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

Keeping an Open Mind

Thanks so much for all of the suggestions about my crayon challenge. I couldn't get past how much I disliked that bright orange color. But, I am going to keep an open mind. I have a couple of ideas floating around in my head now. I knew that if I presented the situation to all of you, you would be able to inspire me. You always do!!!



I promised Lucy that I would take another picture of my sumac tree as it began to change color more. So here you go Lucy! The colors are changing more each day. It is raining here today and the temps have cooled off. We had quite a warm spell last week. High temps about 15-20 degrees above normal. I like today much better! I am in the mood to do some baking. Which might not be to good for my waistline. I will just have to walk a little more! :~)


Here is the charity quilt that I made and quilted on SuzyQ. I did not piece this. I used some inexpensive cheater type fabric and added two borders to make it a twin size. I think that it turned our pretty good. I used some knit fabric from my stash for the back. It is so soft and has such a nice drape to it. I will donate it to the LDS Humanitarian Center. They are always in need of quilts. So if any of you want to donate to them, it would be greatly appreciated.


I was a little disappointed in the quality of the leaders that came with SuzyQ. So I spent most of yesterday, remaking them. I am much happier with these. That is the only complaint that I have had so far. And it was actually a very minor one. I am hoping to load a quilt, that I made for my Mom, today. It will be my first "real" quilt. Wish me luck!
Hugs&Stitches, Julia

Simply Sophisticated Month 5

I finished up the two blocks for month 5 of the Simply Sophisticated BOM. I love this block! I really like basket blocks and I love the way this one was made. So simple! I couldn't seem to get a real good picture this morning. The colors are not right. The points are showing up way to purple.

I have "Blackberry Twilight" loaded onto SuzyQ and it is about half way done. I am hoping to get some more done on it today. I have a goal to get it finished and on my bed sometime next week.

I had another very fun sewing day with friends yesterday. I spent the day getting caught up on all of my BOM's. Well, the ones that I have started anyway. :~) I have 4 that I am keeping up on and a couple from last year that I haven't even started yet. eep!

Hugs&Stitches, Jul♥a

Quilt Show

I had a blast at the quilt show last Friday. A day spent with wonderful friends, beautiful quilts, fun vendor shops, and a little extra shopping after the show. :~)

Here are a few of the quilts that caught my eye.

Isn't this just too cute!!! I love it! Click on it to see all of the cute detail!

This one was made by one of my sweet friends. She did a beautiful job! This quilt is on my absolutely have to make list.


This one was made by another friend from my quilt club. It is a copy of one that was made by her Grandmother. She used the same colors as in the original and she also hand quilted it. Such a beautiful treasure. She still has the original one also.

This is our guild's charity quilt. We raffle it off at the Eastern Idaho State Fair. It won "Mayor's Choice".

Hugs&Stitches, Jul♥a

Projects

I finished the quilt that was on my messy table from the last post. I like it a little better now that it is done. Still not one of my favorites though. But it kept us toasty warm last night. We needed a second quilt on our bed, the temps were right at zero last night. brrrrrrrrr!!

I have been able to get quite a bit down the last couple of days. Our DD is a RN and she has been begging me to make her some uniform tops. I made this one yesterday.
I haven't done any garment type sewing for so long it was kind of fun and yet a little weird. I should be ashamed of myself though, my lovebug bought me a new Babylock Evolve last year for Christmas (2006) and I have hardly used it. I had to chase away some dust bunnies when I pulled it out. As I was using it, I noticed that it still has a little bit of the new smell to it. Since I started quilting I don't enjoy the other type of sewing anymore.


I have been wanting to make me a couple of new tote/purses though. So while I was on a roll today I made this one. It is from a Tiddlywinks charm pack. The pattern is "Sew Charming" by Rose Hip Lane.
I don't think that I ever showed you all the quilt that I made for Christmas this year. It was on our bed, now with the new one I will have to put it away. How do you all store your quilts when not in use?
I designed both of these with EQ6.

Gratitudes for today:
3 days to sew!
My fireplace and cozy warm house!!
Peace and quiet!!

