Aprons & Quilts

Boy did I ever get lost last week! I came down with a mega migraine! It can really spoil a day (or two). Fortunately by Saturday I had re-cooped. It was Mr. B's birthday! Woohoo! Guess who can retire now!!! Uh, no, it's not me. Guess again:)
We met up with some of our kids and a few who might as well be our kids (they acted as stand-ins for the boys who couldn't be home) and had lunch at Bass Lake. Some of those boys had been fishing since early morning, thus "the look".

Notice the hat is traveling! It's nice to share the Mother's Day weekend with my DH! We took turns getting spoiled.

I hope everyone had a great Mother's Day! Last year we celebrated in Hawaii with my mom, who goes there every year. That was really special. It was my first time in Maui. Certainly not the first time for my DH. So I got to be the tourist with lots of Maui savvy people around me.

The downfall was that we were not with our kids!

Today is National Wear Your Apron Day, so I thought I would share a few photos of aprons with you. I love the little vintage fabric on this one and the ric rac on it.

See the little panels on the side? They have built in little pockets!

I wanted to show you another quilt that is hanging at Cottage Quilts for an upcoming class. This is Sweet Dreams by Heather Mulder Peterson. I like the way this one turned out. Very nostalgic, it reminds me of grandma's hankies.

I have returned to this quilt. I am tempted to be lazy and just put on the borders but I thought I would show it to you and how it is suppose to look. See the adorable border? I have all the pieces ready to fuse on but I am dreading stitching around the edges of all those leaves and flowers. What do you think? I am open to suggestions.

Long Story, Something New & In the Beginning

I did run over to Bass Lake for lunch today with my friend Kathy. Fortunately for me, Kathy broke her leg this winter, slipping on ice. Not so fortunate for her... but her physical therapy office is right next door to where I work so I get to see her every week! I didn't take a picture of the lake because it still looks like the last one I posted (insert smile here). I have to tell you a little story though: there are only so many boat slips available and you have to put your name on a list and wait and wait and wait until you can get a slip. We had our name on 2 lists actually. There is a third place to dock your boat but it costs a ridiculous amount. Anyway, last year, the day we got home from vacation and right after we realized that our refrigerator went out we got a call saying our name was up on the list for our boat slip! What can you do after waiting 13 years... yes, 13 years. We jumped on it! It's time again to be putting the boats in the water but California is working on its dams... so this year and the next few years the water levels are going to be kept low, so the damn (hehe) work can get done! Our name has to get back on the list. It's killing me! How patient can a person be? As for the other list we are on... same problem, but we are still #2, that is up from 191. Really. The boat is going to be to old to float by the time we get a spot!
Anyway, I thought I would share how far I have come on my Fat Quarter Shop Mystery Designer Block of the Month. I am almost caught up. I have 10 done. One ready to work on and the last months block hasn't arrived yet. Pretty good.
I did get my borders on my Glad All Over quilt with the Wonderland fabric. I also re cut a backing and some batting. Now I am ready to re-pin that puppy and get it quilted!

In the beginning: When I was still a new quilter I had the opportunity to be in a magazine. Here are a couple of the quilts they published in Quilt Magazine. The log cabin quilt also had instructions in the issue. (I was younger then).

Pictures are Proof

I am back with the proof today! I have my camera and I have my cord... I am armed and dangerous! First of all I can show my pots that I planted very early on Sunday morning. The sun was barely up. It had rained all night, so I took my opportunity and was able to add a little color to the front porch.

I needed to put sleeves on the back of my quilts that are going to be in the local quilt show in a couple of... ooops, scratch that thought, the quilt show will be here the weekend after this one. On May 16th & 17th. Yikes. So back to the mission of putting on sleeves. I was checking out quilts I have here and there in the house so that I can steal a sleeve from one to put on the other. I know that is a bit lazy but really, I don't need the sleeves on the quilt after they are shown. So that's the plan. I showed you the quilts that will be entered into the show a couple weeks ago now, so the quilts you see are the ones that I am stealing sleeves from.

I pulled this one out but I thought that I had better just leave it one alone because it needs to go for a ride to Cottage Quilts in Fresno. I am going to teach a class there this summer for this quilt called Christmas Heart Lights. It's about 70" square. I have some other classes that will be coming up at Cottage Quilts. I will take some photos of those and show them to you soon.

This is a quilt that I did several years back for a Moda challenge. It won locally but it didn't hit the big time. I am taking the sleeve off of this one.

The sleeve is coming off of this one also. I made it for one of my sons when he was graduating
high school. It just came back home for safe keeping because this son (#2) just went to go live at the barracks. It is almost the start of fire season. He is a wildlands firefighter. A Hotshot. So he is starting along with the other guys to gear up. This year, his twin (son #3) will not be with him. #3 has decided to stay in college. Anyway, this quilt was one of my beginning quilts. It's fun to see it again.

I tried to take photos of the lap robe for the Dressage (horse carriage) compitition but it's just black on black so it didn't turn out well.

Remember the quilt I showed last week made from the Wonderland line? A flash of the quilt came to me about 4:00 in the morning and then another flash of some fabric on my cutting table. As soon as I got out of bed this morning I went to see if my suspisions were true and sure enough... I had forgotten to put the outside border on the quilt... and there it was all pinned and ready to quilt! Argg! So I am going to have to back track a little and unpin the quilt top and get that border on it. Darn it. I got ahead of myself there!

The Cord that Got Away

I was running around this morning taking photos of the things that I did over the weekend... and by the way, it was a very productive weekend... anywho... I left my camera cord behind. I am unable to up/download my photos! So, here is a scenic picture of Bass Lake which was anything but scenic over the weekend. The first weekend in May is the big fishing derby and things were a hopin' around here! I make plans of staying far away from the lake during the derby... however, you can find a few my boys there. Unfortunately it was a wet weekend. Poor fishermen/women!

As for me, I really did have a very productive weekend... which is now starting to sound like a fish tale since I have no photos to back myself up! But I promise: the proof will be here tomorow.
I finished my secret assignment for Fig Tree's Joanna. I planted flowers in pots around the front of the house. I sewed a sleeve onto one of the quilt show enteries. I tackled a sewing project for my sister: she needed a lap robe to wear during a horse carriage compitition, I think they call it Dressage. Other than quilting, I have done little other sewing especially with fabric outside of cotton. Oh lordy! Why me? I don't even like to sew on buttons! After that I even cleaned the house! Hummm, it's even starting to sound like a fish tale to me now!LOL

As for the lake... I will be having a famous "Forks Burger" there latter this week during my lunch hour with a friend of mine. The crowd should be gone by then.