I thought I'd get a picture of our house with the beautiful flowers out front. The weather is so enjoyable right now we have to spend all our time outside. You see there a glimpse of my daughter Veronica sewing a dress for a customer.Veronica was dying some crocheted lace yesterday and it looked so easy, so I decided to try some myself. I got some muslim and wrapped it around a wine bottle and tied it with some yarn. I make sure it was not smooth, but bunched up. Then I poured blue dye on part of it and pink on the other and let them flow into each other. Very simple and fun.

Next I scavenged into a can the run off from the blue and pink. I twisted some fabric into a very thick knot, and covered it with the dark purplish from the scavenged dye. I opened it up to let it dry, then tied it into another knot with different folds and put pink dye in it. This is the result.

It was much simpler than I had ever imagined, so I may try again when I have a specific project in mind. It would be great for applique flower petals I think, or such like.
Elaine

Star Spangled quilt

This is a customer's quilt that I just took off the machine yesterday. She wanted an all over meander so I did stars, loops, and twirls. She did a very nice job putting it together, especially the small pieced squares with the points. I gave the quilt its name.

A new quilt beginning

I bought fabric this morning to make a wedding quilt for my niece. This is the picture of the pattern that she liked, that I am planning to do.These are the fabrics that I had and some that I bought. I don't know which one to use for the wide border. I have enough of the Hawaiian and also the blue with the black swirls at the bottom of this picture. I like the Hawaiian myself because it has a nice large pattern for the border. Let me know Bev, what you think.

Hawaiian Baby Quilt

Today I'm working on this quilt that I had put away for a long time and decided I should finish. It looks lovelier than I remembered it. It's the first time I've tried echo quilting on my machine, and I'm not getting them as even as I liked. But then I looked at some professsional doing the same thing, and theirs is about the same. From a little distance it looks okay.

Olympia Quiltmakers

Every third Thursday, my quilt guild meets to do Community Service work. We take tops that
women have made and put them together to give away to the community. It is quite fun to get together and work like that. It's great to get to know the women.

We had 35 quilts all ready to give away at the end of the morning.

Beatrice

This is Beatrice. I knitted her up yesterday for an etsy customer. I made the first one when our chicks were small. Now they are half the size of the big chickens.
I'm cutting back on sewing some. My garden needs weeded, shopping needs done, storage areas need organized. I need to find lost instructions.
Future plans include 2 wedding quilts. And I have several items for my longare, some customers, and some personal. I have a baby quilt on the machine today. Maybe I'll get to quilting it.
Tomorrow is Naomi's birthday. Saturday was Nathaniel's. We might have a joint party this Sunday, as most of us are gone week nights.

Lacey Spring Fun Fair

We had a great weekend for the fun fair. The weather was 80 after weeks of rain, this was beautiful. We even got burned. These are 2 days of free and fun bouncy toys, pony rides, etc. for young children. Lots of parents with strollers. Lots of hot baby heads. We should have been in the sun hat business. My daughter got a couple of them sewn up after the 1st day, because we kept getting requests for them.
Others told us that our booth did pretty well. We have nothing to compare it with, as we had never done this before. I guess we wanted to sell everything, and that we did not do. But the girls felt real good about making some money. And it was good advertisement for our porch store. It was pretty fun to do.

Finished Projects

My completed ginger wallhanging. I will try to sell it at the fair this weekend.
These are Dylan's bumpers and quilt in his new crib.

Dylan is enjoying his mother's faces.

Gettting Ready

I have been busy getting things ready for the Spring Fun Fair, so there isn't much else happening. I'll get back with pictures of it during or after the weekend. The weather is supposed to be really nice - then back to rain again. But then, if you live in Washington you must enjoy the rain.

A School Field Trip

My oldest daughter Naomi teaches 3rd grade and brought her students to our house for a forest field trip. They had fun collecting ferns, leaves, and worms for our chickens and for our newest addition - 20 trout. In this picture they fed the fish and are trying to get them to jump. Our place is a great one for children.My ginger wall hanging on the quilt frame. I really love my Lenni. Close-ups of the above wall hanging This is a charity quilt I quilted for my quilt guild. I really enjoy doing these because I can try things on them that I wouldn't want to try for customers yet. I'm not showing you pictures of those parts although the cable I did worked out very well in the inner border.This picture is of the feathers in the quilt. Feathers are the most fun for me to do.

Ginger and Taggie

Yesterday I finished the applique on this hanging. I had the three flowers all laid out on their own papers. I had two of them put on , then one dropped, so I had to totally rearrange the petals. You don't want to have to do that often , after all the work of arranging them in the first place. I don't need to arrange twice. I'll put this on my frame next week and get it quickly quilted - mostly outline, may be feathers in the border? We'll see. I always need ideas.

I was making taggy blankets today for the spring fair next week. We didn't have these when I was a young mom. My son sucked his thumb and held on to the tag of his precious animal - I can't remember what it was. My daughter used her satin blanket edging. I guess these blankets are popular, so I thought I'd gime them a try.

What to do on a rainy day

It is raining. It's been raining a lot lately, but today it's really raining. I took pictures but the rainfall doesn't really show up very well. But maybe you can see our little chickens running into their coop. They are not out much today.

Today I decided to bind a table runner that I made in a quilt guild class last month. It was great fun. About 25 of us brought our sewing machine and created this French Braid runner. It was a quilt as you go type of thing- nothing I had ever really done before. But I completed it in about 2 hours except for the binding. I had done all the cutting before I took the class.This image shows the back side. I thought the fabric I used on the backing very nice.

I also started cutting out fabrics (minkys, satins, fleece, and flannels) to make taggie blankets for the fun fair. I,m trying to get boyish fabrics in there a little more. I'm also getting red flannel trucks to go with my red minky.

Preparing for the Lacey Spring Fun Fair

We were able to get a spot in the Lacey Spring Fun Fair, so we are now going full force into getting ready for it. Wel will be taking Bella Jean Boutique over there and are also adding a few more items. The girls are working on little cosmetic bags and phone and i-pod cases.

They've also been whipping up some flip-flops for the summer season.

We've never done anything this big before, so it'll be exciting to see what happens.

Crossstitching

This is a crossstitch I am doing for a wedding present. I work on it every evening, but I think I'll be doing it all day today as far as a project is concerned. I feel the pressure to get it done. It probably won't be done for the shower or wedding. Hopefully I can have it in their house when they come back from their honeymoon.I'll be working on it afternoons now also. This is from a photo of the bride when she was a babe

Here are other crossstitches I have done in the past. The girl in the bonnet is Naomi - my 23 year old. The other are my twins - Veronica and Victoria who are now 18.

The lovely couple underneath Naomi is my oldest son Nathaniel with his new bride Louise. That is the cover of their wedding album.