Last Wednesday of the Summer

It rained all day yesterday.  It was glorious.  I sipped tea, made beef stew, and welcomed the slight chill in the air.  Today the sun is shining high and that is just fine.  Autumn and I had a little flirty day together yesterday and I was comforted with the fact that the calendar says she'll be here for a long spell in just a few days. 

Looking at these pictures from our time at a recent late-summer "festible" recall to mind how we were all dripping with sweat and rather uncomfortable walking around the dirt grounds.  Drinking water and perspiring baby in the backpack, trying to distract everyone from the heat of the day...

This certain festible is on our calendar every year.  Horse riding and buffalo burgers don't happen everyday!

I'd go as a little girl and love the nostalgia of it to see my young ladies enjoying the very same things I did many moons ago.  Cloggers, fiddle players, and teepees....  It's really quite an experience.

I so want to do this. 

Anyway, on with the show! 

A custom quilt for Jodi in SoCal.  Her baby girl is growing up and we collaborated on a quilt to keep those special clothing items near and dear.  Memory quilts are so much better than Rubbermaid bins! 

I have also been sewing lots of non-quilty things as well.  It's nice to change it up once in a while.  Some ivory rosette pillows.  Ooooh!  With an invisible zipper closure, these are so soft and delicate.  They really do have a great texture and my little one actually gets very calm petting it.   Weird.

Last post I gave a little preview of the bedding in the works for Florida baby.  Well here it is!  We beat the baby and the bedding has arrived in time to fill her room before she does.  Yay! 

Bumper, quilt, fitted sheet, and crib skirt all from Sarah Jane's Out to Sea line in the Deep Sea Jewel colorway.  Looooove the navy and hot pink together.  Little splashes of red and minty green make for a very interesting nursery.  It's so modern and so chic - what a lucky baby!

This is one cool mama who coordinated all these different prints and colors.  It is so eclectic and colorful!  Can you tell I'm really excited about how this turned out?  Way to go, Florida mama!

The back of the quilt has a little chenille.  I love a chenille backing but baby is in Florida so that might be a tough sell.  So ship wheels, patchwork, and some soft chenille combine to create a cohesive and soft backing.

I had a lot of squares leftover and made up a little quilt kit for sale in the shop. 

 

I'm dusting off the slow cooker and digging out the sweaters.  So excited for the upcoming season of bonfires, QUILTS, and apple-picking.  Join me back here for more adventures in the wonderful season God has created for us!

August in review

Oopsy! There goes August and summer for that matter. I've been working and taking pictures and here are a few highlights of where I've been.

First of all, the memory quilt back is finished! It has actually been added to since this picture, but just border-type thingies.

HOPEFULLY the completed finished totally done picture will be up soon...

I know I'm not breaking any records with my slowness of making this one. The quilt was getting so bulky with all the different fabrics, so I went in search of a walking foot.

Dear Walking Foot Inventor, I love you.

And yay for tomatoes! And peppers! Each year our piddly little garden is a little less piddly. I once read a tip in a gardening magazine in a waiting room or somewhere about putting used coffee grounds on the soil for composting. WOW, best tip ever. Since that seemed to work so well, we just put the rest of our food scraps out there too (you know, the normal stuff like peels and seeds).

Add a little princess charm and voila - more tomatoes than we know what to do with! I always thought that was the mark of a successful gardener - giving away heaps of things while saying, "we have so many, we just couldn't possibly use them all". It translates as "I'm such a remarkable gardener. Did I mention I was generous too?" Sorry, I digress. But hey, we got tomatoes.

And we had a birthday here. Mr. Incredible got a lemon cake on a special plate. He is one super awesome fantastic guy. Really. He works his little brain all day and comes home to his "housefull of honeys". Usually one of us is crying, but he somehow manages to act happy to be here. And he keeps coming home to this estrogen palace, so that's a bonus. It's really something to keep falling in love with the same man after all these years. We've both kind of changed, matured, had two new people enter our lives, and sometimes it's weird to think we knew each so long ago. Ya know, back when we drank cheap beer and slept till noon? Anyway, I never know how to appropriately celebrate the birthday for the love of my life, but we were together with Chinese food and a bottle of wine.

I think he was ok with that.

Admitting a problem is the first step

I wanted to start a blog after being inspired from several other crafty blogs. I've learned so much and hopefully it shows in my work. I've been sewing for over 20 years - yikes, that makes me old - and only recently have I realized how much I truly love it. I consider it an art, and reading these blogs has made me want to be an artist.

The problem with a lot of experience comes my stubbornness. I tend to think I have all the answers or don't want to admit my weaknesses. So hopefully this blog will also help me put it out there that I make mistakes. A TON of mistakes, in fact. I burn bread in the oven. I bond with my seam ripper for hours on end. I put the kids in front of the TV for some time so I can sew "just one more block".

If I'm the only one who ever reads this blog, fine. I think it's the therapy I need. I love making quilts and other useful things. I have some sort of gene mutation where I don't follow directions, am really bad at patterns, get all impatient and do my own thing. Only to have something in front of me with a bajillion mistakes and ... where's my seam ripper? So happy new year, happy new blog. Here's to being honest about my abilities and non-abilities in 2009. I realize for most people, this came with adult hood. But it takes me a long time to learn things since I don't follow directions!

Here is the current quilt I'm working on. I've added the borders and am almost done piecing the back. I've made several mistakes piecing the little squares on the back, have ripped it apart a few times and I think I'm ready to rock now.