May Flowers

Went for a walk this morning with the peewee, we are sure enjoying the blooming things!

The last of the lilacs...

Wild columbine...

A fresh plowed garden!

A cute peewee!

And the rhodies... Gorgeous!

And lastly my beautiful Mother's Day basket. Love it!

On the crafty side.... How about some Christmas in May? My sister Jennifer picked out these fabrics and pattern, and I'm helping her piece it. Fun stuff! I love how playing with fabric and color is so relaxing. I need more of it! :-)

A long time!

Wow, its been so long! Since last post two years ago, the following happened:

- I graduated from nursing school
- we moved to graham, WA
- I passed my NCLEX and started working at a chemo infusion clinic
- we had a baby in November 2013!

- moved to Oregon in February 2014
- I started work on an oncology unit at the local hospital
- Baby turned one in November 2014

- Currently expecting baby #2!

Whew! Lots happened in the last couple years!!

Needless to say, my sewing and crafting time has sure slowed down, but I've kept it up when I get a free moment. I'm halfway finished with Bonnie Hunter's Grand Illusion... (Fabric choices shown here)

Am hand quilting Reid's hexagon quilt...  

And have finally decided on a pattern for my meadowsweet 2 fabrics... And have it pieced! (Pics to come)

I'm not sure if I ever posted pictures of Bonnie Hunter's  Easy Street either.... It was pieced in great falls, MT in 2013, It still needs to be quilted.

Spring is here in western Oregon, the garden is plowed (but not planted), and we are waiting for summer. Today = a grayish, muggy day great for walks by the lake!

One very PINK quilt

This quilt was a long time in the making. Remember the quilt that I helped Jennifer finish up? The birdie quilt? I was also working on the same blocks, but it took much longer to finish - I suspect because I kept starting other projects!

I had always had this in mind for Grandma A. She's the one who got me thinking that I could learn to sew and that I could actually make quilts. She has made so many quilts - for her kid's weddings, for grandchildren births, grandchildren graduations, grandchildren weddings, and now great grandchildren. She was originally taught by my Great Grandma A, and I LOVE that there is a little family history there!

Grandma's favorite color is pink, so of course the quilt just HAD to be PINK!! Believe it or not, Curt came with me this time to JoAnn's as well and helped me pick out the pink polka dot sashing fabric. Love it!

I used the same quilting template as I did with the previous birdie quilt - I love those rope cables!

 And I love the process of hand quilting - it gets to be tedious towards the end, but it turns out so beautiful!

This was started in January 2011 and finished up in December 2012. Given to Grandma over the christmas holidays.

Love, love, LOVE the texture!

I wasn't quite finished when we headed out to Oregon, so some of the binding was stitched on during the car trip. Can you see the snow out the windshield? This is going down the gorge near Hood River.

Pretty blue binding!

All finished!

 Pretty light pink sheet for the back. Hard to see, but it has pink roses on it.

Flower quilting in the sashing!

 

If this hadn't of taken so long to make, I'd sure make myself one! Maybe someday!! Check another project off the list! :-)

Little Bobcat Fan Quilt

Remember the Montana State Bobcat quilt I made for Curt? He loved it so much that he had to show it off to another Bobcat fan. They liked it so much that they requested one for a special little girl. Her name is Ashlynn and she's about 2 years old. I was more than happy to do it - I already had more than enough blue and gold fabric leftover, so I jumped in. (Here's little Ashlynn feeding a cheerio to her Daddy)

 

I wondered how to make it a bit more "girly" - but solved that problem by putting a pretty blue daisy print on the back.

I used fusible web to attach the lettering... then sewed around the outer edges. I left the edges of that to fray - I am loving the raw edges in quilts more and more!

To finish it I hand quilted baptist fans all over. I love that you don't have to do any marking to do that quilting pattern - you just go for it! For better or for worse, it looks hand made! :-)

I think it turned out pretty cute!!

Pillowcase Request

Curt asked for a new pillowcase last November, so it gave me the perfect opportunity to try out the "tube method". Have you seen it? If not... check out this link on youtube! It's from the Missouri Star Quilt Company - I love their tutorials!

These each took only 20 minutes or so, and they were very easy. Curt went with me to JoAnn's (believe it or not) and picked out his own fabric. John Deere of course!

I really loved the floral print for mine - but don't know that I would use it for anything other than a pillow case. Who says we can't have something a little different now and then? :-)

It's been a long time!

I have worked on a few things, but mostly focused in school and clinicals this past semester. One more semester to go!! I will sit down later and write posts to share a couple completed projects, but for now just a couple pics of my current headache. After three years, my sewing machine hit a glitch! It gave me an error that said the motor froze up because of tangled thread. After taking it all apart with the help of the hubby and cleaning every book and cranny possible, it will only work on the very slowest mode. Time to take it to the shop I guess!!

In the mean time I have this old machine to play with. It came from somewhere in the family but no one quite knows who it belonged to. It says pfaff on the case but guessing from the manual and some online research, I think it was probably made in Japan. It sure runs smooth though! Might give up my little white plastic machine after all... We'll see!

Spiderwebs (The good kind)

I've started to accumulate little scraps now that I've finished a few projects. I've bagged them up in ziplocks and they've just been sitting. Until now.

The other night I decided to do something with them. I used the free tutorial from www.quiltville.com  and started sewing away. I LOVE this type of sewing - no precision cutting, not color matching, no planning... just petal to the metal! :-) Can't wait to see where this goes!!