Sad Goodbyes

We had to say goodbye to a very dear family member yesterday. My aunt lost a very courageous battle with cancer last week. We attended a very lovely funeral service for her yesterday. She was one of those women that has been such an inspiration in my life. So kind, warmhearted, loving, soft spoken. Never a mean thing to say about anyone or anything. She lived a good long life, full of love, laughter and family. The oldest sister of my Dad. They lost their mother when she was just 12, Dad was 7, and my uncle was just 2. She took over the roll of mother for her two little brothers. She will be greatly missed. I am so grateful for my testimony of the gospel, to know that we will see her again someday. To know that she is now reunited with her mother and father. She has touched many lives.

We love you, Aunt Lois! Until we meet again!

Birthday Adventures!!

Our baby turned 8 years old yesterday. I can hardly believe he is that old already. Seems just like yesterday that I was rocking him, all snuggled up next to my chest. His sweet, baby smells filling my nose and his tiny, little, baby noises sounding in my ears. Making his way into my heart for eternity! He wasn't planned but, oh, what a marvelous blessing he is in our lives. How empty and boring our lives would be without him.

For those of you who don't know, he is adopted. We weren't really looking to adopt but, the Lord placed him in our lives and we loved him right from the first. We have had him since he was born, we became his legal guardians when he was 18 months old and we adopted him when he was 3 1/2 years old.

Now he is 8! We went to the zoo, the museum and other fun places, last Friday for his birthday.

This beautiful spot on the river is in the middle of the city. One of those places that you drive by a lot but, never take the time to stop and enjoy. Well, today we did. It is so pretty here. The sound of the rushing water is so soothing. There is a path that goes all of the way around for about 2 miles or so, across a couple of bridges.


We went out on one of the big bridges to get this picture of the LDS temple in the distance and Ethan was a little freaked out, seems I have passed on my fear of bridges to him. ;~) We didn't go all of the way across it, as both of our knees were getting a little shaky! :~)

We then went to the museum. They have a display there now on loan from Harvard University called, "The World of the Pharaohs". It was amazing to see things that were created by man around 3-4 thousand years ago. Ethan really enjoyed it!

Then it was on to a picnic and a nice walk around the zoo. We stopped for a few minutes to feed the ducks. We had a wonderful time, the weather was just perfect. Not to hot and just a tiny breeze blowing.
Ethan picked out this cute safari hat in the gift shop. All in all is was a wonderful Mother and Son day. One of my favorite kind of days! Sweet memories to fill our hearts and minds.

Hugs & Stitches, Julia

Spring Table Topper

I was able to finish up my Spring Table Topper today. I decided to put in on the old treadle machine. I added a few Easter decorations and Viola! A pretty little corner of spring delight! I love winter, but I am ready for a change. I love a drastic difference in the seasons. I am blessed to live here where our seasons are very different. Spring is so pretty, as everything begins to come back from their long winter sleep.
I put up the rest of my Easter/Spring decorations today. I will share pics of the rest of them in a couple of days.

Hugs & Stitches, Julia

Big Stars!

Are you getting sick of seeing this project yet? hehe

I finished the big star border on Thursday. The next border has 6 small stars each, in two of the opposing corners. I have those all made up and ready to go. I was all excited, thinking that I could get them on yesterday and loaded onto SuzyQ today. But, not to be. :~(

I have been collecting the fabric for this quilt for quite some time. Every time I would see a purple, cream or tan Civil War repo, it would come home with me. Needless to say, I WAY over bought. I seem to do that a lot. ;~) I have enough fabric for at least one more, maybe two quilts. That's okay though, Kristy wants one too. But, I will probably pick a different pattern. I have so many different patterns that I want to make, I rarely make the same one twice.

Well, even with this pile of fabric,

I still didn't have enough of the one that I decided on for the border. I want to use the one laying out in front. I did a frantic search on the internet and finally found some. It is on it's way to me now. I am not putting this back on the shelf, it is going to stay out on my table and I will finish it as soon as the border fabric arrives. I am not sure how I am going to quilt it yet, but those big center triangles are telling me to do some custom quilting. eep! That still scares me, so I think that I won't listen to them. hehe I have some fun new feathery pantos that just arrived last week, I think that I will be using one of those.

Hey, guess what? I went for one, 2 mile walk in January. I know, I know. I need to quit overdoing it! hehe It was a nice sunny, day yesterday, so I hit the walking path before I picked up Ethan from school. I did 2 miles. Oh, and some time walking around 3 fabric stores too! I am trying to get back into it. I'll get recommitted. I promise. ;~)

Hugs&Stitches, Jul♥a