Apple Goodness!!!!

Yesterday morning was one of those perfect, crisp, fresh fall days. After dropping Ethan and Karlee (granddaughter) off at school, I went for a walk around this little lake not to far from Ethan's school. This is a picture taken from a little bridge that crosses over the river inlet. It is about 2 miles going all the way around it.

On Monday when I walked here, there was about 100 or so Canadian Geese in the water. Of course, I didn't have my camera with me. I brought it with me this time thinking that I could get a picture. Well, here is all that I seen. :~)No geese! I am not even sure what kind of water fowl these are. The little squirrel posed very cute for me though. :~)

When I returned home I spent the rest of the morning in the kitchen. After browsing around on the internet the other day I came across this recipe for making applesauce in the crockpot. Yummy and oh so easy! We all love it!!!!!! I will be making more of this and freezing it. Take some time and check out all of her yummy recipes for the crockpot! Very worth your time!

I made this too! It is from an old family recipe. One of our fall time favorites! Not sure where it got it's name though, as it is more like a cobbler.

Apple Pudding
Cream together --- 2 cup sugar
2 eggs
4 T butter
Add -- 4 cups peeled, cored and sliced apples
2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg (I like to use the whole nutmeg and shave off my own using my micro-plane)
1 1/4 tsp salt
2 cups flour
Mix well with a large spoon and press into a greased 9x13 pan.
Bake at 350 for 45-55 minutes.
I like to squeeze the juice of a lemon over my apples slices before mixing in the other ingredients.

Let me know if you try this recipe and how you like it.

Hugs&Stitches, Julia

Summer Swap has arrived ---

My 4-seasons summer swap quilt has arrived at it's new home all the way to Portugal! How
exciting is that! Luisa posted about it here. I stressed a little more over this one. Took me quite awhile to decide what I wanted to do. But, in the end I think that she is happy with it and I know that I had a good time making it.

Thanks again to Margaret for hosting this fantastic journey! Are we going to do more Margaret?

Hugs & Stitches, Julia

I haven't fallen off of the planet........

I have just been riding the huge wave called life!! Things have been way out of the ordinary here. Some of them good, some of them not so good.

First school started and that is always a little chaotic for me until we get a routine developed. Everything is going nice and smooth on the school front now. Maybe, I shouldn't say that out loud. I might jinx myself. :~)

We had company on Labor Day. My brother and his family came up from Utah. It has been a couple of months since we seen them, so it was nice to spend the day visiting with them.
But, after they went home, my Dad had some mild, emergency medical issues and I spent the next couple of hours with him and Mom in Urgent Care. Without going into details, he is fine now. This past Tuesday he had a colonoscopy done and everything is o.k. Nothing was seriously wrong. Just needs to quit taking aspirin, his blood was way to thin.

Last week was the Eastern Idaho State Fair. We spent a couple of days wandering around there. Riding the carnival rides, eating, looking at the animals, eating, watching the free entertainment, eating, looking at quilts (sorry no pics). Did I mention eating. :~) We did way to much of that activity. lol

On Sept 6, this sweet, handsome young man was baptized.

We are so proud of Ethan and the choice that he has made. It was such a special day. We saved his birthday party for this wonderful day. I made him a cake in the shape of an eight. I am not a very talented cake decorator, so no pictures of that one. ;~) Isn't he handsome, all dressed up in his Sunday best?

During the middle of all of this activity, I had the stomach flu for a couple of days. I am feeling better from that. But now, I have a miserable head cold! Argh!!!!! My nose looks like Rudolph and my sleep is being interrupted by fits of coughing. I thought the cold and flu season was in the winter months, not now! Maybe, I will get it all over with and be germ free the rest of the fall and winter. Ha! I have also been daycare for daughter's 3 darling children the past 2 weeks. Thank goodness, their Daddy will be home for the next 2 weeks and I get a break. Chasing after 4 children between the ages of 8 and 1 1/2, can be exhausting and stressful!

I have some really exciting news to share with you but, I want to take some pictures first. I will try and get some good pics today and tell you all about it later today or tomorrow.

