Big Boy Quilt was a Success!

I delivered Kendrick's Big Boy Quilt to him yesterday just before naptime. He loved it! After he had given me my welcoming hugs and kisses and sweet smiles, sat on my lap and told me his stories for the day, I told him he had a present from me. I sat him down on the couch next to his mommy and held up the quilt. His eyes lit up and he grinned from ear to ear. He pointed at it and said "my blankie". Enough to make an aunt's heart melt, I tell you :)

I showed him the label, which I had traced a dragon onto the bottom of, and after I told him what it was, he turned to his mommy and said "dis is MY dragon!" LOL

He carried it around with him for the rest of the time we were there. I do believe this quilt gift was a big success :)

I Promised Pictures

And here they are!

This is Kendrick's Big Boy Quilt. I finished this about a month ago and just can't get motivated to get the label on it. I think it turned out pretty well.
Here is a close-up of the quilting. As you can see, I used a variegated blue thread and did a simple cross-hatch design over the whole quilt. I did outline the half dresdens at the top, though. I have decided that machine quilting is not for me. The nieces and nephews will get it for their little kid quilts, but as soon as they're old enough to respect them, I'll be switching to hand-quilted ones for them, too. Just too much angst involved in the machine quilting for me.

And what is this stack of muslin you might ask? Well, it's 388 6-inch blocks, to be exact! I've gotten all the muslin blocks for my version of the Delft Tile Quilt all cut and ready to have the patterns traced on them. Wow, that's quite a stack!

Here's another little thing I did this summer. I saw it on another blog and thought it was a great idea, so spent an evening painting my wooden needle tubes. I only had three. I think they're really cute :)

And last, but not least, DH and I spent a lot of time this summer growing a little garden. We don't have a lot of real estate on our property, so we needed to keep the garden small - it's about 4 ft X 8 ft. We have rabbits so DH made this little fence for it. It was pretty effective, too! We grew sweet corn, string beans, carrots and beets. I wanted to pickle the beets, but there weren't enough :( The carrots we gave to our neighbor. The corn came out mushy - we don't know if it was overripe when we picked it, if it didn't get enough water throughout the summer, or if it got too much water. We'll try again next year. The beans were a big success, though. Oh! And I planted 4 tomato plants in containers. Those have been doing great, too.

It's Been a While..

Hey everyone. I know, it's been almost 2 months since I've been here, I'm sorry about that. I didn't intend to be gone so long, it's been a busy summer.

You all know I got a new nephew in June that was born 8 weeks early. I've been helping my sister anytime she needs help, which was a lot in the beginning. She's getting used to things now, so my help isn't needed nearly as much. But I'm still at her house about once a week, which is a lot less than the 3-4 times a week that I was over there when they first came home. Greyson is doing great :) He's a healthy little boy that is now over 8 pounds. He still doesn't have that chubby look that new babies have, but he's definitely a cutey. He got our grandpa's big ears - I hope he grows into them soon. He got off his lung/heart monitor a couple of weeks ago. He only had one true alarm after they brought him home, so after being on it for 4 weeks (I think), the doctors decided it was time for him to be off it. This makes things much easier for my sister.

We also got fleas this summer. We've had animals since the first month we moved in together over 15 years ago, and this is the first time we've ever had fleas. I blame the fact that I'm still jobless and we let Pips' flea regime lag a bit this summer. It was a stupid thing to let slide, as now we have to spend the money to get rid of the things. Flea treatments and flea shampoo isn't cheap. So, this week, I'll be buying all the goodies and all the cats get a flee shampoo - I'm sure they'll just love it - NOT!

I have been getting some things done in the quilting/stitching front. Unfortunately, I don't know where DH put the camera cord, so I can't share pictures right now. I will post some as soon as he tells me where he put it.

I managed to get Kendrick's Big Boy Quilt finished this summer. I machine quilted it (first time for me). I can't say as I enjoy machine quilting - I had to force myself to sit down at the machine each day and do at least one line of stitching before I'd let myself do anything else. It eventually got finished - but I realize now that I am a hand quilter, through and through. I decided this quilt needed machine quilting, though, as it's going to a 2 year old - and it'll be through the washer/dryer more times than I care to imagine. At least it'll last a bit longer this way. I just need to get the label sewn on the back and get it delivered before any more time passes...

