The Flowers of Heart's Desire

I'm still on block 4, but I have completed the leaves on the inside of the block, along with all the thorns.

Now I'm moving along with the flowers.  I think the hardest part is picking out the fabrics.  That took a lot of time.  Then I cut my Floriani and ironed them to my fabrics.  Here you can see this happening.  I am keeping the flowers separate in bags and all the pieces are well labeled so it isn't hard to put them together.

And now I have 2 flowers done.  I only work on these blocks about one afternoon a week.  It is a slow, but steady progress.

Here is Eloise sitting on Grandpa's shoulder.  What is she looking at?

Ah yes.  There go Dad and Mom ready to ride the water.

Bye Eloise!

This post is linked to Esther's WOW and Freshly Pieced.

Luke's Sailboat Quilt

I just can't wait til he's back from vacation.  Do you think he'll like it?  Well, he might not care yet as he's so little, but his older brother probably will and I know his mom will.

The song "Trains and Boats and Planes"  kept going through my head when I was doing this one. His older brother has a train quilt that I made for him.  You can see it on my Crib quilt page.  It's the one with trains.

 If they have another boy I think I'll make him a plane quilt.

I enjoyed quilting different sashing ideas on each of these strips.

My friends from Kirk's Korner did the embroidery for me.  

And I back all my baby quilts with flannel.  I love it.

This  quilt should get a lot of good wear.  Maybe it will be a dragger.

30 Years Ago Today

My husband Chris and I were married.

 Here we are having cake.  Because we looked at each other and not at the cake, we were to have seven years of bliss.  It's been 30 years and they haven't always been easy, but they have been very good years. I wouldn't trade them in for anything else.

The quilt in back of us is one the women in the church made for us.  They each embroidered a square. 

Here we are now.

Our friend Sherrie wrote a song and sang it at our wedding.  She also came over last evening and sang it for us again.  It was wonderful.  Here it is.

   

Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!

Ps 107: 21

A Day with Ode to the Thirties

I went to my quilt guild in the morning.  Martha leads us fearlessly in this project.  We were doing 4 smaller squares this morning.  She had us paper piecing and had printed out all the patterns.  What a time saver for me.

I had gone with my fabrics all cut (knowing it was paper piecing), therefore saving me lots of time.

I did some of the work at the guild, but then I came home and continued to sew on it.

Here it is coming along.

 These 4 are all done and trimmed.  They are 6" when finished

I still had a little time before I started dinner, so I finished up this block also.  Because I want to make the whole quilt I have a lot to do on my own.  This is the first of those.  Remember those little packets I had cut out before?  I had started sewing this one, but just completed it.  It looks like the stem almost doesn't hit the orange flower.  There's a little fix I'll have to do.

Community Service Quilt

Here is one I quilted for my quilt guild.  The newest thing that I enjoy doing is making the dark squares stand out when they have contrasting light squares in a design like this quilt.  The darker squares puff out.

 I did feathers in all the light squares.  These are small feathers.  I found out I had better control when I worked closer to me rather than stretching out far away.  That means more rolling, but worth it.

Work in Progress

This definately is a Work in Progress.  Yesterday I chain pieced all these squares.  Maybe today I'll get them squared up.  These are for the quilt you can see here.

Also here are a couple of small finishes I have.  These are both for customers.  I had sold a paper doll set in our store and  then I sold it on Etsy again before I could take it off.  How often does that happen?  But the customer didn't mind getting a different doll and different pouch.  She probably got more with this set.

 I like making these little flowers.  This customer is going to attach them to a scarf.  There are so many things you can do with them.  My daughters attached them to this dress.

I am linked to WOW at Esther's blog and  Freshly Pieced.

Let Me Introduce You

Yesterday we had a great Independence Day celebration with our friends.  I made it a point to get pictures of my family as I seem  to only have taken ones of Eloise in the past 9 months.  So let me introduce you 

My husband Chris - who is sitting in the left.

Nathaniel, my oldest son.  He is cooking up a gourmet stuffed hamburger with bacon and a fried egg on top.  It is delicious.

His wife Louise with Eloise

 

This is Joseph, my second son, who is enjoying eating right at the moment.

 Naomi, the oldest daughter.  She  takes photos and serves.  Most of these photos were taken before the picnic actually started.  We live right next door, so I went early to get pictures and went later to eat and enjoy.

This is Christopher, the 4th child, or adult as he is now.

And Jordan the 5th.  He is smokin' up a pork that he is now pulling.

 

 Here is is with his BBQ partner, dancing to the music.  He doesn't really wear glasses.  It's just part of his getup.

This is Veronica on the right.  She is one half of the twins.  They had a rootbeer float stand with their friends.

 And Victoria, the other half.

And my youngest is Isaac.  He's sitting out a volleyball game.  He's on the right.

And since I didn't take a picture of myself here's another of Eloise.

I hope you all had a great day.