I am going to be freezing up some of garden bounty today. So nice to enjoy the fruits of your labor all winter long.


During all of this excitement and chaos, there are those special, tender moments, that make you step back and count all of your wonderful blessings. Who can't find peace and comfort when looking upon a sleeping child. I couldn't resist taking a picture of him, all cozy and zonked out on my pillow. Sure wish his Mom had taken his shoes off first though, that's my side of the bed! For Pete's sake! ;~)

Hugs & Stitches, Julia

Enjoying Time with Family

Hi all! I thought that I would just pop in to say hi! I am enjoying time with my family. Kristy and the grandbabies have been staying here a lot through the holidays. We have been playing with the children and their new holiday toys.

I hope that you have all had a wonderful Christmas!

Ethan has one more week out of school, so I will be pretty busy until life gets back to a schedule. It is fun to take a break from "regular" life though and enjoy the little blessings (children) in my life.

I am kind of getting the itch to get back in the sewing room though. I have big plans for the rest of the winter! I want to spend lots of time quilting in the next couple of months. :~)

Hugs&Stitches, Julia

I've been busy---

I have been very busy and quite productive the past several days. Judy was hosting another Quiltathon and I was able to participate this time. Thanks, Judy for getting me in gear! I love getting a little motivation from friends!!!!

I finished both of the quilts that I was making for my great-niece's birthdays. The other one has horses in the squares where this one has the music notes and records. I picked embroidery motifs that would reflect their individual personalities.

I have also been cleaning up my sewing room. I was getting way to many things piled around and laying on the floor. I had made two quilts tops last winter for charity and I am finishing those up.One of them I will just take to our church's Humanitarian Center and the other I am donating to the Boy Scout's. They are having a Rummage Sale to raise money for their Scout Camp.
A couple of weeks ago, at church, I volunteered to do the machine quilting and binding on 2 more charity quilts. I have those ready to take back to church this week.
Sorry, no pics of the charity quilts. :(

Hugs & Stitches, Julia

Some of My Favorite Things

I just about have all of my Christmas decorating finished. I just need one more string of lights for the tree, then I can finish decorating it. Speaking of lights, how is it that they are working when you take them off of the tree, they are gently stored in a box downstairs all year and when you bring them out, plug them in, they are dead? How does this happen? Well, I don't mess with them, drives me insane. I will just go and buy some more. Need to help the economy anyway, right? :~)

Anyway, I wanted to share a couple of the decorations with you. I made this several years ago when I used to do ceramics. This is my all-time favorite decoration. To me it says what the season is really all about. Even Santa kneels at the manger of our Lord and King!



This little wallhanging was the first Christmas quilty item that I ever made. Not my best work. Fun to see that I am improving with my fabric choices, piecing skills, and definitely my quilting skills. I still like it though. Makes me smile! :~) On top of the shelf is a few of my nativity scenes. I collect these and have several of them displayed throughout our home.

I am going to my guild's Christmas social today. Should be lots of fun. I will take my camera and if there is anything interesting to share, I will be sure to take pictures for all of you.

Hugs&Stitches, Julia

I have walked 4 1/4 miles so far this week. I did go shopping with my daughter for 4 hours yesterday, do I get to count that as part of my walking too? hehe

UFO Challenge

My guild is having a UFO challenge that I decided to sign up for. I need to get some of these UFO's done. It drives me insane to have to many projects going at once! There is so many new things that I want to do, so I am going to make myself finish at least two "old" projects for every "new" one that I begin. Wish me luck! :~)

If I don't have this done by March, then I have to donate 5 fat quarters to the guild. Not a big penalty, but something to give me a little incentive to finish this. I made it this far, before I put it away. I am working on all of the little stars today.

I have to make 44 of them. I have 12 done! EEP! I have a way to go! :~)

Hugs&Stitches, Julia

Swim Lessons

No quilting going on in my house the past week or so.
This is what I have been doing.

