Levi's quilt

My dear niece and her husband welcomed son Levi in early August. He's a beautiful boy who has a very bright future indeed given his wonderful parents and all the love coming from his overjoyed extended family. This is the latest addition to his nursery; I've heard that he really likes it :)

Lots of love went into the planning and making of this quilt. What an unparalleled joy it is to welcome a new baby!

Pattern is Dots 'n Boxes available here.

sewin' and cookin' and Martha

One day late in August, Thing 2 finished up two projects in a fit of productivity right before school started. (She's a freshman this year. A fact that is causing me loads of anxiety because I literally don't know how this is possible since she was riding in a car seat only last week...)

First finish was this bright and funky table runner for her bedroom. She was smitten with the pink floral Alexander Henry prints the moment we walked into an LQS, and carried a bolt around with her until finding the perfect pattern. The front of the table runner has the focus fabric paired with some coordinating AH and other prints:

The back is one solid piece of a striped AH print. She stitched the binding on entirely by machine (her first try at this technique) and likes it so much better than hand-sewing it to the back.

The pattern she used:

Immediately after the table runner finish, she brought out an apron that was already cut out - only the assembly steps to go! We purchased this fabric from our local JoAnn's store, but it feels like pretty good quality stuff. The pattern she used is Simplicity 2691.

The perfect baking apron!

I may have mentioned before that our family loves, loves, loves desserts. In fact, we have two 3" binders dedicated to recipes in our kitchen. The first binder is tab-divided into categories like Salads, Veggies, Chicken, Seafood, Pasta - all that stuff you've got to eat to stay alive and healthy. The other binder is tab-divided into Coffeecakes, Brownies & Cookies, Cakes, Pies & Tarts, Cheesecakes, Ice Cream & Custards - all the foods that make eating fun!!

Now here's where Martha comes in... Last week while eating dinner, we were lamenting the fact that we had had no dessert in the house for three nights and hatched a plan. We would cook our way through Martha Stewart's three dessert cookbooks à la "Julie and Julia"! Due to work and school time constraints (and our mutual desire to avoid obesity) we will not have a one-year deadline for this challenge. Rather we will choose 1-2 desserts to bake, evaluate, and share with friends each week. And we won't be baking everything in the books - certainly nothing with "Prune" in the title.

First up for this weekend: Berries and Cream Tartlets on page 33 of Martha Stewart's Pies & Tarts. Other cookbooks we'll be using are Martha Stewart's Cupcakes and Martha Stewart's Cookies.

Stay tuned for updates on our dessert-a-palooza! It needs a better name, though. Any ideas?

Summer Sampler re-do

After seeing all the lovely Summer Sampler quilts in the flickr group with sashing, I was less and less thrilled with my quilt. It seemed like a jumbled mess with all the blocks all scrunched together. So I ripped it all apart again and added some 2" finished white sashing with cornerstones:

Now all those lovely blocks can breathe and stand apart on their own. Much better!

I'm not sure I've ever taken apart an entire quilt top; that was probably the most action my Jack the Seam Ripper has ever seen. It wasn't as painful as I thought it would be - probably because I did it at my SewMod Sunday sew-in group and had lots of encouragement (and food and wine) from my friends :)

What's the biggest "un-sewing" project you've ever undertaken?

Thing 1 summer sewing recap

I just realized that my post from earlier today was not only incorrect in it's title (Thing 2), but it also left out a key bit of information: All the items shown in the photos were sewn by my eldest - Thing 1.

If you didn't read the earlier post, here are all the photos and pattern numbers again. So you don't feel like you missed anything :) If you didn't read it, then it's all new to you anyhow!

McCall's 6400 - top

McCall's 6113 - dress

McCall's 5591 - skirt

Simplicity 2413 - skirt (Project Runway !!)

Not sure of the pattern for the eggplant dress modeled by Thing 1. Venus (de Milo - the dressmaker dummy - so named for her missing head) is modeling a free-form "maybe" creation.

