Celebrate The Ones You Love

My dear sweet husband had a birthday on Monday.  

We went out the FD's farm for a cook out to celebrate.  

We had the best time! 

 I wish our middle daughter could have been there too but 

NC is quite far from MI and we will be seeing her this summer.  

Anyway here is a shot of all of us (sans me) enjoying our day.  

You can see that even Beep was joining in.

I did manage to snap a pic of our dog, Abbey too.  

She is terrified of the bird (who in all fairness, is constantly trying to kill her).

Hubby's favorite cake is angel food with strawberries and whipped cream.  

Store was out of angel food cake and strawberries.  

So I went to the bakery part of the store and the sign said "strawberry cake".  

I figured it was a strawberry flavored cake, but thought it was better than no cake and decided to ask.  Lo and behold, it was angel food cake with 

custard that has strawberries cut up in it and white butter cream frosting.  

Close enough!! 

 I bought a can of the spray whipped cream and called it good!! 

 The cake was amazing. 

 Everyone loved it (and they are picky cake eaters).  Beep and Abbey even got some of the frosting.

Lest you think I have not been sewing (and I have not done much) I did manage to get another Splendid Sampler block finished but I did it my way and not the way the block was originally done.

I think it turned out pretty cute!  The cat is a free pattern over on Jodi Ric Rack's blog.

A friend on Instagrm (prettylittlequilts) is working on a cross block that she wants to make to pay tribute to the same kind of thing done during WWI.  

She is being deployed and wants to make a similar quilt 

as to the one in the 1917 Modern Priscilla magazine. 

 Next year is the 100th anniversary and she is making this as a traveling quilt.  

She will be collecting signatures of troops and veterans from all over the world. 

 She asked for one or 2 of these cross blocks made out of Bonnie and Camille fabrics and white.

  It should be an amazing quilt when it is finished!  

If you like you can read about the original quilt here.  I can't wait to see it finished!

Linking up to Let's Bee Social

Have a wonderful day and happy sewing!

~XOP~

Shipshewana But With Different People

I feel that Shipshewana is a pretty frequent blog post title.  

This time I was going there with 2 friends from work. 

 I taught them how to quilt and talk about Shipshewana all the time so we finally made a  plan to go.

We drove the back roads down and it took about 3 hours.  

We arrived at the Davis Mercantile at the same time as a gigantic bus filled with women.  

They were all going in the first floor door and I knew the bathrooms are on the bottom floor so, after 3 hours in the car, we raced down to the bathrooms. 

 Guess what?  

We beat the crowd!!!

Next was to the resin furniture shop where resin bird feeders were the purchase of the day. 

 My friends bought many for their friends and for themselves.  

We finally got out of there, brought the feeders to the car and went to Little Bit of Lollys. 

 I totally forgot to take very many photos. 

 After fabrics were purchased we headed off for a pretzel at Jo-Jo's Pretzels.

Here is what I bought at LBOL.  All the fabric there is discounted.

Here is my friend Judith, eating her first Jo-Jo's pretzel

We then headed off to Lolly's where I purchased a few things, but not too many. 

 The one on the right says "Stitch".

After that we headed to the other shops in the Davis Mercantile.  

There is a huge tree right in the middle of the building!  

Here are all three of us on our shopping extravaganza.

I picked up these FQ at LBOL.  That sewing machine bag was too cute to pass up. 

 I love Vintage Home.  

Those note cards were adorable and look like my Mosen.  

This was what the trunk of Robn's Pilot looked like just after the time spent at the Davis Mercantile! We still had not gone to Yoders!  

That gray bag on the left was my cooler.  

I made egg muffins and Judith brought a coffee cake for our "breakfast" on the way down.  

Then I packed sandwiches for our lunch and everyone else brought stuff to go with lunch and snacks.  We had a picnic outside the Mercantile before heading down to Yoders.

After we were rested and refreshed we headed to Yoders Department Store.  

We spent about 2 hours here!  

Judith finished first so went to sit in the rocking chairs in the hall.

  I joined wanted to join her but there were no more rocking chairs left.  

Cow seat it was!

These were the things I purchased at Yoders.  

Aren't these foxes adorable??  

Seems like I am now a fan of fox.

I don't usually buy Thirties fabrics but could NOT resist these kitties. 

 I can use the purples in baby quilts and the red actually seems to go with several other lines I have.  The mint is always a good idea. HA!

Some people, bought a lot more than I did, LOL.

After we went there we headed to Yoder's meat and cheese shop

 for a few items before heading home.  

That's another reason to bring along a cooler, for meat and cheese purchases. 

 Sadly, the fry pie lady was closed. 

 Next time I will have to go there first!  

What did you do over the weekend?  Maybe you have some fun shops to recommend?

~XOP~

Fox Face Is Finished

I worked really hard to finish up the Fox face quilt so I could gift it. 

 I needed to quilt it and bind it.  

Here are a few process shots.

I took this as I was finishing up the face.  

The white part on the left is just marked with my Hera marker, not stitched.

 This goofball was being very "helpful" during the whole process.

You can see some of the quilting in this pic, on the background

I used long strips of tape as guides for my straight lines.  It worked out pretty well.

Time to choose the binding.  Blue or purple?  The yellow on the right is the back fabric.

I ended up choosing a completely different purple and am very happy with this one.

Here she is all quilted up!

I love that purple binding!

The purple goes so well with the back too!

All wrapped up with the chenille blanket I made to go with it and ready to gift to baby Clara Rose.

