Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. 

 I hope, for those of you that celebrate it, that you did too.  

I made way too much food (but sent most home with my kids)  

This is what the "pre" Thanksgiving table looked like.

It was a pretty typical Thanksgiving day with all but one of my kids home. 

 The dog and the peahen seemed to enjoy the festivities!  Doesn't everyone have a house peahen?  

Of course the superstar of the weekend was our turkey.  

You may have seen the photo of my husband wrestling with this monster in an earlier blog post.  

Out daughter raised several turkeys this year.  

This was our spread for dinner.  Everything was so good. 

 I tried a new orange bread recipe and think I was the only one that liked it 

(probably too much!)  

And of course, my beloved Spartans won their football game clinching the division title,

 now on to the game against Iowa for the BIG championship game!!

I did manage to sneak in a little sewing too but will save that for another post!

How did you enjoy the long weekend?

~XOP~

Wedding Quilt Number Four On Deck

I have begun the next round of wedding quilts.  I have three to make for weddings next year.  The first wedding is in February so I need to get my butt in gear and get that top made!  I am going to make another Round and Round out of, wait for it...purple, gray and white!  Are you shocked?  Ne neither.  I had some time while the turkey extravaganza was going on so thought I would try to get it all cut out.  I got all of the white cut out on Saturday. I did manage to choose all of the purples and grays but I am still waiting on fabric from each of the moms.    Here are all my squares all cut and ready to make into HST.

I love including Sebastian in these gray quilts.  I even cut into my precious owls.  I feel like this is a good selection of purples and grays.  The bride wanted it to read more purple with an accent of gray.  I hope I am achieving this, but only time will tell.

I managed to get the first HST for the "circle of stars", block 1 sewn.  Next up is the trimming.  I found my Bloc Loc ruler and went to town.  If you don't own one of these rulers you should!  There is a channel running diagonally down the center and when you put it on your sewn line it "locs" into place.  Voille! No ruler slipage.

One set of 32 HST are sewn, trimmed and ready to make into the first block!

Only 210 more HST to go!!

Thank goodness for Bloc Loc and my turning mat from Olfa!!

Most likely I won't be blogging again until after Thanksgiving, but I will be on Instagram.

If you would like to keep up, please find me @mamaspark59 over there.

Linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced

To all my American friends, have a happy and safe Thanksgiving!

~XOP~

Turkey Kind Of Weekend

There were several amazing things that happened at my house this weekend.  

The first was that my daughter had to take her turkey's for processing. 

Some of these birds were HUGE. 

My hubby went over to the farm around 6am to help her gather them up and load them in the truck

 to take to the processor.  

Just look at this beast of a turkey!

I was comfy at home and it began to snow.

Which was ok as I was watching the MSU vs OSU football game.  

I looked out again and we had many more inches!  It was the first snow of the year in Michigan.

I think we got over 10 inches!

Abbey loves the snow so she was thrilled!

Fatty McFatty put her ample girth over the heating register and thus made the entire house colder.  Hey, what did she care?  Her belly was toasty warm!

I watched the game and could not be more thrilled with the outcome!  

We beat the number 3 team in the nation!!!

GO STATE!

I decided to work on the label for the next wedding quilt while I was watching the game. 

 I made some good progress! 

 I actually managed to finish the embroidery, I just took this early into the game.

I have more to share but need to run, so more later.

~XOP~

Mary and Eddie's Wedding Quilt

I can finally share this beautiful quilt that I made with my friend Ellen, for her daughter.

Our daughters have been friends since they were 8 years old.

I have watched Mary grow up.

Her mom is one of my very best friends.

Mary and Eddie got married in August of 2015.  

I was so swamped that I was not sure I would be able to make a quilt.

So I suggested to my friend that she help me.

The result was this gorgeous Round and Round Quilt.

I am linking it up to Finish It Up Friday over at Crazy Mom Quilts

Pattern is by Thimbleblossoms

(You can purchase your own copy at my friend's shop here)

Quilting by Kathy Koch.

My favorite block includes Sebastian the cat!

Instead of a guest book at the wedding reception, 

I had 3 12" framed in squares for people to write their well wishes for the happy couple. 

 I mounted the squares on cardboard and I harassed  asked people to sign. 

 I believe I got almost everyone! 

 I then incorporated them into the back of the quilt.

This took some mad math skills (haha)

The last space that looks empty actually has the hand embroidered label in it. 

 I used a light lavender thread so it doesn't show up very well in this photo.

You can also see Kathy's amazing quilting up close in this photo. 

 I used Zen Gray a Moda fabric for the front background fabric. 

 I am totally smmitten with this gray. 