We are into week 2 of swim lessons. Ethan is having lots of fun! Made me a little nervous the first time that they had him jump off of the diving board. At least, they had a life belt on him. When they have him jump in off of the side he doesn't wear one. That really makes my heart jump until I see that cute little head surface the water.
Sure wish it was an outdoor pool for this time of year. It is a little humid and stuffy in there for me!

I am also working on some new embroidery designs. They should be ready for sale in my Ebay store by the middle of August. I will show some pics of what I am doing when I get a little further along on them. This is my favorite set that I have done so far.
I am also thinking of opening an Etsy store too. Has anyone sold through Etsy before? Is it simple to set up? Do they charge any fees?

Hugs & Stitches, Julia

Wooden Pumpkins

I spent the day, Tuesday, with Kristy (DD). We each made one of these. Now painting is not one of my creative talents. So I was very pleased with how these turned out. We had a lot of fun laughing and painting. Oh, and trying to keep the 18 month old tornado (grandson) out of the paint. LOL

My guild had a guest speaker and a trunk show yesterday. I took lots of pictures, will share those on the next post. Right now I need to finish up Kristy's birthday present. It was her birthday yesterday. Not sure how it happened, but my baby girl is 28 years old! ACK! What a blessing she is to us, she is my best friend. We spend lots of time together. Now if I could just get her interested in quilting. She loves the finished product, but doesn't want to make it herself. She says that is my job. :~)

Hugs&Stitches, Julia

Birthday Totes

We have two granddaughters with birthdays this month. They are sister's, 7 years old and 3 years old. I decided to make them each a little purse/tote. What girl doesn't like a new purse now and then. :~) I thought that I would also fill them up with some goodies. I had lots of fun making these.

As you can see in the picture, I made the handles on the 3 year old's a little shorter.

Right while I am having fun making totes, I think that I am going to make me a big one for carrying things in when I go to classes and retreats/sewing days with friends.

I am still waiting on the border fabric for the Purple Star quilt. It should be here this week sometime. I usually don't name my quilts, but I think that I am going to give this one a name, "Blackberry Twilight". What do you think? I really need to get into labeling my quilts. I usually always put a label on the ones that I make for gifts, but I never seem to put a label on the ones that I keep. Not that I really stress over it, it just might be interesting after a few years to be able to see the date that I made them.

Hugs&Stitches, Jul♥a

I hope that those of you living in Australia are safe and not involved in those terrible fires. You and your countrymen are in my thoughts and in my prayers. :~)

String Scrap Quilts

I finished up two of my string/scrap quilts.

I have another almost ready to load onto SuzyQ. I have another that I am working on, using up some 2 1/2" strips. I will just work on it here and there. I want to get back to some of my other projects. These are fun to make though. I use a muslin foundation. You can stitch away and not really think about what you are doing. I will be donating these to the LDS Humanitarian Center.

Kim Diehl Class

Before I tell you all about my Kim Diehl class, let me clarify something. It was brought to my attention that maybe I had a bad marriage without romance in it. That is not the impression that I intended to leave by my last post. Actually, Randy and I have an excellent relationship. Oh, we have had our ups and downs through the years, as does any marriage. I think that is how you grow and come closer. We don't have the traditional kind of romance in our marriage though, you know, like gifts of candy, flowers and candlelight dinners. That is just not us. We are romantic in unusual ways, but it works for us. Like Randy finally had a night off last night, when I got home from my class, we went out to dinner for our anniversary. We didn't go to a nice, romantic, sit-down restaurant. We grabbed a couple of burgers from our favorite place, some fries and a couple of milkshakes. We then went to the tiny little airport in our town, sat in our car ate our dinner and enjoyed some time just for the two of us. Just simple things to add to the deep bond of our 31 years together. You see, the airport is a special place for us. Randy has a private pilot's license, he owned an airplane at the time that we met and our first date was a ride in that airplane. So it was a nice romantic evening for us, remembering when we fell in love!

