My Quilt Festival Entry

I would like to share this quilt that I made for a wedding gift for friends of mine.  It is a king size applique and trapunto.

This quilt is a good combination of those things I love working with most.  Applique  quilts are always the ones that catch my eye. Wholecloth quilts do the same thing.

The bride I was giving this to came and looked through all my books and she found one in a Karen McTavish book that we revised  and  made it exactly like she wanted.   The plum color also is so delicious to me.

I will put the label on it tomorrow and call up that bride and groom and give it to them. It is a little late, but I'm sure they'll love it.
 

Check out Amy's Blog for the Quilt Festival and view all  the beautiful quilts.

Customer Quilts

This one is a sweet baby or child's quilt.  I did this one on my Bernina using my walking foot.

 I then went around each heart and the customer also had hearts marked in the plain squares that I quilted.  It was small and seemed easier for that type of quilting to do on my smaller machine.

 

This is Darlene's Shop Hop Quilt.

 It has 49 squares.  Does that mean 49 shops?  I've never done one of those yet. 

  I did individual designs on each square as they were all unique unto themselves.

  I especially like the little trailer in the photo below.

 In this photo I like the quilt hanging from the tree.

 

The New Preemie Hat Fashion Parade

Hat #1    Too Small!!!

Hat #2   Just right.

  Here she is really enjoying it.                                            

 Hat #3  Here we have a little bit more style.

Hat #4  And yet another style.

Hat #5  It's a simple one to keep warm.  Eloise has yet to try this one on.












Isn't Eloise a great model?  She did so well without even crying.  You can check out all these hats on Ravelry, my knitting site  for more details of the making.
Thank you for coming to our show.  Let me know which one you like the best.

I'm Learning to Sew

Garments, that is.  I have sewed for many, many years, sewing dresses for my girls, and a few things for me.  I gave up on clothing for me because I don't know how to pick styles without trying them on first. So I stick to quilts and tablerunners etc., things that don't have to be fitted.

But my twin daughters sew.  I even taught them to a point.  Now they far exceed me.  They're not afraid of doing fitted garments.  And women enjoy coming to them to have fancy dresses sewn for them.

  

But I did sew a couple of aprons last week for a wedding shower gift and got lots of help.  We didn't follow the pattern exactly and I had to get their help almost every step of the way.  They taught me a little trick with putting on binding very neatly that they should put on YouTube.   I was happy with how they turned out.

It's an Emmaline apron.  I did not make it reversible because I used a heavier weight fabric.  I didn't want the apron to feel to heavy. I made the hot pads to match.  Every new wife needs aprons and hot pads.

 Veronica and Victoria  --  Thank You!

The Joys of Our Homes

We bought our first home 23 years ago, moving into it when we had 4 children.  The age range of them was 4 years to 3 weeks. Four under four. Can you imagine?  We also had 3 other people living with us most of the 20 years that we lived in that home.

Our family about a year after we moved in.

 Our family was growing as we kept adding to it.  It was a life full of activity, crying, laughing, owies, arguing, games, skits, music, etc.

Eating breakfast outside

The twins have a birthday.  Do they care?  Jordan enjoyed it though

.

All the boys

Dad's Birthday

 Notice how the boys'  bow-ties match their sisters' dresses.  I liked to do things like that.  This is all eight of them.  I had 8 children in 10 1/2 years.  They don't look like they're not cared for.

 

 One year, I had 7 all in school at the same time.  Actually I thought all eight were in school for one year together, but maybe my memory serves me wrong.  The picture is probably more accurate than my memory.

The first day of school.

Our last family picture when we lived in that house.

 And then we built our new house on the same piece of property. We've lived in it three years and have enjoyed it immensely.  We have more room and a lovely yard.  I even have my own nightstand and master bathroom.  Such luxuries.  We've all grown larger and are not living on top of one another.

 We are having many good times inside and outside in our home.

 

 Our oldest son even got married.  I'm sure there are more weddings to come.

As of last Friday, our older home is sold.  We divided the land and started the sale which was quite a long process.

Our oldest son bought it.  They are now fixing it up with their siblings help (on both sides of the family) and getting ready to move in.

Nathaniel, Louise, Eloise

 Look how Daddy loves his little girl.

They spend most of their time at the hospital these days caring for Eloise and watching her grow, so they are getting lots of help on their house.

It'll be so wonderful to have them next door.

O give thanks unto the LORD, for He is good, for His mercy endureth for ever.

Psalm 136.1

Robert's Quilt

A bright batik quilt.

 I used different styles of leaves in quilting it.

Eloise Keeps Getting Sweaters

This is another sweater for my darling granddaughter Eloise.  She is so wonderful.  I can't visit her everyday, but I do love looking at photos of her all the time.  She has lots of people who love her and is a very blessed baby.

This sweater is knit from a soft cotton in a newborn size, although I think it is still a little big for her.  She is now just over 4 pounds.  I knitted it last weekend when my husband and I were away at Ocean Shores. You can see I spent my time knitting.

The Wedding Quilt

Josiah and Eva's quilt.  It's finished -except for the label that is.

 This view is in the sun - a different perspective.

 A close-up of the center.

 Other views

Butterflies

This quilt was made by a woman in my quilt guild.  It's one being given to charity and I quilted it. I call these practice quilts.

 The practice was the line dancing in the square blocks.  I just don't think that I'm good enough at doing them.  They're not totally even.  Also the double vein in the feathers.  I've been to scared to try that before.  These quilts give me that chance to try those types of things.

The butterflies are a machine embroidery.  I like them.

Time Off

One sees a lot of these kinds of pictures around, representing a relaxing time at the beach.

Here is my rendition of that picture.  Of course, it's October and it's Ocean Shores.  The weather was actually perfect and we had a great time.  We did not stay out on the beach for long though.

 

 

Doesn't the sun look pretty out on the water.  We saw the moon shine on the water also, just couldn't get a picture of that, but it was lovely.

It's wonderful to be able to take a couple of days with my husband and just relax.  We don't do much of any thing and enjoy that very much. 

The Friendship of Eloise and Madelyn

I've been knitting baby sweaters lately.  They're quite a bit of fun to do and they go quickly because they are so small.  This first one is for Eloise, my granddaughter.  I made her some pom-pom booties to match.  This is a Sirdar pattern.   You can check it out on Ravelry.

This sweater is for her friend Madelyn.  When I get photos of her wearing the whole ensemble, I will tell the story of it then.  This is also on Ravelry.

 Close-up of the embroidery work.

Eloise is giving Madelyn a hug.   Eloise and Madelyn will grow up to be good friends.  Their parents are good friends right now.  These girls might have to learn to share toys or candy, but that will help them to be better friends.