Bloggers' Quilt Festival

To take part in the Blogger's Quilt Festival, held over at Park City Girl's blog, you need to post a photo of your favorite quilt. I have been thinking long and hard and just can't come up with a favorite! They are all my favorites for different reasons. Usually my very favorite is the one I'm working on at the moment.

So I decided to put up a favorite of my hubby's.
I made this house quilt for him when I was pregnant with our first baby and it was for his birthday. I knew I wanted to make him a quilt, but still being in the first year of marriage I didn't know exactly what he would and wouldn't like. I found the pattern in a quilt magazine and 'thought' he would like it but still wasn't sure. So what does a wife do to find such things out?? Why she leaves the magazine open to that page in the bathroom next to the toilet of course! Sooner or later the said husband will need to do his business, and when there's nothing else to read, of course he'll pick up the magazine, right?

Well you would not believe how perfectly this plan worked! It went EXACTLY according to plan. He came out one day showing me the magazine and raving about how much he liked that house quilt. So it was a done deal. Too easy.

It hangs in our bedroom right next to his computer. Going on 9 years later, he still loves it. Is it my favorite quilt? No. Is it my favorite quilt story? Oh yes!

Now hop on over to Park City Girl, and see the links to all the other fantabulous quilts!

Pink Chalk Studio

I was excited to recently win a giveaway over at Pink Chalk Studio. She was generous enough to actually have 12 winners, 1 Grand Prize winner for a book, and 11 kits of fabric. You can see that the chances of winning were rather good. My package arrived, (about 2 weeks ago now, I've just been slacking as usual!) and I am just delighted with it. I will have to do something special with this lovely little stack of goodies.

Birthday Time!

It was a busy week for us, with both Easter and my birthday happening! I had a nice relaxed birthday. My Mum had sent me a little package from New Zealand which I had been saving to open on my birthday. Do you have any idea how hard it was to see it there, and to be able to read the customs form on the front, which said, "fabric and confectionary", and to not open it the second it arrived??!!

My Mum did great - she sent me 3 fat quarters of New Zealand themed fabric. The two with the red flowers are the New Zealand Christmas tree, the Pohutukawa, and the third piece has traditional NZ Maori Koru designs on it. Now these are fat quarters that I just wouldn't be able to buy here in the States! I can't wait to do something special with all 3. Quilt fabric is very expensive in NZ, so I know that these 3 FQ's must have cost her a small fortune. She also stuffed in some NZ chocolate, 'Roses chocolates' which are a NZ icon. Great stuff, Mum! Thank you SO much! She did something similar last year if you want to have a look:)

It ended up being the only present I opened on my birthday. Don't feel too bad for me though...for my present, hubby bought the kids and I plane tickets to go and visit my dear internet friend, Anna, who lives in Maryland, right near Washington DC!
I am so excited! Anna and I have been internet friends for a few years now, making and designing quilt projects together, sending each other goodies and quilts in progress in the mail, and talking/texting on the phone. We are both beside ourselves with excitement that we are finally going to be friends in real life! We go in less than two weeks, so the countdown has begun. We plan to quilt and quilt some more while we are together, and make the most of the precious time. We do get just over a week together, but I have a feeling it still won't be enough. Our kids are also excited to play and make new friends. No doubt there will be many pictures taken to document our time together, so you will get to see them of course!

Now, my hubby also gave me another wonderful present, not jewelry like last year, but something worth so much more. He wrote the following on his blog, which of course, made me cry...get ready, it's a long one...and you might need a tissue, too!

36 Things I love about Joanna
April 8th, 2009
Joanna turns 36 today, well in America her birthday is tomorrow but since she was born across the dateline it’s today. She’s hoping her family gets to call so she can quote the Conchords and tell her mum it’s not her birthday. But since I haven’t forgotten here’s a list of one thing I love about her for each year she’s been alive:

1. Her accent. How can you beat it?

2. How kind she is to live so far from friends and family just to be with me.

3. How the kids fight over who gets to jump in bed with her in the morning. It’s annoying while it’s happening but nice to think about during the day.

4. How she does EVERYTHING around the house and does not complain a bit.

5. That she drives everywhere on my days off. Well as long as we’re not going to a city bigger than Nashua. Fortunately we rarely do.

6. When she’s driving she lets me pick the music. How can you beat that?

7. She lets me leave the light on to read at night. Even though she doesn’t sleep nearly as well.

8. Whenever I ask if I should buy something her answer is yes you should, you know if we can afford it or not.

9. She lets me watch whatever I want on TV. Some of this is because we now have a DVR but either way I get the remote whenever I want.

10. The kids are always writing her love notes and drawing pictures for her. This means she’s treating them as well when no one is looking.

11. She lets Sofia steal her perfume.

12. I love how Coleman says he’s going to marry her when he grows up.

13. I love her quilts. She made a very beautiful hand dyed house quilt that is on the wall right by my computer right now.

