In loving memory

In loving memory...

The holiday season is so sad for so many people.  Including me.  I lost my cousin two years ago, just before Thanksgiving.  I know others hurt this time of year. 

 I didn't personally know this family but I hurt with them.  This quilt was made with many prayers and tears too.

 Made from seven of his dress shirts and simply quilted to give his parents warmth and comfort.
I'm very honored to have been a part of this Christmas gift.  May God bless you this time of year.  Peace to you. 

And lots of hugs.

'Tis the (crazy) Season

We have had a lovely busy crazy month of birthdays, milestones, and lots of sewing!

My middle girl turned 3!  She is usually my nutty buddy (aka wild child) but sadly was a titch sick on her birthday party day.  No voice at all meant only whispers from the birthday girl.  It kinda made us a little sad to see this outspoken little person turn into a silent fragile mouse!

We got a small trampoline for her which has been enjoyed by everyone here.  The baby just loved the balloons.  So innocent and full of joy at the tiniest of things...

For her birthday we decided to cut her hair.  For the first time ever.  Look at that tiny floating head...  Gosh I love her!  We celebrated with a nice lunch afterwards and she was pretty excited about it all.

A quilt for baby Cash using the crib sheet from his nursery (Little Builders, Eddie Bauer), flannels, corduroys, suede, and cotton.  A very texture-riffic quilt! 

Also using a variety of textures is a special memory quilt for another baby on-the-way.  This included everything from a leather jacket, hat, wedding dress, and Vera Bradley purse scraps.  I really enjoyed putting this together.  The sewing machine did well, even with the leather!  Yay, Janome!

A rag quilt for Baby Ciara.  Pretty cool mix of prints and colors, this is totally my style. 

Many more Christmas quilts on the way.  Oh how it warms my heart that people are giving quilts as gifts.  (No pun intended!)  I love that people see them as heirlooms, treasures, and something special to be excited by. 

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!  ;)