Prayers For Beep

That's right.  

I'm asking all of you to say a quick prayer that our pet peacock, Beep, 

comes out of her surgery well today.  

She ate some things she should not have (one being a needle) and they will open her up and remove said things today, very soon.  

My daughter (Beep's mom) is a nervous wreck, as am I.  

If that itchy rash I have was not bad enough before, the stress of this is making it so much worse!

Praying Dr. G is successful and that Beep recovers and is back to her old self soon.  

Thanks friends, we all really appreciate it and I will keep you posted.

Beep at Easter 2017

Beep modeling her new diaper

~XOP~

Beep Update:

Beep is out of surgery and they are waking her up now- she's to the "breathing on her own and heartbeat is stable" stage. The vet got the needle out but could not find the button still. He managed to get into her abdominal cavity without cutting or injuring her air sacs, which was the major worry with cutting into a bird. The needle had gone through the stomach wall into the cavity and had poked a bunch of stuff to the point where it... it basically caused her insides to scab up, and things were healing sticking together that were not supposed to be together. But he pulled the needle, fixed the adhesions, cleared out dead tissue around them, and got her put back together again. I will let you know when I know more/when she is fully awake again.

WIPs With Friends

The biggest things I have been working on are actually some small things.  

I had some bee blocks for April to finish up, which I did.

Hallie was sooooo helpful! LOL

I was trying to tidy up and had some left over flannel that was not big enough to do much with so I am in the process of making some burp cloths out of them.  

I will be listing these in my ETSY shop once I have them all finished.  

Last night I was making binding for my Birdie Stitches quilt and this was my view as I was cutting.

I wanted to use the aqua gingham you see in the photo above but it was not right for the quilt.

The dominant colors are pink and orange with some green.  

I had some green gingham like the aqua but could not put my hands on it quickly. 

 I decided to look through my stash of vintage sheets and came upon this gem.  

I cut it on the bias and voila, binding!

The greens are not the same but so very little actually shows and it actually IS vintage sheet so 

I am happy with it, I think.

My friend Darla Hall did the quilting and it is phenomenal! 

 I can't wait to get the binding on it so I can have it finished now.

I used a bunch of vintage sheet FQ for the backing so I know that binding will look great with that backing too. 

 Linking up with Sew Fresh Quilts.

Your turn, what are you working on?  

Please link up and share with us.  

Use the Inlinkz button and the #WIPsWithFriends if sharing on IG.

~XOP~

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EQ7 Class

I was away from Thursday through Saturday taking an Electric Quilt class with Mary Ellen Kranz.  

It was held in Perrysburg Ohio which is only about an hour away from where I live. 

 I decided that I would drive back and forth. 

 I am so happy I took this class!!!  I learned so much and made new friends to boot!!  

It was a beginner, get comfortable with the program class. 

 I am excited to be able to go into EQ and play now.  

I am no longer afraid of the program.  

Computer programs can be intimidating and I was just bumbling along. 

 Between the fantastic course I took online at Craft U and this one I feel much more confident.

Here are a few of the things I took a quick photo of that I designed.

I think I would totally make this feathered star one!

Can you just imagine this with a Mid Century Modern black cat on the right side??  Me too!!!

There were two local quilt shops that stayed open later and this one was the Quilt Foundry. 

CUTE shop.  

I bought some binding fabric here for the Birdie Stitches quilt.

The other shop I visited was Son Flower in Sylvania, OH.  

I snagged a couple of great patterns here.

I LOVE Claire Turpin designs!!

Halloween kitties?  Yes please!!

Married to a pilot means finding all the airplane quilt patterns!

I managed to squeek in some laundry and a few errands but I am so tired now!!  

How was your weekend??

~XOP~

WIPs With Friends The Birdie Stitches Edition

I am so excited to talk about my Birdie Stitches quilt.  

I started it in 2011 when Little Miss Shabby 

(now called Coriander Quilts) 

designed the birdie embroideries.  

If you want to make the blocks she still has them up and you can find the free patterns here. 

 I took my time and did the embroideries and made them into blocks.  

Then I took my sweet sweet time making it into a top.  

THEN even longer making a backing.  

I made the top out of Dream On by Moda and used vintage sheets for the backing.

I have had this ready to go to the quilter for a LONG time now.  

Next enter a new friend.  

I'm not even certain how exactly we became friends on Instagram but we are.  

She has a long arm business in California and does amazing work.  

I decided I wanted to send my Birdie Stitches to her and see what she would do with them.  

I really wanted something stunning, not just an overall pattern. 

 Let me tell you she is not disappointing me!!!  

She started on it last night and it looks GREAT so far.  

Here are some of the blocks she has taken pictures of as she is quilting.