14. She lets me nap whenever I want.

15. She makes sure Sofia does her homework every night. If you knew Sofia right now you would know this is a time consuming job.

16. She loves the rain. Most people here complain about it because they’re so used to it but even though she’s grew up next to palm trees she still loves it.

17. Other people love her accent. I’ve met so many people that wouldn’t have a thing to say to me if it weren’t for her accent.

18. I love to hear her laugh.

19. I love when Joaquin begs her to read to him.

20. She’s so good with money. I had to force her to spend $300 on clothes last week for herself. I don’t even think she spent it all. Most wives would not be like that.

21. She doesn’t dismiss my half cracked plans without actually weighing the options.

22. She always forgives me.

23. She leaves me alone when I need time by myself, even when she really wants attention.

24. I love how the boys beg to have her tuck them in at night.

25. She didn’t mind marrying me in the county office.

26. She was so sure I’d get the job I was applying for that she got pregnant before we found out I got it.

27. She’s never complained about a present that I got her.

28. She loves her garden.

29. I get to sleep in every Saturday.

30. She absolutely cannot roll her Rs.

31. Right before we were married she gave me the best birthday I’ve had with only $5.

32. She’s a very competitive Uno player. It drives the kids crazy when she wins.

33. She fixes everything around the house.

34. She laughs at my constant jokes.

35. Whenever I go on a trip I miss her after a day or two. I’m even bored when I have free reign in Las Vegas.

36. She’s my best friend.


Now, do you see why that present is better than anything he could have bought me?! I think I'll keep him around for another year ;)

We had a great Easter, which I'll post about over on our Family blog.

I'm busy this week quilting a large quilt my above-friend Anna designed, so it will be ready to take on my trip to her place. There are 12 blocks and it's taking me about 90 minutes to quilt each block on the machine. Phew - my arms are sore just thinking about it. 3 blocks down, 9 to go. So to finish off today, here's a little teaser...

What once was lost is now found...

I know, I know, here I am once again apologizing for being so absent of late. I have been desperate to post, but I lost my camera, and a post without photos frankly is just not that much fun!

I have been searching for my camera, turning the house upside down to no avail. Finally, today, I thought I'd ask my kids if they knew where it was. My 4 year old, Joaquin, said, "Oh yes - it's in my backpack in the basement". He has a speech delay, so you can just imagine what a good sentence that was for him, and how cute he sounded saying it! So I look in the basement, and sure enough, the backpack is down there, in the toy box, with my camera in it! Woo Hoo!! Joaquin is the child in our family who can find anything - you just need to ask, and it took me a couple of weeks to think of asking him! Next time I lose something I will make sure to just ask him first :)

On top of all that, my hubby had surgery to get his gall bladder out. Finally, after 2 long years of attacks, he is pain free! So you can see, my time has been taken up by things other than quilting lately.

But I HAVE been doing a little bit of quilting these last few weeks, and have still kept up my goal to sew every day. Firstly, this wonky log cabin framed with a gorgeous Kaffe print. It will live in my kitchen when it's finished.

Remember these blocks? Well here they are finally sewn together. Now I just need to decide what else to do with them - ie should I add something else? A border? A border with some applique? Words....such as 'Welcome'? Any ideas? Anyone?!! I am just drawing a blank. Part of me thinks that I should just finish it up as it is and be done with it. But then another part of me thinks that it needs more - that just plain blocks serve no purpose. Does that make sense??

So anyway, my design wall right now looks like this... I really need to do something fun with those houses!

Workshop results

I am pleased to report that the workshop was a success!! Turns out that most of the other participants knew each other already, but they couldn't have been any more welcoming to me. They made me feel like one of the group. It was great:)

We pulled names from a tin to determine whose quilt we would work on for each round. Then a technique was pulled from another tin. Our first round was 'flying geese'. It didn't matter how or where, but there had to be a goose in there somewhere! Everyone was very creative and we all had different geese. This was the round I did...
The next round was 'triangles'. Once again, it didn't matter where or how, but there had to be a triangle somewhere. I got the teacher's quilt, and thought it needed an inner border and some trees....
The third round was do whatever you want. I just did some scrappy strips and filled it in best I could - after 6 hours, fabric was running low at this point!

The teacher was Beth Helfter of EvaPaige Quilt Designs. She was so lovely and friendly - such a great teacher! She made everyone feel like nothing was wrong, the mistakes weren't dreadful, and it was OK to not be perfect! There were NO quilt police in our class, uh uh, no way :)

My quilt turned out completely different than I had ever imagined. For some reason I thought it would be done with lots of orange and would be perfect in my kitchen. Boy was I wrong!! Funny how complete strangers can't read your mind! BUT it will be just perfect for my daughter's pink room. I love it!