Now on to the quilt class. It was soooooooo much fun! I learned a great deal. I have always loved applique, but hand applique was something that I couldn't get the hang of and I'm way to slow at it. The way Kim taught us looks like hand done, but so much faster, done with your machine. She uses freezer paper, so you have finished edges. I see lots of applique in my future now. :~) There are so many quilts out there that I have wanted to make but, the applique has always scared me away. Well, not anymore!!! If you have the chance to take a class from her, I encourage you to do so. If not, at least get her books and learn her way of doing it. She is the nicest person, very friendly, funny and gives one on one time if you need it. I have been a fan of hers for a long time, I have all 3 of her books and I never realized that she lived just 30 miles from me! I knew that she lived in Idaho, but I didn't know that it was near my little corner of Idaho. ;~)

This is what we were working on. It is from her "Simple Seasons" book. She showed us how to do the big stitch quilting with perle cotton. So glad that I went!! She is doing a class today on one of her quilts from her next book, I sure wish that I had been able to go to that one too!
Here is how far I got on mine. I hope to have it done for this Halloween, but the hand quilting may take me awhile. I am going to work on it today, inbetween loads of laundry.




This is a picture of a quilt that she is working on for her next book, "Simple Comforts", due to be out in April 09. She said that it will be a book of all lap quilts.



Hugs&Stitches, Julia

Winter Swap

Blogger is driving me insane!!!!! I have tried 3 times to do this post. But, it is not letting me upload my pictures. AAAARRRRGGGHHHHH!!!! I'll try once more. YEA!!! So far so good.

We had a wonderful Christmas. Here is our youngest son with his ISPY quilt. Thanks again to Nines for the adoption quotes. He loves it!!!


My Mom and Dad with the quilt that I made for them. It will go on their queen size bed. Mom wants me to make matching pillow shams, I have never made any ot those yet, do any of you have any hints and tips for me? This fabric is from Connecting Threads, Victorian Parlor. I like it, but I am not sure if I would use their fabric again for another project. It was a little lower thread count and it tended to fray along the edges when I was working with it. Not bad enough to make the seams weak, just really messy. Another issue, I ordered it from the internet and the color of the darker print, they called navy, which was what I wanted and when it came it seemed more of a charcoal color to me. What do you think?



I have been busy this past week getting my Winter Swap done. The package is the only picture that I will show until my partner receives it. I sent it out Jan 7. I had so much fun designing and making this. I will definitely sign up for the next swap. I can't wait until my partner gets it. Almost more exciting than Christmas presents.



Speaking of Christmas, I always just ask for money, then I can get what I really want, also my Hubby hates to shop, so it makes it a lot easier for him too. So far, I have purchased these 4 books.
The new one by Kim Diehl is just outstanding. I want to make every quilt in it and the recipes all sound wonderful. I have been wanting the Prairie Children book since it came out and I was able to find it on sale for half price. I want to make all of those too! My 5 year old granddaughter wants all of them for her baby dolls too! I guess I had better get busy. vbs

Christmas decorations are down, I have replaced them with my snowmen. I LOVE snowmen!!! This is a picture of a little wall hanging that I made last year.

I must get walking now. A couple of years ago, I lost 35 lbs. I would like to lose about 20 more, this is the year!!!

100th Post Giveaway!!!

This is my 100th post! Keeping in tradition with most other bloggers, I am having a giveaway to celebrate! Plus I have been cleaning out my stash closet.

This little bundle of goodies told me that it wanted to go live with someone that might actually make it! ;~)

Here is your chance to win a fat quarter bundle of the Thimbleberries cover story, "Snow Bird".


Leave a comment and you will be entered into the drawing! I will pick a winner on Friday evening, Dec 19. I will post the winner on Saturday morning. Good Luck to all! All of you who never leave me comments, this is your chance to introduce yourselves! :~) I would love to hear from you.

Hugs&Stitches, Julia

UFO Progress

I have the first round of little stars done! Now I am on to the big stars. I love star designs in quilts, but I am getting a little tired of making them. :~) I think that my next project is going to be something a bit easier to piece. Then I can move on back to the stars that I love so much!

I am really liking the way that this is turning out.


I have my bread made, Randy is working nights this week, Ethan is home from school and my errands are all done. I am hoping to spend the rest of the afternoon and evening making the big stars, which finish at 9 inches. I should finish cleaning my house, but I am going to take a break from cleaning and do some stitching therapy!

