside. Remember the one from my post about Sauder village with the pieced wheels? Well, I found out that it is in this book. But it looks kind of difficult. Annemiek, was it difficult??


The second one is by Material Obsession. If you haven't found their blog yet you need to go right now. Go on what are you waiting for? GO!! There are some marvelous quilts in this book. i have emailed one of the gals from MO and she is so nice! The shop is in Sydney and she is originally from Ohio! Imagine that, a transplant! Truly fabulous work. You won't be sorry to go there and visit for awhile.

Here is my latest Material Obsession. I have all my disappearing 9 patch blocks sewn and cut. last night I made the little top. I am planning on doing the borders and the back tonight so I can hand it over to LTW tomorrow. We will see how it goes.

DH has been into lots of "healthy, natural" cooking lately (making his own butter, making yogurt, making all kinds of bean things etc) so there are larger messes than usual in the kitchen and I am usually the one cleaning them up which takes a lot of time, I have to say. I need to plant my pots of flowers too and such it is such a beautiful night, I may do that tonight and maybe not the quilt. We shall see.

I don't know if I told you this already but my friend, Cori, now has a blog so you really need to go and visit her. She is also on Twitter and she has a fabulous online quilt shop where her prices are very reasonable! Again...go now and visit her! RIGHT NOW!! Tell her I sent you and go forth and stimulate the economy!!

Aqua and Brown Quilt

I have had several people ask about this quilt and how I made it. I decided to put a sample of the fabric I used and how much. (This is especially for you Padmini) I used 20 different fabrics in the top of the quilt. One extra for the border. I bought most of them at Joanne Fabrics (JAF) and I bought 1 yard cuts. If the quantity was different you will see it on the sheet. Like the bottom right corner fabric I bought 3 yards and used it for the border.


Some of these are from JAF, and I bought 1/2 yd cuts. Some were from Jennifer's Quilt Shop and those 3 I bought FQ's of. The last 2 were from Hobby Lobby and I bought 1 yd of the aqua(could have bought only 1/2 yd) and 3 yards of the aqua with the brown flowers.(which I only used on the back because I found it too late!)

I cut 5" squares of all 20 fabrics, and made 39-9 patch units. I tried to make equal numbers of 5 brown/4 aqua and 5 aqua/4 brown 9 patches. I then cut the 9 patch into 7" quarters. I randomly joined the quartered blocks and set them 12 x 13. The first border was a 2" aqua border. The second border was that brown fabric in the lower right hand corner of the first sheet cut into 3.5" strips. The next border was left over 5" squares (I cut some extra so I could make what I liked for the 9 patches) cut in half and joined end to end. They fit with one cut in half at one end, but you might want to measure and pin to make sure. I am not sure of how many of those I used and the quilt is out of my hands so I can't even count them right now. Then one more 3.5" border matching the first 3.5" border and now you are finished!

I decided to use the rest of the fabrics for the back rather than purchase any additional fabric. I did not have much fabric left over. You can see in the scrap bag. The quilt top finished 98" X 104" and since my friend has a king sized bed this is perfect for her. Here are my scribbles as I was frantically trying to figure it all out last night.

If any of you decide to try it let me know.

I saw my friend, Cori, last night too. she owns the online shop Crazy Girl Quilts and sells Moda cut goods. I bought these turnovers and I love them. She is trying to get me to write up my patterns and she is willing to sell them in her shop. What do you all think about that?? Should I take the leap?

This is another "small" project I decided to squeeze into my "to do" list (Like I need any more, right?) I took the left overs from the anniversary quilt and made some 9 patches and cut them up and ended up with this. I am going to make a smaller quilt, wall hanging really, for Karen's mom and poppy in Brazil to remember their wedding. I think it will go quickly. My biggest problem is that I have zero of the colored fabric left to make any kind of border with. I am going to dig through the true "scrap" and see if I can make a thin colored border and then use white for the first inner and then the outer border. If not, the border will just be white. I suppose I could cut some of the blocks back up smaller and use those, I don't know yet. *SIGH* I will be grappling with that tonight. I did manage to get a little (and I mean a little) off the back of the big quilt but mostly white there too! I really don't have anything in the stash that will go with these prints either. Well, I will figure something out! I like this part of the designing process!!

Great Giveaway

Just a short note to tell you to go to Julie's blog and leave a comment for a chance to win. Great prizes!

Who is up for a surprise?

If it's you then here you go. I finished the aqua and brown quilt and this is what I have left over. It all fit in a ziploc bag. Want it? Leave me a comment telling me what you would do with it and I will randomly select a name on Friday. I have to take a photo of the back to show you because it is as pretty as the front. I decided to piece it and *try* to use up all the fabric. I used up a lot but not all of it.

As I was piecing Look who was "helping". Jack! Not in the box but on my quilt! He is looking like "Hey, I'm just helpin what are you looking at?"

"Oh good, she put that darned camera away now I can settle in and be a really settle in and nap!"

Well, so much time elapsed that I got a photo of the back of Mary's quilt. It is HUGE so I had to have my friends hold it up so I could take this photo! Pretty cool back, huh??

Happy Mother's Day

It was an eventful Mother's Day weekend at my house this weekend. My nephew and a friend of DD1 came over on Friday and made this wonderful dinner for us. It consisted of fried rice, crab rangoons and almond chicken (which ended up as sweet and sour chicken as the chef made a horrible sauce that didn't work at all!) the crab rangoons are yummy!!


I was busy working on a aqua and brown quilt for my friend Mary. I had to put it away for the night and here is Aiden protecting it!

