Home from Chico

Okay this might not be a good excuse for not getting my Charming Girls Quilt Club completed but I'm going to go ahead and pull the "mom card". This is my oldest son who just got off the train from Chico and gets to be home for 5 days! So I get to do the mom thing and spoil him and make his favorite food and all of that... at least until his brothers scoop him up.

But until that happens there won't be much sewing being done! I am even taking a four day weekend off from work to have time to do some summer type things.

These photos are from "Almond Bowl" run he did up in Chico.

Have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by.

What Has Rachel Done?

Rachel of P.S. I Quilt is having a give away. I was just reading her blog yesterday and her deep soul searching question was... if you had a $50 gift certificate from the Fat Quarter Shop what would you buy?

Well it's time to answer that question because she has a gift certificate that she wants to give away!

A New Girl In Town: Meet Mayme

So, I finally took the plunge! I received this wonderful little gift for Christmas from all the kids. I loved it, put it on a nice little shelf in my sewing room (near my black featherweight). I couldn't have been happier!

But this morning I packed up this little puppy and took her with me to work. I had decided that it was time to not just look at this machine but to now see what "she" was made of! I had big plans for my lunch hour!

(I certainly didn't want to leave the office... and go out into the ridiculously hot summer day.)

I had my official Featherweight Handbook in hand and it was time to get to know one another and I have to say that it went very well. We got past the getting familiar with each other stage quickly and she got right to work. She has some serious power... I love this machine. I can tell that we are going to be great friends.

See what we got accomplished in just one hour. Yes, it's a start of the next Dresden. I'm going on the wild side here with the fabrics. Actually they were strips from a class that I had taken through my guild. I had talked Jill into taking the class with me... that was back when she was on a summer break from college. I had cut these strips for her to use and a whole other set of strips out of 1800's fabrics for me. It was a tumble block class... and you can guess why these are still just strips! I'm just not going to do it. I think they are beautiful but nope- no way.

Now that I have discovered Dresden's my mind keeps going to all the possibilities for those blocks. The best thing is that they are a great way to use up scraps and they can be "sized" to fit! So I decided to do 7 " blades. The strips had been cut from fat quarters so I could get 3 per strip. Of course I have 32 other projects going on right now but what's one more!

P.S. Mayme Charlotte was my grandmother's name.

Introducing the Bride

I did fit in a little sewing time over the weekend. My poor unsuspecting coworker modeled the new purse I made. I also had to finish sewing the "curtains" for my bedroom... that sun finds its way in early! I also started the "spa bags" for Becky and Heidi. I will have to take photos tomorrow of those.

But here we have the big thrill of the weekend...

...dress shopping! The girls from the wedding party and us moms (bride & grooms side) all joined in the fun. It was fun, and also exhausting, sweet... joyful and brought tears to my eyes (just once though)! Did I mention that it is also so much to think about!

Decisions, decisions.

Isn't she beautiful?

Friday Confessions...

I have been trying hard not to confess to my lack of diligence on A Tisket A Tasket. But here you have it. This is where I am. I know I'm way behind and for fear of being "kicked out of the group"... I am pleading for forgiveness (Anne) and a chance to catch up. Insert smile here. This really has gotten away from me... and it's so darn cute. I don't know what my problem is. I hope to get the embroidery under control and the appliqued (fused) version also. Now I know that I can't even make a promise to make it my weekend project, but soon, soon, soon!

I realized yesterday that I had forgotten not one but 2 birthdays for this month, urgggh! I do really try to be good about that. So, I might be in the sewing room whipping up a thing or two that can get mailed out on Monday. I'm thinking a purse, maybe a spa bag & goodies in it. Thank goodness they are girls! That will make it easier. Heidi and Becky are part of my New England family- the hubs side. I love all of them to pieces! So I am going to have to make it up to them big time!

Tomorrow I have fun plans: Jill, her mom and I are going to Fresno (the largest city near us), it's about 45 minutes away. We have appointments for wedding dress shopping! I am so excited... having all sons... I didn't ever think it likely that I would get to be a part of a dress shopping adventure... but Jill takes good care of me! I should have all sorts of things to share on Monday and a few pictures to go with it.

I just heard that my son who has been out fighting fires for 1 1/2 weeks just got back into town! Can't wait to see him. It has been so unbearably hot... I don't know how those guys do it!

Have a great weekend blogetts and pray for some of the rain from the New England states to come our way!

...I almost forgot... my blog pick of the week: DIY Bag Lover. I actually just discovered it today and I got to explore it a bit. It is a great resource for free patterns- bag patterns. You might want to check them out:)

One Fish, Two Fish... Green Fish!