Here are some of the other quilts from the day. See if you can pick out the centers and each round....






Now go back to the photo of me holding my quilt - notice anything different? Huh huh?!! Oh yes, I am no longer a blonde, but have joined the ranks of brunettes. I do this every so often, (I think my real hair color is a lovely shade of boring mousy brown) so to me it's not that strange, but you should have seen the eyes of the kids I teach singing to in church yesterday. They just couldn't fathom how it happened! I pretended that I had no idea and thanked them for telling me :) Here'a a before and after, complete with zebra strip shower curtain...

See, not as much like my Dad with makeup on, right??!!! LOL!!

Finally, Applique

Firstly, yes I know I've taken a blogging break, and it wasn't really on purpose, I just didn't really have anything quilty to blog about! I need to keep reminding myself that I have that no blogging guilt button on my sidebar:)

I have indeed kept up with my sewing goal. Not as well as I would like, and sometimes it has been 'technically' keeping my goal, but not keeping it in the spirit it was made - eg I have sometimes been woken up by my hubby, and gone to my quilt room at 11.55 at night and sewn a two inch line on a scrap of fabric, then crawled back into bed! I know, I know, terrible!! Other times I have fixed hems, sewn up seams, sewn on buttons, but not a lot of quilting has gone on the last couple of weeks.

I am here to fix that though!

On Saturday I am going to a quilting workshop at a local quilt store. It is free (yay!) as it is an experimental workshop for the teacher. We are to take an 8 1/2 inch block, and it will be the centre of a round robin quilt. We will go home with a 22 inch square quilt top, and the 'rounds' will be determined on the spot - drawn out of a hat. Should be a lot of fun!

I have thought quite a bit about what my centre block should be, after all, it will set the tone for the whole quilt. I decided I want something to go in my orange kitchen, so of course, orange had to be in my centre. It's been a while since I've done any applique, so of course that had to be in it too.

So last night, I did some cutting, and this is what I came up with...
The first one is on my design wall, the second in where it is right now, on my nightstand waiting to be appliqued...I think I have some applique to get done today! You will be able to see those yellow windows a lot better once those pesky seam allowances on the sashings are turned under :)

And now you just know I will have something to blog about after the workshop - I can't wait to see what my simple little house is turned into, and also what I will get to work on for the other ladies.

Other happenings of late? Well there's always the snow. Or rather, here in New Hampshire, there's ALWAYS the snow!! I thought we were done for the year. Really! I mean, I could see our grass!....That's the three handsome men in my life, AND do you see the grass in the background? And my lasagne garden in the front of the house, completely snow free??? Well a few days later, this is what happened...

But I suppose there are good things about snow. We got to go sledding at the park, only the snow was too fluffy and soft to sled, so the kids played on the snow-covered playground instead!

And just how deep was the snow? Well here you can see that it reached my knee...I actually think we were a little crazy. I mean, look - we are the only ones in the carpark!!
But you want to know the scariest thing of all? How much I look like my Dad in this photo...
That's what happens when you spontaneously decide to go to the park in the snow with no make-up on!

Time for hearts

It's Valentine's day! Or at least, it will be by the time you read this:) I have had an education in Valentines Day since I've lived in the States. For example, I went shopping this week to buy the requisite goodies for the kids to take to school for their classmates. I had presumed they just gave cards, but I had the niggling feeling to text hubby and ask him if I was supposed to buy candy to go with the cards too. He texted back one word.... "Yes", which I think really meant, "of course you do...do you really think you would give a card without a piece of candy stuck to it??". The kids even bought home written instructions from the teachers on how to do the cards. EG Coleman, who is in Kindergarten, was to only write "From Coleman" and leave the "To" space blank. After teaching in the same class for 20 years, his teacher understands the madness of a class full of 5 year olds trying to read names and get them to the right person in an orderly fashion! The kids came home with big heart shaped bags full of cards and candy. It was sugar-rush central around here at dinnertime!

Anyway, to keep with the heart theme I have some little snippets of a quilt I've been working on to show you. I can't show all yet, as it's in the works of being made into a pattern, but it is quite lovely for the occassion today, and chock-full of hearts...and applique!
When I went down to my quilt room just now to take these photos, there was a light on - most unusual, since I hadn't been in there today. Turns out my daughter had snuck down and made good use of my piles of strips next to my machine... Do you think she's been influenced by all the wonky log cabin blocks I've been making?!I am still up-to-date with my goal. Have done quite a bit of quilt-related sewing, and also more mundane sewing like stitching up the armhole on hubby's sweater. He was going to throw it away but I rescued it. Does he not realize he's married to a sewer yet?!!

I hope you all have a lovely Valentine's day and eat lots of chocolate, and if you feel like a laugh, head on over to my other blog to read about our experience roller skating on Thursday night!