Hallie was supervising from her perch on the couch. (Aiden would be in the bag to the left of Hallie on the seat cushion of this same couch)

I told you I would show you the label for the Charming Baskets quilt and here it is. I think it came out rather nicely!


This is the aqua and brown quilt before the last 2 borders. It wasn't quite big enough so I decided it needed another border (or borders as the case may be) so I made 2.5" x 5" rectangles and sewed them end to end and put those around next to the brown border. Still not enough, so I am going to add another of the same brown border. I have it all cut, sewn and ready to put on the quilt. Hopefully soon!! I want to make the binding and then have to make the back and then off to Liz. It was not even on my list of things to do but here it is and almost ready to go to the quilter!


In addition DD2 came home and we shopped for plants and then she helped me finish weed her garden and she planted all her plants. (this was her Mother's Day gift to me, her time and help with the gardens) I planted the back garden and a few pots, weeded the front garden. Just have to weed the veggie garden and the garden around the side tree and those will be ready to plant. I need plants for the front garden, just a few petunias, as it gets hot there and that is what I have found works best there. We dug out a dead tree in the front yard between the sidewalk and the street and dug up a maple and planted it there. WHEW!! It was a lot of work! Both girls, DH and me went to see the new Star Trek movie and all I can say is WOW!! DD2 is not a fan but even she loved it! It was a fabulous movie, you all need to go and see it. Captain Kirk as a young guy is so cute!!

DD2 leaves for Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands on Thursday so I will be busy getting all her stuff ready for her to go. We did some shopping this weekend too. DH took her for a rash guard suit and a light weight wet suit. I got pharmacy duty. It was a good time! She still has some stuff to do but we are getting her ready!

I hope you all had a great weekend too!! I have to go back to work to recover!!

Baby Evelyn

Baby Evelyn, the recepient of the baby basket quilt, has arrived. April 28th. I had the quilt finished and decided to make a quilted card to put in with the gift. I used the fabrics from the quilt to make it. Here is the front.


And here is the back!


I forgot to take a photo of the label and I think you might like to see it so I will unwrap the quilt and take a picture today and upload it later for you to see. I hope you all have a wonderful Mother's day on Sunday!! I never (I mean it too) ever listen to CNN but the radio station was talking about 10 things you should ask your mother. Kind of neat. Let me know if any of you do it. I can't as my mom is no longer living.

I sent a package of vintage papery goodies to a certain someone in OH, so Happy Mother's day to you, (I think you know who you are!)

WONKY HOUSES RULE!!

I know that many of you are making "My Neighborhood" which is a wonky appliqued house quilt that I have designed. Well, I found a new to me blog that has embroidered wonky houses as a BOM also a Shabby Roses BOM. Go over to see Jenny and tell her I sent you!

Now for a funny photo. Here is Jack in Kelsey's garden trying to decide if he needs to go after the gigantic black and yellow bumble bee! This is a "before" picture of Kelsey's garden. I have not planted any annuals yet. I will show you how beautiful it can be when I get it all planted and it has a chance to grow a little bit.


The same for the back of my house. Here are all the perennials waiting for the annuals to be planted for some more color!


Well, I should have some nice things to share tomorrow. I have decided to make a quilted post card to go with the baby basket quilt. I need to quilt it and finish it, hopefully tonight.

Go and check out Jenny's blog her stuff is awesome!

Sauder Village Quilt Show

Some of the CL's an I went to Sauder Village in Archbold, Ohio on Friday. I took the day off and I drove. Here we are!! We had such a good time. There were some fabulous quilts and of course a trip to the quilt shop that is there too!


If you go to to my Flickr account you can see all the pictures I took but here are a few of my favorites. This was a striking quilt. I wonder how the quilter made those fabulous wheels?

I took a picture of this one because my DD1 graduated from GVSU and I have never seen anyone make a quilt like this one! I love the logo.

There were a group of challenge quilts when we entered the show. They had to use certain fabric and no pieces bigger than 5". There were so many unique quilts but I loved these 2 the best. Go figure, huh? The one on the right has some cross stitching in the cats.


I loved this bunny quilt. I have made this quilt once already. I had the CL's make the bunnies and I assembled it. I didn't do the sashing the same as this either. I have all 30 bunnies sitting in a box at my own house waiting to be put together! I even have the sashing all cut and ready to put together. It's on my list! Stop nagging!!


I thought this would be neat to do for our church office. (or something like it) Simple but elegant! The letters look like they are raw edge appliqued. Neat, huh?

This Baltimore Album quilt was so beautiful. On my Flickr account you can see the upclose on the peacock and it is gorgeous! Never in my lifetime would I ever finish something like that.

Ok, so we went to the quilt shop and I bought this panel to make that quilt. It is from Andover fabrics and the pattern is free on their website. Aren't those animals the cutest??

I know you will all be shocked but here is some fabric I bought to make something for myself!! I found that there are a few more fabrics that go with this line (Natural Effects, Marcus Brothers) so will probably get a few more. Marcus Brothers has a pattern on their website using the fabric and it is pretty cute, I may make a few changes and use that one. I would minimize the brown in it I think.

On Sunday, after I had enough weeding, I started to put together the disappearing 9 patch blocks into rows and I have about half of the 13 rows assembled. Here is my 9 patch inspector. She was busy marking my sewing table so all the other cats know that it is hers. Wouldn't my friend, Mary (who this is for) just die to see Aiden on her quilt? She is terribly alergic to cats. This one will have to go into the wash before I give it to her!


I did not have a particularly great diet weekend but my weight stayed the same, still down by 20. Slow and steady, *sigh*