Two weeks ago (yes it has been a long time since I posted) we had a wedding shower for Adrienne, Maybe I should say her sisters had a shower for her. Katie and Lauren worked very hard to make the day special. Here are a few pictures from the party, including my three beautiful girls:
(I am really liking this Windows Live Writer! If you haven’t tried it, you really should.)
Remember this?
These are the strips I sewed together to make a Chinese Coins quilt. Well, I had gotten some off white fabric to put between the strips and I really hated it.
Then the quilt began to talk to me. It did not want to be a boring quilt: it wanted to have applique! So I went out and bought some green to make a some vines and some leaves. It was still not happy. While wandering around my local quilt shop I saw an interesting top with a pieced vine and applique leaves. I bought some creamy yellow fabric, went home and searched for some green fabrics in my stash. Now the quilt top is happy and so am I:
I took my green fabrics and cut them into rectangles and sewed the rectangles into a strip about 30” long. Then I cut strips 3” wide and pieced each of these strips to be about 90”. Then I sewed each of the long strips in between 4” strips of the creamy yellow fabric. When I sewed them, I kind of staggered the greens so they would look more random.
THEN, I cut a whole bunch of leaves from the greens and the leftover fabric from the pink and green strips. Again I randomly fused and machine appliqued them to the vines. I finally put the top together.
I am very happy with how the top turned out. I found a really neat fabric for the back and am looking forward to machine quilting it. Oh yes…the quilt is now telling me there should be a feather design in the strippy parts!
(If there is any interest, I will put up a tutorial on how I did the vine and leaves)
Alternate Title: We Are Officially Over the Edge!
Tomorrow is Buddy’s 2nd birthday so we had a little party for him. Lauren got him a cake. He also got a new bone and squeak toy.
Of course, we couldn’t forget Rush!
How do YOU celebrate family birthdays?
Subee Sews!
Thank you everyone for being a part of my give away. I am so impressed by all the beautiful things that you all are creating and the number of you doing charity blocks and quilts. Quilters are special people.
Several years ago I heard a quilter suggest that we put each of our works in progress into a pretty box and then put a loved ones name on the box. Then when that day comes and we are no longer here, when the boxes are opened, each of our loved ones will think we were making a quilt "just for them!"
Subee, please send me your address and I will get your prize out to you ASAP!
I will have to do this again soon!
Sometime back I posted about a Chinese coins quilt that I had started. How am I doing on that you ask? Well let me tell you:
Since I started that. this little quilt called to be made:
Of course I still need to quilt it.
And then the hexagon bug bit me and I have been working on this:
The colors are prettier, honest.
I told you all that Adrienne is getting married so I am working on something for her (just a closeup of fabric-she reads this blog):
Oh dear-sorry so blurry!
And I am quilting this wallhanging for a dear lady who is taking sewing lessons from me:
Now I know that I am not the only one out there juggling more than one project. (By the way, I also have a quilt on a frame that I am hand quilting). But I am curious as to how many you all are juggling.
With that end, I thought I would have a giveaway. Leave me a comment and tell me how many projects you are working on. I will pick a random number on Wednesday, May 27 at 9:00 pm EST. The winner will receive this little package from my overstuffed sewing room:
Just one entry per person please! Good luck!
What a busy spring we are having! As I posted a couple weeks ago April is a month of celebrating many birthdays. Here are a few pictures from Michael and Dylan’s birthday party:
I love this picture of my brother and Dylan!
This is Marin-she is my nephew and his wife’s daughter who is just a few days younger than Dylan. Watching the two of them play together was just too much fun.
The same weekend of the birthday party was Michael’s First Communion. All the children were perfect. Their teacher at church did a beautiful job. I think my favorite part is watching the procession into church. The girls all look so pretty in their white dresses. And it seems that many of them were experiencing a growth spurt-they towered over several of the boys!
We were allowed to take pictures before the mass began and after the service was over.
After the service there was a reception in the gathering room:
The picture above is Michael with his godparents and below is a picture of my daughter Adrienne and her fiance Joe. I finally have a picture of the two of them! They are getting married in August.
Michael is so handsome:
And then THIS weekend Lauren graduated from LeMoyne College. She completed a 5 year program where she earned her MBA and BA at the same time. We are very proud of her! Here is a picture of her and her boyfriend Jeff:
We had a little party for her after the graduation. It was a barbeque and a little cool and breezy but it was a great day anyway.
The parties aren’t over yet! We still have a shower for Adrienne coming up in June, birthdays for my brothers in June and July and the wedding in August.
I am managing to get a little sewing in here and there. And I am planning a little giveaway here. But more on that in a couple days!
