Celebrations Aplenty!

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!

Happy Birthdays!

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:

          

Testing

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 New Project

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.

Happy Easter!

Preparing for Easter

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!

Tweet tweet!

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...

Shopping: Part 2

OK. Recently I went to New York City so of course I had to visit The City Quilter. It is a quilting gem in Midtown! Every time I go I find lots of new fabrics, books and other goodies. My love of Japanese quilt books began here.

Here are a few of the items that had to come home with me. I actually bought a few more things but they have been made into gifts for friends and family.

Don't these treats look delicious?



They are made from felt!! The pictures from this book are beautiful-and mouth watering!


These are photo transfers made from old postcards of NYC. Each is about 4" x 6".

The City Quilter has a great selection of NY themed fabrics so I picked up these fat quarters. I want to make a wall hanging using the fabric and the postcards from above.


The ladies at the shop are friendly and helpful. If you go to New York, you must visit!

Another Completed Project....

I have been a machine quilting maniac lately! In less than a month I have completed 4 lap sized quilts, a wall hanging and a table runner. The table runner is below:



I tried to get it in one picture but it was too big so I took a picture of the middle and a picture of the kitty cat border. The center is made from a charm square pack. I cut each 5" square into 4- 2 and 1/2" squares and sewed them together randomly.

Shopping: Part 1

I visited Mimi in Courtland for 5 days last month and I had a wonderful time. Mimi and her husband John are very gracious hosts-even when my plane was almost 8 hours late! (I sat in La Guardia all afternoon and evening due to high winds.) They took me to North Carolina for a great dinner and even to Virginia Beach to visit a quilt store and to get ice cream. My favorite meal was "chicken from the gas station"! LOL! Actually, the mini mart at the gas station had a small restaurant that makes the best fried chicken. On the way back to the airport we stopped at a 5 Guys hamburger place. At least I think that was the name. Can you tell that I ate well??

We went out fabric shopping twice and then did a LOT of sewing. Mimi is just learning to quilt but is GREAT at buying fabric! She kept up well with a seasoned shopper (me!). But this time I packed more efficiently than my last trip. I packed my carry-on with the bare essentials so that I could place my purchases in it on the way home:


The bag weighed 20 pounds more on the way home!! And here is some of what I got:

Lots of patterns! I think I bought about half the patterns that Patchalot Patterns had at the shop, including the kit for the Williamsburg Medallion:


I love this color palette; I want to redo my living room around these colors:


These patterns from Bella Fabrics include the chipboard to complete the projects. Love it!


It was Valentine's Day! How could I resist?


Fabrics for my Civil War Love Letters Quilt:


At Quilt with Me we found the mother-lode of Eleanor Burns fabrics and patterns. I am sure I could find them locally, but here they were just calling me!


Mimi found this fruit fabric and fell in love with it. We cut it into squares and we are going to have a mini quilt challenge. I will post these quilts this summer when we get back together again. Update: Mimi informs me that she has since purchased some vegetable fabric and may make a reversible quilt!

I did buy some other goodies but they are for gifts(can't spoil the surprise!) or already put together (my strippy quilt).

And a confession. For Lent I gave up buying fabric and patterns. This little buying spree was my Mardi Gras. I should give up for the rest of the year-I certainly have enough to keep me busy!!

Meet Ruthie! (and some quilt musings...)

When I was in New York City, I finally got to go to the American Girl Doll store. We are talking about 5 floors dedicated to these dolls and accessories including a beauty shop, restaurant, hospital and photography studio. I LOVED it! While looking at all the dolls Ruthie asked me to take her home. She is the best friend of Kit Kittredge who represents the 1930's. I was originally going to keep her in period clothes (I even found a doll quilt from this decade-more on that soon) but then I decided to just dress her as I pleased.

My dd Katie got her the glasses she is wearing for Christmas; I made her the outfit. The shirt is from one of my favorite t-shirts that I ruined while cleaning with bleach. I have also made her a Christmas outfit, mittens and a sweater. Now Ruthie is telling me she wants to learn to play the flute. It is just so hard to say no to her....


I know that I promised to write about my "buying" trips but I have really been busy sewing. I am finishing up quilting my friend's first quilt. I hope she likes what I have done. This is my 4th quilt in the past two weeks and I think I may be getting the hang of this machine quilting. Learning to machine quilt has been difficult for me and has evolved over the years. Learning it has also made me a better teacher: it is one of the few things about sewing that "did not come easy for me" (I hope I don't sound like I am bragging because really, I'm not) Here are a few tips I thought I would share with you:

1. Breathe! I know everyone says this but believe it or not you really can find yourself holding your breath!

2. Prepare well, The extra time spent making sure everything is straight, well pinned, and for me, rolled tightly, saves me twice as much time while I am doing the quilting.

3. Change your needle often. I change my needle on every other bobbin change. If I am using paper to follow a pattern I change it even more often. Along with that, I wind 3 or 4 bobbins before I begin.

4. Don't try to sew while adjusting the quilt. I know, another obvious one, but you need to keep your hands on the quilt when the machine is sewing.

5. I try to stop and adjust when I am sewing toward myself. For some reason, when I start up again, it seems easier to maintain a smooth line of sewing.

6. Enjoy the process! It really is mind over matter. When learning, I kept trying to be done fast, fast, fast! Now I accept that while machine quilting IS faster than hand quilting, it is not instantaneous. Actually, I am trying to remember this with all my sewing. I sew because I like it, not because I am racing or competing with some super quilter who pops out quilts faster than JC Penney!

And now because we all need to smile, I leave you with a picture of my grandson. 10 months old! He is just too cute for words:


P.S. Michael, send me some of your lego pictures and I will post them!

It's About Time!

Has it really been that long since I have blogged?? Obviously it has.Here are some quick notes on my life since my last post:

My birthday has passed(I got an Ipod-welcome to the 21st century!)
Katie cooked a delicious Thanksgiving dinner.
Joe and Adrienne were home for Christmas.
Dylan is crawling and has a tooth.
Little Michael is preparing for his first communion.
Wedding plans for Adrienne and Joe are in full swing. I am now looking for a dress that does not scream Mother of the Bride but is still appropriate.

And, I am actually finishing some quilts! That is what my first post of 2009 will be about. A couple of weeks ago I visited my good friend in Virginia. (my shopping will get a separate blog ASAP) While there we shopped and sewed. I started this quilt there. It is a strip quilt that I completed in a couple hours. I machine quilted it when I got home:



Here is a closeup on one of the panels:



The next quilt I started when I when to my retreat at Watson. I had hoped to have it finished as a gift for my husband before he got my Discover bill but that didn't happen. But I did finished it this week!



This is one of the squares:



This last quilt is for Lauren's boyfriend's mom. She has been having some health problems so I made her a comfort quilt. It is left over fabric just cut into strips and then machine quilted. I appliqued some hearts on because it looked a little boring. I hope she likes it!


This is the label that I put on the back:


Tomorrow I will tell you about my two latest trips!