Smile pillows that reside in Thing 2's bedroom. Because she does smile... all the time :)

Thing 1 has some fun things planned for this fall as well, thanks to a trip to Vogue Fabrics last weekend!

secret revealed - Happy Birthday!

The sneak peek that I gave you a couple of weeks ago can now be fully revealed...

"Mountains Every Day" is a wall quilt I made for my dear friend, Sarah, for her birthday last week. She has lived many places in her life, but loves the mountains. All mountains, I think, but especially those in Colorado. In fact, she and her family were just returning from a vacation there last week when I gave her this gift.

I first saw this fabulous quilt from Spotted Stones in December of 2010. I immediately knew that I wanted to make something like it for Sarah. So I tucked the idea away to simmer, and planned to start on it in early summer 2011.

And then - LUCKY ME! - Krista published the pattern for this spectacular quilt in 101 Patchwork Projects and Quilts in April, 2011. I rushed right out to the local Borders store to buy the magazine, and started ordering shot cottons like mad.

The mountains are made by piecing strip sets of shot cottons, and then using pattern provided templates to cut the mountain shapes. I found the pattern to be very accurate and easy to understand with many photos illustrating most steps of the process. Thank you Krista!

I quilted it in almost exactly the same manner that Krista did because I thought it was just perfect, and imitation is the most sincere form of flattery! I love how the different quilting motifs and colors of thread make the back an interesting art piece as well.

Sarah and I have known and loved each other for many years. We first met in 1990 when we were both having homes built in the same development, right next door to each other. That was one of the luckiest days of my life. We lived side by side for over 10 years, having our babies, watching over them as they splashed in their kiddie pools and yard-hopped from swing set to swing set. We spent many hours talking, laughing, crying, and supporting each other as only great friends do.

We still live quite close, although not side by side. We still talk and laugh and support and love each other, only now our conversations deal more with the kids' college, our jobs, and dreams of retirement fun with our husbands. I am so blessed to have such a wonderful friend.

Happy Birthday, Sarah, and THANK YOU for all the wonderful times past and all the great times to come. Love you!

all together now

All of my Summer Sampler blocks are finished and sewn together!

Here is block #9 Minnesota. This was one of the blocks that convinced me to join this quilt along in the first place. I'm a sucker for all of those flying geese in a circle blocks that you see on flickr, and even though this isn't made of flying geese, it reminds me of those blocks.

After this paper-pieced beauty (which took waayyyy longer than the patience I had allotted for the task) I sort of ran out of energy (and fabric) for paper piecing. So I bypassed blocks 10-12 and decided to make 3 more of the first block - Star of Virginia - to put in the four corners of my quilt top.

Less fabric + more symmetry = Happy Elsie's Girl. AND that way I could see a completed top in my very near future. AND I wouldn't have to mentally beat myself up over yet another project started and abandoned. Because, you see, I didn't really abandon anything. I just chose to make four of my blocks the same ;-)

I took a lot of time trying to ensure that there was a balance of colors and prints with these three stars and the nine finished blocks.

And now for the big reveal.... the completed top! It turned out much better than I had expected for something I just pulled together from leftovers :) I'm planning to quilt it as-is, no borders or sashing. Just a fun sampler quilt perfectly sized for a girly baby gift.

Are any of you quilting along with the Summer Sampler series?

giveaway at SewMod - Joel Dewberry Heirloom

My friends Lorrie and Paige at SewMod are hosting a fabulous giveaway this week on their blog!



TWO winners will each receive a fat quarter bundle of Joel Dewberry's latest line "Heirloom". They've got two colorways - Amber and Sapphire.



You can have up to three chances to win one of these great prizes:

1. Participate in their online poll about quilt show purchases.
2. Like their Facebook page.
3. Become an email subscriber to their blog.

Click here to head directly over to their giveaway post.

They've got lots more lovely fabrics and patterns in their etsy shop here. I've purchased some great new blenders from Pat Bravo - Oval Elements half-yards:



as well as some terrific Anthology Fabrics fat quarter bundles:



I'm pretty sure that I'm going to win that Heirloom Sapphire bundle, but you should definitely try for the Amber one ;-)

Good luck!!