Bonnets and Bikes

We have had a lovely autumn so far.  Took a nice day trip to Amish Country and rode a wagon through a ranch that had every animal from Buffalo (and a Beefalo too!) to Long Horn to Zerbras.  The girls absolutely loved it!  And even though it cost an arm and a leg it was worth it to see how they loved feeding, petting, and being up close to these exotic (to us) animals.

 This llama was hilarious.  And a bit freaky.  It ran beside the wagon several yards hoping to be fed just a bit more... and more... and more....

I currently have 8 - or is it 9 - quilts going on now.  I do not work well with so many to keep track of!  Thankfully my clients are crazy nice and the quilts are fun to assemble.  The bikes from Michael Miller are so great.  It really makes me excited to get to baby boy's quilt in oh, a few years!

Which reminds me... I finally finished Isabella's quilt.  Here is a picture of the front.  She chose a blue and pink floral for the backing and I finished it off with scrappy pink binding.
I was very happy with how it turned out.  She was happy with how it turned out.  FIVE YEARS in the making!  I finished the binding one night about 10pm and sneaked into her room and laid it on her as she slept.  She woke up in the morning all excited.

And then turned it over to the blue backing because she likes that better.  Five years of piecing the front, people.

Quilt, Cook, Run

When I first started this blog, I originally wanted to call it Quilt, Cook, Run.  Those are my "big 3" favorite things, but I wasn't sure how that would work over the long haul.  You know, having kids doesn't allow for a lot of free time so I thought it best to concentrate on just one.  So the "quilt" part won out and that's a good thing. 

I kinda cook to survive at this point and run to take care of the cooking part...  :)

 So now I can write posts that touch on each one as necessary.  Here goes!

The Quilt: 
I started with this color-filled inspiration.  And here is where it ended up!  I think it's pretty cool and I hope my client does too.  Her baby is due in about 36 seconds so I'm hoping the quilt will get there before baby.  Go, quilt, go!

The Run:
I just completed some race/competition thingys.  Last year I was 12 weeks pregnant and ran a half marathon.  He was the size of a lemon.

This year he sat in a lawn chair and watched me go by.  What a difference a year makes!

My husband and I also did the Warrior Dash together.  Yep!  It was hard.  I could run all day but I have no upper body strength.  Which would have been nice climbing over all those walls.  But it was a great challenge after running races the last 10+ years.  And it was nice to play in the mud with hubs. 

 And the Cook part...
My husband's work has a little recipe contest going on.  I've decided to enter my version of Swedish salmon that I watched my hostmom make oodles of times as an exchange student in Sweden.  It's very simple: equal parts salt, pepper, sugar, and dill on back and front (1 tsp of each, divided amongst the fillets). 
Here I served it with cheesy orzo and peas - something you would never see in Sweden!  We are gluttons for cheese on everything and I'm ok with that. 

Sometime I'll have to share about the day I made mac 'n cheese for my Swedish friends.  With chocolate chip cookies as dessert!  I wanted to do an American lunch for them but perhaps it was as little "much".  Oh dear....

So stay tuned to see if it's a winner!  I really hope so because it is one of my favorite things to make, so healthy and yummy.

Happy Autumn!  Looking forward to the apple farm and all the lovely festivals this time of year. 

this moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see. 

Quilt Updates

Little Grace's 100 Wishes Quilt is complete.  She is a sweet little 4-year old who will soon be snuggling with her very own twin-size quilt.  Each square is 8".

 Of course we had to make a custom label for the little one.  I must say the hand embroidery has greatly improved.  I really enjoy it now and love new challenges for different stitches and even cursive fonts. 

I got new labels!  Love them.  I actually ordered two sets.  The navy blue (above) I ordered from a lovely Etsy seller, The Dancing Needle.  I wasn't sure about fonts and colors and such so I also ordered from Namemaker (pink ones below).   They both come to about $1/label after shipping.  Of course nothing beats Tracy's personal service and no minimum order.  For example, I just ordered 5 of the navy ones just to see what they were like.  Namemaker is a huge company and I think I have about 35 of the pinks to use. 

Which is fine because I like them.  But if I didn't that would be bad. 

I just like to give ya the low-down because it took me about a gazillion years to settle on these heavy decisions.  I'm very indecisive. 
 

Melodie's quilt is also coming along nicely.  The quilt top is done.  I love the applique here.  I just ordered the flannel backing and so excited to put it all together. 

Sorry for the yucko pictures.  Dropping major hints on a new camera for my upcoming birthday.  Husband are you reading this?

Next on the to-do list:  three pillows and a boy quilt of bicycles!  Sooo excited as I have wanted this fabric for Nino's quilt for quite some time.  And now I have an excuse to buy it.  Hooray!

Enjoy these lovely, lovely end-of-summer days.  Say yes to going outside even if it totally messes up your schedule.  You won't regret it.  Just sayin'.

xoxo

Love Thy Neighbor

I think I'm a bit of an introvert, as most sewists out there tend to be.  Just give me my machine and fabric and I'm happy for hours.  But there's something about getting together with friends, old and new, that just really fuels me. 

I think that's why I love shows like Friends - people just enjoying one another and mutual commraderie.  The laughs, the tears... God created us to be with others, not isolated in sewing bunkers. 

So as summer is winding down I feel like there's a few things we just haven't done enough of.  One of them is entertaining.  We used to have people over at least monthly but excuses, excuses... we just haven't been as frequent lately. 