April is a very busy month for us. Adrienne turned 28 on the 23rd; Michael turned 8 on the 28th, Lauren ,23, today and Dylan, 1, today. Happy Birthdays to all! One of my very favorite memories involve Michael and Lauren: When he turned 5, he told Lauren it was much more important than turning 20. She acquiesced and then on her next birthday, she informed him that 21 was much more important than 6! Each year there is lots of cake, presents, and singing. The big party is Sunday. Here are some pictures to hold you over until then:
I just downloaded Live Writer because it is supposed to have better tools than those provided by Blogger. So I am trying out some of the options in the program.
Let’s try inserting a picture:
OK that was easy.
Changing the font is easy. I can even cross out words!
Adrienne just updated her blog. Here is the link.
It will take a little getting used to. I have to say though adding pictures is a whole lot easier.
Today I tried making some bias for my quilt. Let’s just say it did not go well. Of course I was attempting to follow directions that I read a couple days ago for continuous bias and I was too lazy to go find the directions. I will work on it again tomorrow. Until then, toodles!
A couple of weeks ago, I decided to try to make a Chinese Coins quilt. I started doodling and came up with this plan:
OK, I know... But to me it makes perfect sense. I had some Amy Butler (at least that is what my daughter said they are-please let me know if I am mistaken) fat quarters that I had cut just one strip from so I had 12 rectangles that were approximately 17" x 19". I also had some extra pieces that I had saved from the purse I made; these will come into play later.
I cut each of the fabrics into 5 strips measuring 3" x 17" (and one strip at 2 and 1/2" for a scrap binding). That gave me 60 strips for the body of the quilt.
I sewed 10 strips together at random to make 6 rows 17" x 25 1/2".
Here are all my strips at this point:
Carefully (read-this was harder to do than I thought it would be!) Cut each row in half to make 2 strips 8" x 25 1/2".
Then I sewed 3 sets together to make one long strip 8" x 75 1/2". Repeat to make 4 long strips in total.
At this point I had planned to just sew five (5) 8" strips of white fabric alternately between the pieced strips. Well, I did not have enough of any one fabric in my stash to do this. I tried to do it with 2 fabrics, then 1 fabric but making the quilt a different size, yada yada....
But then the quilt kept talking to me. I went shopping Monday and bought a pale pale yellow Kona solid and a bright green fabric that Katie said was perfect. The quilt told me that instead of plain fabric between the pieced fabric, it wants a appliqued VINE with leaves made from my extra pieces. So much for my quickie quilt! I plan to do the applique by machine but it will still take me a little while.
I will keep you up to date on how the quilt is coming along.
I didn't get any sewing done today. Katie came over to make a special dessert for tomorrow. She found a recipe for a 14 layer cake and we decided that it would be easier to prepare and make it here since I am doing dinner tomorrow.
We had cakes in various stages of completion all over the kitchen. No professional kitchen shots here!
Here are our helpers Dylan and Buddy:
Each layer got a generous coating of chocolate frosting. 
Then, when all the layers were put together, the entire cake was frosted again. And here are Katie and Lauren with the finished cake. Yummy!
Tomorrow (if I remember...) I will take a picture of the cake when sliced so that you can see all the layers. I also did some baking. I made my first Easter bread today. I remember eating my Grandma's bread as a child, although hers had candied fruit which I did not put in. I hope that mine tastes as good as hers!
Lauren would want me to tell you that she made her famous chocolate chip cookies which are a hit with her boyfriend's family. I finally closed the kitchen at about 7:30 tonight.
A blessed and joyful Easter to everyone!
No, I am not on Twitter. Do you really want to hear that I just had a drink of water or that I am sitting in my family room? All this new technology-it really makes my head swim!
Anyway, I gave up buying fabric for Lent and my projects I am working on need some extras (yes, with all the fabric in my stash I STILL don't have what I need!) so I pulled out an old project. About 5 years ago my wonderful husband bought me this Thimbleberries BOM which was kitted with all 12 months. I made 2 blocks and then put it away. So I pulled it out and started it up again.
What I like about all of Lynette Jenson's patterns are her wonderful directions. Every step is well written and are easy to understand.
I still have 2 circles to applique on this block:
Actually this block below was the most difficult to complete so far. No reason why; it just seemed to have more steps and a couple of my points got chopped off. And it took me 2 days to finish!
4 down and 8 to go!
Now that Lent is almost over, I have been making a mental list of all the fabric I want to buy. This past 40 days has been a good experience however. I am going to TRY to buy just what I need to complete my many works in progress... Or maybe only buy after I have completed a project... Or maybe ... Well I'll just see how it goes...
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