I was on a mission today. I was out looking for a vintage hat. I collect hats but this one is going to be for my sister. (A peace offering/I'm a middle child). She rides horses and when she does the horse/carriage competitions she wears vintage hats. I was thinking this would be pretty easy... the town I live in use to have a plethora of antique shops. The town use to hold a huge antique fair twice a year... the whole town was closed down for this event. It still has thrift shops, ( not any antique shops anymore) but evidently things are still priced for that "earlier" period.

Anyway, I wasn't able to find a nice hat but I did find this hat box that I thought I could put one of my hats into for her. It's from an old millinery shop located in Fresno... and that's where she lives! I also found a good little deal on this old barkcloth purse... isn't it cute?

I got a little package in the mail the other day and wanted to show you the goodies I received. It isn't a good picture but it will assist the story.
Beverly has been coming to my annual quilt retreat at Bass Lake. Last year we had a special evening, we called it Pincushion Diaries. Everybody brought a pincushion and told a story about how they started sewing, who influenced them etc. It was a great evening and everybody got to know each other better. There was a special voting for the best pincushion, which Beverly won. We all loved her pincushion, which was 3 green fish on a stringer. It was so cute... and now she wrote me a pattern and even sent the fabric and string so that I can make one of my own. That was so sweet of her! I can't wait to make it and show you the finished product.
I still remember how she ended her story of how she began to quilt... "and that was it, it got me- hook-line and sinker"! It was great! I can't wait to see her and her buddies again!
And speaking of pincushions... Jaybird is having a giveaway but even better than that... she just posted a tutorial on Moda Bake Shop for these pincushions she made! They are adorable and she has 2 different options on how to make them. You have to go see if you haven't already and then go to Julie's blog and enter her giveaway. Have fun!

A Blog With A View

Just wanted to leave a quick note. Elaine at Faithful Quilter is having a giveaway. I just found out about her blog when I had been over to Ranette's Daily Stitch. Ranette had entered the "My First Quilt" parade. Her quilt was amazingly beautiful. Both blogs are great, so hop on over to see what you are missing:)

That's all for me today... I seem to have gotten a cold and it is getting the best of me!

Sewing Room Activities

I can't resist showing you my new lamp. It came to me last week, and I "heart" it! However, Saturday morning came and it was the first time I got to see it with the light coming in the window and reflecting off the glass... I had little rainbows on the walls of my living room! Right then, my love grew deeper. So silly, but really, it's so true.

As the weekend progressed I did get to visit my sewing room here and there and made some more progress on my Confetti blocks. But my attention got diverted and I was feeling the need for some instant gratification.
Okay, I confess here... I fused this! But I'm talking instant gratification, so fusing seemed okay. For those of you who know the pattern, I know that you will see some "backward" details. I have that worked out too. I'm left handed, so my sash should tie on the other side! I still need to put in the wording (handmade) across the top. Maybe I can get to that some evening this week.

But that's not all! I still needed bigger instant gratification! I still had out my Shangra-la fabrics that I used for my Dresden's and thought I would try to use up some more of that line in a sweet little pattern from Camille. I have left the stitching around the

fused pieces, again, for a mid-week project.

I was happy with my play-time. We still managed to go visit my dad and his wife and go out to dinner; visited with some friends of ours at brunch; and Todd & Jill came over for dominoes & dinner on Sunday... and Jill did the cooking!!! I love that girl!

I ran over to the LQS to talk with Donna, the owner during my lunchtime today. I snapped a few pics of her store samples that I thought I would share:

Enjoy! Thanks for stopping by!

Friday Again?

Nearly every year I make plans to go to Road To California. If you don't know about it, it's a huge quilt show with a bunch of vendors down in Onterio Ca. It is held at the Onterio Convention Center. (Which happens to be right near my mother's house). I have so much fun when I go down there to attend the event and I can tell you I am starting to make my plans for the next one. It isn't until mid-January but the class list is up right now and things are filling up. You can check it out at http://www.road2ca.com/.

I didn't go last year and had really wanted to take a class from Barbara Jones of Quilt Soup. I was so disappointed when I read about how much fun her class was... but luckily she is teaching (and vending) at the show again this year!