I can not believe how amazing this is turning out!! 

 It is my WIP but just for trimming and binding. 

 I am taking an EQ class Thursday-Saturday so it will have to be later than that.  

My friend, Darla, that is doing the quilting is hoping to send it back to me on Friday, so I think I should be able to make binding this week and get the next quilt in the mail to her. 

 I still need to make the back for that one too.  

Hopefully tonight.

Linking up with Sew Fresh Quilts.

What are you working on? 

 Please share with all of us by adding to the link. 

 If you are linking up via Instagram please use 

#WIPsWithFriends.

~XOP~

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Easter Weekend

Life is never boring!  I did manage to get the binding completely sewn on by hand on Friday night.  

I only had to stay up to 1am!  

 I also spent a LOT of time at church and cooking and cleaning!!

Hallie was there to keep me company (oh and Jack Bauer too)

As it got later she crept closer and closer to me to let me know it was bedtime!

Saturday morning we went out to our Daughter's farm.  

All the peafowl were out and about enjoying the beautiful day.  

Those two boys are Orion (in the foreground) and Octavian (in the background)

Orion was all about showing off where I could get some really nice photos.

He is a purple pied peacock.

Isn't he grogeous?

You can see him showing off in this short video

Here is a more close up of Octavian. 

 He is an opal peacock and I could not get a photo of him with his train up.

This is Blu, the first peacock hatched out at our house.  He will be 7 years old this summer.

Then there is Beep.  She came over for Easter dinner with my daughter.

Hallie loves being on this spring quilt that I put on our bed.  An oldie but a goodie for sure!

(Both Hallie and the quilt)

I hope you all had a nice weekend.  Spring is finally arriving in Michigan!

~XOP~

WIPs With Friends

I have been doing some pattern testing this past week.  

Testers had a 3 week turn around to get a top done and mine is done 

(well almost done), 

in just over a week!  

I don't see any way to get it quilted and bound by the three week deadline either, but oh well!  

This pattern is called Diamond Falls.  

We were allowed to choose our own fabrics so I'll start there.  

I chose to use some older Lizzy House fabrics, her Lizzy Dish line. 

 I was thinking about turning this into a picnic quilt for myself. 

 Since I didn't want to repeat a fabric, I threw in 2 of the duck/swan fabrics from Red Letter Day too.  

Even though most of these photos don't really do justice to the Kona Jade, that was the background.

There were a bazillion diamonds (or 196) to cut out.  

I got those all cut and was able to spend some quality time sewing over the weekend. 

 I got a lot of the diamonds sewn into rows and *some* of those sewn together.

Man oh man there were a lot of diamonds.  

I had to pay serious attention to placement especially as construction was on the diagonal!

Sorry for the bad photo.  My "design wall" is a flannel piece tacked up to the hallway wall. 

 It is the only wall big enough for me to use but the lighting is crap.  

Here is half of the diamond portion (actually 1/4 of the quilt) finished.

This gives a better idea of the true color of the background.  

It was almost dark and super windy so this is the best I could do for a photo last night. 

Phew half way there.

I have to say a few things about this pattern. 

 The cutting directions need some clarification, but once I figured that out, 

it was not a difficult to put together as I had thought it would be.  

It went together fairly easily.  

Makes me think I should try another diamond quilt. 

 I don't think I would have been able to do as good a job a few years ago. 

 I'm confident my piecing had improved a LOT as this actually matches and lies flat!  

Now I will be back at the Folksy Fish, sigh.  

This was a nice break.

Linking up with Sew Fresh Quilts too.

OK, your turn.  

What are you working on?  

Please click on the blue Inlinkz button to add what you are working on.  

Remember to use the #WIPsWithFriends on social media and go ahead and 

grab the button for your blog!

~XOP~

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Celebrating

My great niece turned one this past weekend.  

All of my husband's siblings and many of their kids and their kids kids were in attendance. 

 It was a very nice celebration and everyone had such a fun time just being together and celebrating.

This is a photo of my husband (all the way on the left) and his brothers and sisters.  

I just noticed that they are in age order.  My husband being the oldest of the 7.

Then we managed to get some of the nieces and nephews (the ones that were there) in a photo.  Although the smallest one in pink is actually a great niece.  

You can see my son in the middle with the hat on.

Ny nephew and my son.  These two, omgosh!  

I just LOVE Kate's expression in this photo.
(She is the one cracking up)

These are some of my great nieces.  

The first two on the left are siblings, 

the next two are siblings and the last one is so far the first in her family.

Clearly, the birthday girl is the one in the Happy Birthday bib!

It was so nice that everyone took the time to get together and celebrate. 

It is always fun being with this group!

How was your weekend?

~XOP~