I also started work on a new project. I've designed a new layout for the Delft Tile Quilt that calls for 388 applique blocks - so I spent some time this summer getting all the muslin blocks cut out. I'm slowly cutting out the green fabrics that I will be appliqueing the muslin to. As well as getting the designs traced onto the muslin. I haven't actually started the applique yet, but it's getting there.

I also pulled out my tiny hexagon quilt. The quilt isn't tiny, the hexagons are. It's still at the stage where it's a good travel project, so I've been taking it with my when I go out and about this summer. Everywhere I go, I get people telling me I'm crazy for making it. But I love it and I'm sure I'll be working on it for a long time yet.

I also started Teresa Wentzler's Unicorn this past week. I had all the supplies kitted already, as well as having the fabric gridded. All I needed were working copies of the pattern and I was good to go. It's been going pretty quickly so far, but then again, I've been able to work on it about 8 hours a day for a week now. I guess anything would move fairly quickly with that much time put into it.

Ok, I think I'll wrap things up for this post. I promise pictures next time.

Rest in Peace Tiger

Rest in Peace Baby. We will always love you.

August 1995 - July 2010

Happy Day!!

I have a new nephew today!! Here is Grayson and he was 6 weeks early. Momma had preeclampsia and for everyone's safety, it was decided to take the baby early. He came in at 4 lbs. 1 oz and is 16 1/2 inches long. He's doing just fine. Momma is suffering from not being able to hold him yet, as she is still not allowed to sit up. Just a couple more days...

Also - Felix came home tonight! After galivanting for the last 8 days and 4 thunderstorms, he finally decided to come home. He promptly got a bath, as he no longer had any white parts - they were all different shades of gray! Let me just say he did not enjoy this homecoming at all! But, it appears as though there are no ear mites, no fleas and no new wounds from cat fights...all very good!

The Quilting is Finished!!

I just finished all the quilting on DNephew's quilt!! It's definitely time to celebrate - I hated that machine quilting!

Now to get the binding strips sewn together and then onto the quilt so I can get it done done! I'll post a picture when I hit that stage...Time to start thinking about the label :)

Update on the kitties - Tiger is doing pretty poorly now. She isn't eating much anymore - we expect to lose her any day now :(

Felix took off out the front door on Thursday afternoon and we haven't seen him since. I'm going to the animal shelter tomorrow, hoping somehow he ended up there. It's not been a good weekend around here on the animal front :(

My Outing to Goodwill

Apparently the day after a long weekend is the perfect day to wander through your local Goodwill. My theory is that everyone had yard sales over the long weekend and took the leftovers to Goodwill to get rid of them.

Anyway, I found a couple of things today that has me pretty happy. The first one had this on the bottom...

The front of it looked like this..

And the back like this..

I fell in love instantly. And for only $2.99! I did some research when I got home - as I had no idea if J. Mex meant anything and discovered this is a Tonala Mexican vase. There's quite a lot of this stuff out there, but it's all beautiful. I love the greens and browns and blues... I found a matching plate on Ebay for $29.99.....I think I'm going to have to let that one pass, though...I do believe I've begun another collection though..

I also found this great piece to hang in my living room or sewing room - I haven't decided which yet. The circles are game pieces that are hanging on a leather cord. Very fun! It's a dark green and cream - even though it looks black in the picture.

And last but not least, I realized I haven't introduced you to Nika yet. She's our lucky black cat. She's about 13 years old, we rescued her from the local animal shelter about 10 years ago. She has red highlights when you see her in the sun. As you can see in this picture, she's trying to keep the red-eye on my blog to a minimum - LOL!

That's all that's going on around here right now. DH is back to work after being off for a week. Boy, the house sure seems quiet with him gone! And, he's stopping at Mom's after work to fix her air conditioner, so it'll be a long day of quiet here. Maybe I'll get a lot done on Flower Power...