As part of the Charming Girls Quilt Club... we have been tagged to answer 5 questions about ourselves. The questions are:

1. My Favorite Fabric is:
2. The pattern I'm most looking forward to sewing is:
3. The food that is my weakness:
4. If I knew I couldn't fail, I'd:
5. The Best "Life" Advice I know is:

1. My favorite fabric is... Patisserie, I can't get enough of it. But I am waiting (patiently) for Rouenneries by French General to be released. It is so gorgeous!
2. The pattern I am most looking forward to sewing is... Miss Rosie's Due South. I think this one is going to turn out beautiful. It has a unique look to it.
3. The food that is my weakness: healthy: Artichokes, unhealthy: ice cream!
4. If I knew I couldn't fail, I'd: Now, I could be a dreamer and say that I would want to live on a large sailboat and sail up and down the coast (I'm to chicken to go for the "high seas" stuff). Or I could be practical and say I would love to open a fabric shop... which is a lot of hard work but I am use to hard work and would love it, the creativity and the people contact. I could do it until I died and I would be happy.

5. The best life advice I know is: Don't sweat the small stuff & you can only make the best decision with the options that are available to you at that time.

Now if you are still with me, I thought I would share one of my favorite blogs. It's called the White Bench. It's a wonderful place to stop and visit and see some great photography and read a little bit of this and that. Monica has a Golden Retriever... who is very photogenic.

I actually started this post on Wednesday and started to share a baby quilt that Jill just finished for a friend. I think it is adorable. I am only showing a bit of it because everything she makes is original... and one day... soon... might turn into a pattern.

Sorry, I will be better with pictures next time!! Have a wonderful weekend!

A Parade, A TV, & Still Time To Sew: Priceless

I was excited to get back into the blogosphere today to see what has been going on with the Parade of Quilts hosted by Carrie and Camille. They have the participants listed now, which makes it easy to hop from one blog to another and see all the wonderful quilts that have been shown! It has really been fun to see the projects and the progress! My jaw has dropped more than once... not only for the "recently finished" quilts but also for some of the first quilts... they are amazingly beautiful!

A very big "thank you" to Carrie & Camille for the wonderful parade that you started.

We got a new TV on Saturday... and I must say I'm going to miss standing and looking at the flat screens as you walk into Costco, (every time we entered the store) like I have over the last year or two. LOL!

Really, though, I am not a huge TV fan but boy howdy the new TV's have so much better technology and that "HD" really does make a difference.

I also got to play in my sewing room yesterday and made a nice mess but also got a couple of things done. I have been wanting use the "turn of the century" fabrics & make a "doll quilt"

(or mini-quilt), so here it is... (it was a little kit from the Temeccula Quilt Co.)

I also started playing with my Fat Quarter Shop BOM. I didn't purchase the finishing kit for whatever reason... so now I am figuring out my setting. I still have to make the last block but wanted to get a head start on the rows while I had the time. This has stretched my math abilities some but I think I've got it! I am only showing a peak of it until I get the rows together.

I am fighting the urge to make more blocks to make it larger.

Does that happen to you too?

And of course, my little Dresden got the borders on it, so it's ready to get quilted. Yippee!

... I even got some work done on my UFO for the Charming Girl's Quilt Club. It was a nice ending to a good weekend.

Hope you had a nice weekend to!

Progress Report

Boy, it's Friday already. This week went by so fast.

I just hope the weekend doesn't go by as fast!

I have a quilt shop in Norway to share with you as my "blog of the week" selection.

I just love to go to this site and look at all the pictures. I would live in this store if I could! It's called Kathrine's Quilt Stu. The quilts are so sweet. There is only some English written in the blog but it's the photos (and the colors) that inspire me. However, I would like to figure out the exchange rate for the U.S. dollar! I could do some serious spending there. I'm just sayin'.

I didn't get much done, if anything done, this week. My parents were visiting. There was food to eat and games to play! Quilting took the back-burner, sad to say.

I did make a little bit of progress on my little Dresden's. Sorry to keep showing them to you but I just get excited over each step.. they seem to come to life! Borders are on their way... part of the weekend plan.

I had this cut out and on my table for a while now and finally finished it. Jill (soon to be DIL) had made the large version... which I liked but she says it's an abyss. The small version seems a little small but would be better if the longer handles were on it. So I tried something... I wanted to see what it looked like inside out...
and here it is. I think I like it better this way. The pockets show on the outside now and I folded down the top part. I was hoping that it would look a little less like Christmas. What do you think?

Enjoy your weekend!

My First Quilt, but first...

Yesterday I was blog surfing and went on over to see Camille at Simplify and read that Carrie of LaVie En Rosie and Camille wanted to invite quilters to put aside their pride and show their first and their last quits made. A "Quilts on Parade" show and tell. They are going to post about it and show the links to all the participants next week. Have you already seen some of the quilts posted today?