 My friend, Crazy Quilt Girl, also carries this in her shop if you want to try it too. 

(Although I don't see it listed at the moment, check back!)

I am so thrilled to say that we gifted this to Mary and Eddie last night and they were so happy!

I can't wait to see a photo of it on their bed!

Congratulations Mary and Eddie.  We love you both!

~XOP~

WIP Wednesday Bee Positive 2 Addition

I may have been away but the normal day to day quilting never stops does it?  

I have been working furiously on the plus quilt for our priest.  

I can't remember if I have shown the top but here it is again.

I really must thank everyone that contributed to this beauty. 

I love this quilt so much and I hope Father Cooper will too!

Last Sunday when I got home from Glamp, I decided to begin working on the back of this + quilt. 

 I had designed a pieced back with all of the math done.  

I wanted to put some crosses on the back.  

At first I thought they would be green on the gray background, but the more I let that stew

 the more I wanted something more.  

I finally settled on "making" some green fabric, improv style. 

 I then cut the fabric into the sizes I needed to build a cross that would fit the dimensions I needed.  You can see some of the arms of the cross in the photo below.

(and the giant mess I made with all my green scraps!)

This was my view as I was trying to sew.  

What is it with cats making whatever they are sleeping on look like it is the 

most comfortable place on Earth??

Eventually she just gave up and was just sitting like this sleeping!

Oh Autumn!  

I'm pretty sure she was just happy I was home.

When I walked in the house she came to the door and was meowing at me.

She went up the stairs and turned around meowing more, so I followed her up.

She ran to my sewing room door (it is kept closed) and looked back at me as if to say,

"Come on mom, time to sew".

I think she loves this room as much as I do!

 It was night time and so difficult to get a photo. 

 My sewing table is small so I will show the back in two sections. 

 This first pic is of the  top left and center of the back.  

There are 2 signature panels I had to work in to the back.

  There is also a label that I embroidered which I put in the middle of the back. 

 I really do not like sewing on labels after the quilt is finished 

so have been trying to incorporate them into the back.  

That way it is labeled and no additional sewing!

This is the lower right with the other signature panel in place. 

 I am super happy about how the pieced crosses turned out. 

 They took quite a bit of time but I could not be more thrilled with how they look. 

 This pieced back sure took me a long time with all of the math, but I love it.  

I feel this is just what this back needed to be.

I am linking up to WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced.

What are you working on right now?

~XOP~

Glamp Stitchalot 2015

I had the pleasure of attending Glamp Stitchalot this past weekend.  

It was held in the town where I work and I only live about 30 minutes away.  

I stayed at the hotel for the weekend anyway so that I would have the total experience.  

Thursday I got to meet my FB friend Traci and some of her friends.  

We took a drive to Pink Castle Fabrics together.  

I picked up some of Violet Craft's amazing antlered cat fabric.  

YES!!!  

Score!!

At registration we received these pouches and lots of goodies!

I got to meet Tula Pink.  Seriously, this made my entire weekend.  

Who am I kidding, it made my whole year! 

 She was just a nice in person as you would think she should be too, which was great!

Brenda (PCF) was super excited about the chocolate fountain.  

(Check out Violet Craft just chillin')

Jeni Baker made this version of the quilt.  Each instructor made a center and a border.  

We got to choose which we wanted to use. 

 I made the Star  that Jeni had made.  Jeni herself was just adorable.  

She was so sweet and nice. 

These were 2 of the blocks I made in the Alison Glass portion of the class.  

She was a very good teacher. She focused on the many options we had using this block. 

 It was a fun block to play with.

I had Tula sign a few things. = )

Violet Craft did a paper pieced center and borders. 

 I fell in love with the bunny from her Forest Abstraction quilt.

The center was called True North and it was fabulous!

Violet had some great tips and it was fun getting to know her a little bit too.

Katy Jones was teaching Hexies.  Look at her and her doppleganger!

I did get a pic of Sarah teaching another section too.  She taught needle turn applique.

I was seated 2 down from my friend @Hexicat and didn't know it at first.  

I got to meet my FB friend, Traci, in real life and look...she can change water into wine!

Jeni took this selfie of us.  Isn't she adorable??

I spent some time talking with Alison Glass on Saturday night.  

She had a lot of great suggestions about breaking into the pattern area and as you can see, 

she was super friendly!  

All in all this was a wonderful experience.  

There were a few glitches and probably some no small amount of stress for the organizing staff, 

but it was a great time!  

If you get an opportunity to travel to Ann Arbor for the next Glamp in June you should totally go.  

I was completely exhausted by the time I got home on Sunday, but I did manage to put everything away and even did a little sewing.

What an amazing weekend!!

~XOP~