Until now!  I organized a Progressive Dinner Party with three other neighbors/couples and it was GREAT!  It's been almost a week now and I'm still riding this wave of excitement.  It was like living in sitcom land where the food was great, the laughs were abundant, and everyone just really enjoyed one another. 

 We had drinks and appetizers.  Yes!  I fretted a while about what to serve, how to serve it, etc.  I asked for suggestions on Facebook the night before and got some great responses.  I finally decided to go with Baked Brie. 

 It was super easy.  And looked super awesome.  Well I made two of them and the one at the bottom here on the blue cake stand did not look as awesome but it tasted great!  Again, very easy recipe.  Check out the link.

So the night continued with much success and I must say I loved it.  We ended up next door around the fire eating peach cobbler.  A fantastic night all around.  If I may urge you to organize something as well, you will not regret it.  And do so while it's still nice out so you can entertain outdoors and not have to clean the house.  wink, wink. 

I currently have two commissioned quilts going.  One is consisting of the above colors.  Holy Vibrance, Batman!  I'm so excited to be working with such electric colors.  The client must have a very exuberant personality because not many people go this bold for a baby.  I can not wait to see the finished product.  The fabric should arrive any day now.  I can barely wait to get started!

 Back to people... here is my husband's aunt from Italy.   We have had such a lovely time visiting with her and her husband.  Oh how I wish I could speak with them.  My Italian is limited to yes, thank you, and shoes.  Not really conversational, per se.   But we would take walks around my father-in-laws gardens, peach trees, and sit at the table fussing over the baby together.  At least I think that's what we were gesturing about....

I hope she knows how much we love her even though I could only tell her she had on shoes. 

Back to sewing... my other current commissioned quilt is for a little girl who has been adopted from China.  Her family here wanted to make her a "good luck quilt".  So the client sent 100 squares from various family members consisting of different novelty-type fabrics.  Lots of ladybugs, butterflies, etc.  This is only a portion of it as it will be much bigger than my little design wall can hold at one time.  I try to make the larger quilts in sections and then stitch them together.  I LOVE when the quilts have a story.  Getting to know my clients through fabric and the history and how it came to be is really the best part of this little gig. 

And now I must start sewing these squares together.  Nap time is coming to an end and I need to have a little more to show for it!  ;)

Frog Tape Winner

YAY KATE! 

 The winner of the Frog Tape Giveaway is Kate!  Thanks to all who entered. 

 In other news, I dress my baby in the same shade of aqua as my walls.  (Windswept)  I think I find this more humorous than said baby. 

 Seriously cute.  I love this boy. 

My husband has some family in from Milan, Italy.  In typical Italian fashion I had less than 24 hours notice of their arrival to our house.  Nice.  I will admit it caused a teensy bit of marital stress, but thankfully I was able to pull together a good-looking table for them.  Prosciutto, golden honeydew (way better than the regular, BTW), parmesano reggiano, salami, 53 other kinds of cheese, Italian Meatloaf, and some red wine.  Bellisimo!

 The summer is winding down and honestly I am quite thrilled.  Don't get me wrong, summer is always nice but for real... I hate watering flowers every single day.  (They barely made it to July 4th this year.)  And it's been so hot that being outside has been uncomfortable.  Especially with a baby strapped to me. 

So now that it's not 300 degrees outside we've been doing everything on our trusty picnic blanket.  This particular day we did scratch art.  I always thought you had to put black paint on top of the crayon-ed paper but this lovely blog post said nope!  Put black crayon on top of the colorful crayon.  Okey dokey!
We did and it worked!  And since we were outside, the girls used twigs on the ground as the scratching devices.  Very cool.  I love sharing art projects with them that I remember doing as a kid.  I remember doing my first scratch art thinking it was so magical. 

Our little homeschool will start soon and I am loving the build-up to it.  The planning, the book buying and lending, the new materials here and there....  Such anticipation for all of us as we explore these unchartered waters.  Sewing has been a great resource already as we've used it for measuring, counting, adding, and of course fine motor skills. 

Isabella is making a pillow for a penpal and although we're about a month past the penpal's birthday she has done most of it by herself.  I am super excited to have her finish it up and hope that she will be encouraged to make more things for others.  That will be a blog post for sure!

Enjoy these last summer days.  Hopefully your flowers have fared better than mine.

A Frog Tape Giveaway!

YAY!  I've written about my new love for Frog Tape and guess what... I can now share my love with you!  The fabulous people at Frog Tape have generously donated two rolls of their super sticky tape, gift bag, and an awesome-possum T-Shirt! 

So whether you are about to baste some quilts or paint the town green, you can try Frog Tape for free and love it like me.

Dude, it's like $8 a roll.  This is major.

The frog rocks my basting world.

In other news, Mipsa made a ZIG ZAG quilt!

Isn't is gorgeous?  Here she is - my house, her quilt, my baby, her, my dog.  Try to keep up.
 

To win the Frog Tape giveaway, leave a comment telling me your favorite summer memory from this year.  Mine is watching the girls swimming in the pool for the first time.  Half freaking out and half really excited for them.  No picture of it - that's where the freaking out comes into play.

Anyway, leave a comment and I'll pull a random winner this weekend-ish. 

Edited to add: If'n blogger isn't allowing you to comment on here, head on over to The Facebook and comment there.  Thanks!