Hugs&Stitches, Julia

Apron

One of my dear friends celebrated a birthday last week. I met her through my guild last year. She has been such a blessing and inspiration in my life. How grateful I am that our paths have crossed! :~)

I made her an apron,

hot pad to match

and this fun little pincushion.

This little pincushion is really easy to make. I just went to my scrap basket, pulled out some 2 1/2 inch strips, rolled them up real tight and tied a little ribbon around them.

The pattern for the apron was Butterick See&Sew #B5125. I just drew up the hot pad pattern using a favorite one of mine.

The weather here today is divine! Ethan has some friends over to play, my window is open and I can hear the sounds of children's laughter! I spent the morning at a friends house helping her to put a quilt together. I should be out walking, but I am doing some more spring cleaning instead. :~)

Hugs&Stitches, Jul♥a

Charity Quilts and Ironing Board

As per Libby's request, I am showing you what my ironing board looks like right now. Pretty good for a change. She is having a fun little contest/giveaway, check it out. All you have to do it show us your ironing board. Hers is quite interesting to say the least. lol





Here is what I have been up to when I have had a chance to get in my sewing room this past week. I don't like to let my scraps get out of control, so when my small bin gets full I make some quick string quilts for charity. I was showing these to my hubby and was telling him that by making several of these a year it helped to justify all of the ones I make for ourselves. Besides it lets me do what I love and I am helping to share all that I have been so generously blessed with.
The pink one has some quilt squares with some trapunto type embroidery designs that I designed and digitized with my embroidery software. I sell these in my ebay store. I think that they add some fun dimension to a quilt. Here is a close-up of one of them.

In the pic of my ironing board there is some more string blocks for another lap sized quilt. On the bookcase in that same picture there is 2 more flimsies ready for quilting. These were all made from scraps and will be for charity.

My granddaughter thinks that every girl quilt I make should be for her! :o)

I would like to know what kind of batting you all use? Do you use a different batt in your charity quilts than you use in those for gifts or yourself?

Have a Great Quilty Day!!!!!

BIL's quilt

I finished the quilt for my BIL's birthday. I made a trip to the LQS for some background fabric for the Bear's Paw blocks that the border was supposed to be made up of and I found the fun fabric that I ended up using in the border. I like it, and I hope he will too.


Since I finished it, I have been spending much of my time here.

Watching Ethan play,enjoying my irises and reading.

Have any of you read the "Twilight" series by Stephenie Meyer. Oh my goodness, I can't seem to put them down. I finished the first two. I have told myself that I can't start the other one until I have finished my Summer Swap. I am locking myself in my sewing room until I have it finished. I don't want to be late getting it shipped out.

I haven't been reading and sitting on my hinney all of the time. Sweet hubby, Ethan and I did spend last Saturday planting our veggie garden. We have has such a cool rainy spring, that we are a little later than normal getting it planted. But, it is doing well. We should have some yummy veggies for our table this fall.

Thanks for stopping by! I love to hear from you, so leave a little comment. :)

Hugs & Stitches, Julia

p.s. Let's all keep a prayer in our hearts for those involved in the flooding and tornadoes.

It's Snowing!!!!

After several weeks with no snow or moisture of any kind, it has been snowing the past two days. Yea!!! I am so excited! I love snow! Here is a picture from the window in my sewing room, looking out into part of our backyard!


Ethan is a Cub Scout and he participated in the Pinewood Derby on Wednesday evening. This is a less than good picture, but here he is getting his car ready to go down the race track.

We had lots of fun and more importantly so did all of the boys. Everyone of them and their parents showed good sportsmanship. Sometimes these can get a little too competitive. ;~)

I made this quilt for Kristy for Christmas. I forgot to take a picture of it before I gave it to her and I finally remembered to have her bring it back for a photo shoot. :~)

I used a panto called "Curlz" by Urban Elementz. I used the Quilter's Dream wool batting. My, oh my, I do love this batting!!! I love the loft, the drape, and it quilts beautifully!


Hugs&Stitches, Julia