You Never Know the True Value of a Quilt

My friend sent me these pictures last night.  It brought tears to my eyes.  Her baby came 7 weeks early and is in the NICU, so the quilt I made for her little girl has an even more special use than usual.  They recently moved away, but I'm sending lots of hugs and prayers their way from a distance, and I am honored that my quilt can be with them in such a special way. 

Fruit, Glorious Fruit!

In the last 24 hours I've...

 

made a Blackberry pie, 

canned peaches, 

and made boysenberry jam with my mom.  

Yum!  

Not bad for a day's work.

All of the fruit came straight out of my parent's garden.

Now it's time to make Paula Dean's Peach and Cinnamon Cobbler.  

I'll let ya know how it turns out.

Chispas Quilt Finish

There's something about hand stitching down the binding that I find so calming.  I put on a show and go to work.  The funny thing is that it's the only hand sewing I really enjoy.  I prefer to do everything else on my machine.  Anyway...

I finished up this lovely baby boy quilt this weekend.  I had a lot of fun playing with the quilting.  The pattern I used for the quilt was Sugar Baby Quilt by Jamie Mueller.  I saw it on Moda Bakeshop a long time ago and really liked it.   Finished size 32" x 42"

I used Moxie's Talk Talk Sky for the backing.  I figure little "hellos" are the perfect welcome for the baby.






This picture really doesn't do it justice, but this morning was really foggy.  I love a good fog.  I don't know why but fog always makes me think of mystery, so I get a sense of excitement for the unknown of my day to unfold.  Hope you all have a wonderful day as well.

Gemstone Blocks

It's my first time making it to the sewing machine this week since we've been having lots of family fun, but I managed to finish my August blocks for do. Good Stitches.  We were asked to make a pair of Gemstone Blocks in brights with a Kona White background.  I really love these blocks and they come together quickly.

Old Maid's Puzzle

I like the name of the block this month for Sister's Modern:  Old Maid's Puzzle.  I've mostly been quilting the baby quilt this week, but I did get these blocks done over the weekend. 

Next up are my do.Good Stitches blocks for August...

Chispas

I always loved the Spanish word "chispas."  It's a lot of fun to say:  "Cheese-puhs!"  It means "sparks" (like little electric sparks).  I finished up the large boarder quilting today and it has little chispas in it.  The design is Electric Storm.  It's a really fun design for a boy quilt.

I also finished up the last of the blocks.  This center-focused design is called GrandDaddy Longlegs, and it's great practice for back stitching.  I really liked this one a lot.

Reminiscing

My dad has been circulating some fun, old pictures of his family lately.  Here are a couple:

This is my Grandpa Stuetz (on the far left) hanging out on the beach with Shirley Temple.  My sisters and I watched just about every movie of hers growing up, so we particularly love this picture. 

This is a picture of my dad and Aunt Sherry in 1957.  We've been commenting on my father's lovely attire.  :) 

FMQing Along

Since I have a baby quilt ready to quilt with the baby not coming until November I thought I would take my time with the quilting and really have some fun with a lot of different designs.  There are 6 blocks, so I chose 3 center-oriented designs and making them each twice.  I've been doing one design a day and it's helped me feel like I'm making progress without being too unrealistic about having a whole day to quilt.

Yesterday was the Sea Oat Flower:

Today was the Sea Weed Flower:

The one thing with center-focused designs that I've found is that it requires quite a bit of travel stitching.  It had been a while since I quilted a design with so much travel stitching.  The first block was a bit rough, but after just one day of working on it I already feel like it's a lot easier to work with.  I have one more design to quilt tomorrow and then it's on to the borders. 

Inverted Quilting

Since these Skill Builder blocks are an inversion of each other I decided to invert the location of the quilting as well.

Block #1 has Bubble Path in the center and Trailing Spirals on the ends.  It was my first time stitching both of these designs.  I'm not a huge fan of how skinny my stems on the spirals turned out, but I was concerned about not having enough room.  I think I'd prefer this design where I had a bit more width to work with.

Block #2 is Pebbles in a Stream.  I really enjoyed doing this particular design and it fit well into the space I was working with.

A closer look...