Autumn was exhausted with all the hard work!

I will link this up with Crazy Mom Quilts for finish it Friday.

Have a wonderful weekend!

~XOP~

An Unexpected Day

Ever had one of those days where you have plans and absolutely NOTHING goes according to them?

That was my yesterday.  Work ran late.  

Farm Daughter (FD) wanted me to hem some curtains for her so she picked me up from work.  

I take the public transportation and the early bus was too soon for me to get everything finished 

(it's the one I usually ride) and the late bus was too late.  

So she picked me up and we went out for dinner.  Then we drove to the farm to do "farm chores".  She took the curtains down while I minded the chickens.

Blu was in full show off mode.  Hard to believe we hatched him from an egg!

FD has another beautiful male named Octavian the Second (or O2 for short)   He is an Opal peacock.

I love the tinge of blue in his eye feathers.

He had to be moved to the barn as he and Blu were fighting (2 grown up boys).

After farm chores, we left to go to my house.  We brought along 12 dozen farm eggs!!!  

Once we got to my house, we delivered a few dozen eggs to the neighbors 

and one of our neighbors flagged me down.  

He wanted me to try his latest home brewed beer.  

Sigh, those curtains were not going to get hemmed.  

Finally I managed to get up to my sewing room and get to work. 

 Funny story, did she measure the length?  NOPE, so we had to guess. 

 I used my bedroom window to measure and then she did the same and 

separately we ended up with the exact length!

Oddly enough it fit the window perfectly!

Here's to serendipity!

~XOP~

May Is For Makers Indie Design Support Link Up

I'm a little sad that no one is linking up their purchases from Indie Designers this month, but I am going to share my most recent purchase and put a link at the end just in case.

I have been wanting to make a Washi dress for a LONG time now.  I finally bought the pattern.  

It is a Made by Rae pattern and widely available online.  

I now need to look for some elastic "thread".  

I'm excited to sew with this too.  It's always fun to learn new techniques.

I think there is an option to make it without the cut out, 

but I have not received the pattern in the mail yet.

What new Indie Designer have you bought from this week?

Click on the blue button and link up!

~XOP~

Who's Tripping Down The Streets of The City?

Everyone knows it's Windy!
I said I would talk about my friend, Windy, coming to visit.  

She drove 2.5hours just to go out to lunch with me and go shopping.  

Now THAT's a friend!

She picked me up at work and we drove to Zingerman's Deli in Ann Arbor, for lunch. 

 Zingerman's is an institution.  

The food is fantastic, but a little pricey. 

 I bought our lunch since she drove all the way to see me!

Number 13, Serman's Sure Choice, my all time favorite!

While on her travels, Windy came upon some Lizzy Dish fabric.  

She knows how much I love this line so she texted me and then brought it to me at our visit!

We went to Treasure Mart, a local thrift shop but the big excitement was going to Pink Castle Fabrics.

I knew I wanted to pick up a few of the prints in the Whisper Pallette by Lizzy House.

I was especially interested in the ghosts, mice and swans.  

Particularly the swans.  

I love it even more in person than I did in the photos of it!  

I also got the beautiful teal to make the School House tunic in.  

I am waiting not so patiently, for the tracing paper to arrive so I can try making one.

These were in the FQ bin and...resistance was futile!

All In all it was a great day and I loved spending time with my friend.

Little did I know that my Instagram friend would turn into one of my best IRL friends!

The internets (all of them) has made this world so much smaller.

Happy Caturday from this silly girl and me!

I hope you get a chance to enjoy your friends this weekend.

~XOP~

Weekly Update

I have decided to post a "Weekly Update" on Fridays.  

I will talk about the things I have worked on during the week.  

It could be quilt related, or family or garden or anything I have put work into that I want to talk about.

I am going to make a linky and if you would like to link up to whatever you have been working on this week I would invite you to link up your blog post too.

I have been working on many things (of course).  

I want to share the Fox Face quilt.  I started the quilting of it last night. 

 It is progressing well.  

I didn't have a lot of time to work on it but maybe about an hour.  

I also have been working on the Splendid Sampler blocks.  

I substituted some embroidery so I was working on that and you saw those but here is one of the cats.  You can see the amazing teal Aurifloss color really well in this one.

I met up with my friend Windy from Grand Rapids yesterday for lunch and 

some shopping and will share more about that tomorrow.

Enjoy your weekend and please use the little blue "inlinkz" button to link up YOUR weekly update!

~XOP~

What I'm Working On

I have been so busy with the "have to" quilting projects, 

I've almost forgotten what it feels like to work on the "want to" projects.  

I have one more have to and that is to quilt up Fox Face. 

 I really need to get this done so I can gift that quilt to the baby that has already been born!  

Maybe on Saturday.

I finished my Bee blocks for May and put them into the mail this morning.

I have been following along with the Splendid Sampler.  

Are you participating?  

There was a pretty complex embroidery pattern that I loved 

but knew I would not take the time to make.  

So I decided to add these adorable cats instead.  T

hey are a free download from Jodi Ric Rac's blog, resized to fit in about 4".  I

 embroidered them using Aurifloss.  

The color of the floss is so much better in the second photo.  

DMC does NOT have this amazing color.  

In fact, I am meeting my friend, Windy and we will be going to Pink Castle Fabrics today 

and I should pick up some more!

I have also been working on my Busy City quilt which I will talk about tomorrow.

What are you working on?  I am linking up to Let's Bee Social  over at Sew Fresh Quilts.

~XOP~