I think this is the first quilt that I still am in possession of. I made it for my husband. I actually started quilting around the time we got married. That was 13 years ago. I was going for the "masculine look". You can see in the closeup shot that I wasn't very concerned about points matching. Looking back though, I think it was rather ambitious to put

prairie points on a beginner quilt.

My lesson learned was that it is worth the challenge of matching up the points and getting that 1/4 inch seam allowance perfect. I know that Carrie wrote on her blog about that last week. I agree that we should work towards perfection...

I obviously gave myself lots of room for improvement.

Now before I go any further: Lookie what came in the mail yesterday! Do you know what that means? It means that the pattern is now available for my little

" piecing elf" job that I did for Joanna at Fig Tree. Yep, the new Fresh Vintage if fresh off the press! In this issue, you have one quilt but 5 different design styles to make it up in. The one I worked on is called Day At The Fair.

You will have to check it out... if you love pinwheels... with a little twist!

Now, for my most recent quilt (s): I was binding both of these quilts at the same time. This one below is called Baker's Sugar Squares from Fig Tree & Co.

This is the other quilt just finished... it was out of a In the Beginning book and was actually started years ago (they actually published a newer book with this pattern in it... I think it's called Favorite's from In the Beginning). The fabrics were some of the first ones I bought for my "stash". This poor thing got put away in a box when we moved once upon a time. I hate putting things away like that (organized) because I just forget about them... out of sight out of mind!
Anyway, it resurfaced and with a little more work... here is the finished product. Unfortunately I can't put it on my list of things to finish for the Charming Girl's Quilt Club. Darn! Oh well, I think I can make a pretty long list without it.

Kelly over at Cotton Charm Quilts is hosting a club to help challenge us to finish our UFO's/WIP's. Go to her blog for details. But the idea is to post a project by the 7th of the month that needs to get finished and show a photo of the finished quilt by the end of the month.

Here is the first quilt that I will be working on for the Charming Girl's Quilt Club. It's an X Block quilt that needs a few more rows added and borders. I think I put the wrong pattern with this though... I will have to find the right one:)

So, officially I'm in. I'm committed. I'm in to win! (or at least get my closet cleaned out).

A New Summer Purse

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend and hopefully it was a 3 day weekend for you! I really like the fact that the media seemed to pay tribute to our country's founders and also special recognition to our veterans. They were and are remarkable men and women.

I wanted to thank you for the comments you left over the weekend also. I really enjoy reading them! I think it's the best part about blogging.

I loved having the little extra time off from work. I was going to add a "floating holiday" day to it to make a 4 day weekend for my self... but my mother and stepfather are coming into town this week... so I thought I would save the extra holiday date to use while they are here.

While the hubs was out golfing on Saturday I got to play at home...
and I worked on my Dresden's and also my Late Bloomer purse pattern designed by Pam Kitty Morning. I am excited to have a new summer bag. I have to show you the inside first... I thought it went well with the flowers:)

I added a little Moda twill tape to hold my sunglasses and also my little cherry bells that I got from PKM herself! I just love it... here is the full frontal shot:

I changed my mind on my fabric choice for this purse and went with the new fabrics I got in Lake Oswego at the Pine Needles Quilt Shop. The hand-made lace I added was something my sister brought back from Italy for me. The pattern has ruffles there but I thought it was a good opportunity to use the lace. The pattern is really easy to follow and the handles went on like magic. I'm not kidding. I love the way they went on! You can find Pam's pattern at In Between Stitches if your interested.
I also finished up another little purse, but I wasn't to thrilled with it. Just me- the pattern is good. I chose the small version and I should have picked the larger one.

Dresden Crazy

I am only an hour or so away from starting my holiday weekend. My plan is to do a whole lot of nothing with the exception of chilling out, eating, visiting, playing games (which include board games, dominoes and/or lawn golf) and of course sewing.

See how close I am getting to the finish on these Dresden blocks? I think I decided to make the centers in red. I was thinking of putting on the large aqua ric rac in place binding though...

so don't let me forget!

I have a feeling that I am going to go a little Dresden crazy... no little scraps are going to be safe!

I wanted to mention my blog of the week for this week.

It's called Tongue In Cheek. This isn't a quilting blog but more of a storybook. The writer, Corey, is a wonderful photographer and writes the most beautiful stories. She lives in California now but is originally from France. The stories that she writes are about when she lived in France.

She has an amazing way of transporting you. If you do get a chance to read a little of her blog, let me know what you think!
***edit 7/5 I had that backwards... she was from California and now lives in the South of France.


I hope you all have a happy and safe Independence Holiday!