This Makes Me Happy!

I love getting mail.  When it's not jury summons.  Or bills.  Or junk mail.  Or.....

Saturday, a very happy package came to my house and brought me this

from Ansje for March's STUD.  A keychain calendar, a music cd, some candy...

an exquisite pin in the shape of sewing scissors...and

this simply charming spools quilt.  The theme for March was the alphabet and Ansje's letter was "S".  I just love the fabrics she's picked out and the binding is over the top cute!  Ahh.  Just realized I forgot to take a picture of the lable she made.  It is too much.

Ansje is a flickr friend and very talented.

If you get a chance, check out her flickr photostream to see some of her beautiful work!

Thanks Ansje!

Ansje's quilt will go in the mail today or tomorrow.  We're on spring break here and this weekend was spent with friends and family near and far.  We don't have any big plans.  Friday, we are going to KT's house for the day!  I'm taking along some sewing.  Not sure what yet, but maybe this

little lovely.  This is the heart I slept walked pieced the other day.  I had a vintage sheet I used for the background.  Soft, yellow polka dot sashing.  The outside border is the top border of the sheet, which I'm just in love with.  Same happy polka dots for the binding.  This makes me happy when I look at it.  Everything Life should be about.  Soft, pretty fabric, flowers, love.

We're taking Javi to register to vote today.  Other errands.  More laundry.  More spring cleaning.  C-man had co-op yesterday and science class everyday but Friday.  Poor kid doesn't really get a spring break, but we'll be finishing up school with him my mid May!

Hope you have a bright, happy and sunshiney day today!

Hearts Aplenty! Friday Finish Edition

It is Friday again, friends.

I'm not sure where your week went, but I'm still looking for a huge chunk of mine!

Seems there's so much to do, most of it the same thing ala Ground Hog Day, and never enough time to get it all done.  Plus, do the things I really want to do!

Having it lighter earlier in the morning is a huge motivation though!

Make sure you click on the Sew & Tell Button (down lower on the left hand side of the page) to see some beautiful things being created by some very talented people!

Wednesday saw my mother in love over to cut some squares out for Baby Quilts.  A group of dedicated and loving women meet once a month at a local church to choose fabric, cut it out, piece together and then quilt.  These quilts get sent all over the world for little boys and girls living in orphanages!  Children who are warmer and maybe a little bit less lonely because of the huge hearts these women have!

She wouldn't let me photograph her face (now maybe I'm more related to her than just marriage!), but here are her happy, helping hands and her garden basket full of fabric ready to be cut!

What an awesome way to make the world that much smaller and less mean.

Huge hugs from women they will never meet.

Prayers for safety and love that I hope come true!

Over our bed hangs a cross stitch I made for hubs and me.  It's a heart made of vines with flowers (of course) and a bird with three little eggs in her nest.  I love hearts!

This week, I discovered Dottie Angel and fell in love with her "Perfectly Pixerly" heart projects.  I was surfing flickr doing research for C-man's schedule next year, when I just happened to come across her pictures and then her blog.

How many times a week can you fall in love with a new idea or be inspired to try something new before you can no longer deny you probably have a type of quilty ADD?

Oops.  What are these and how did they get on my cutting mat?

sew digging the green print, a vintage fabric snowbird found for me!

And they just magically hopped onto my sewing machine.  Where did that cute little brown check fabric come from?

Eeks!  There's more!

Sew now, I have this beautiful block.  The sashing is from fabric I swapped some of my polka dot sheet stash for.  Penny rocks!  Some of you asked what the fabric is, I have an email in to her to find out for us.  'Cause I need more!  I will quilt and bind this as a wall hanging for the house (maybe the family room when it's finished!).

Danged if I'm not amazed!  This morning I woke up and this

was on the cutting mat.  U.M.M.M.M.  Can I blame it on sleepwalking?

I did finish Ansje's mini quilt for the STUD and will be mailing it.  I'll share pictures when she gets it, 'cause I'm not sure she doesn't lurk here now and again.

I also have 6 completed blocks for the vintage sheet quilt done.  So there.  I'm not totally all over the place not finishing other things before starting new ones!

LOL

Hope you all have a gorgeous weekend!

Sunshine and Late Summer

I came across a picture of our house that Javi must have taken for a school project and wanted to share with you our home.

Admittedly, we're at the end of growing season and things look a little brown and tired, but I really enjoy living here.  We live in a socio-economic, racially integrated neighborhood.  Bi-racial, black, white, middle eastern families with moms and dads who are white collar workers and blue collar workers.  Moms who stay home and moms who work.  Young couples and retirees.

We couldn't have asked for a better place to live and raise the boys.

A quiet street close to hubby dear's work, school, youth activities, shopping etc.

Most days hubs, C-man and I have lunch together.  Javi will be able to walk or ride his mountain bike to college and Ben went to school for a year at the public school at the end of our street.

On nice, sunny days I can open my windows and hear the laughter of children playing at recess.

I love that!

An honor given to me by Maddy.  Who is an inspiration to me.  Her blog yesterday was about her struggle to depict the human hand in her sketch book.  Amazingly evocative.

Thank you Maddy.  For so much more than this beautiful award.

I will be posting awards to other bloggers as the rest of the week continues.  Each day I am amazed at the spirit, creativity, compassion, love, sharing and inspiration I find in the words and pictures of other people.  What a gift to be able to connect worldwide with hearts and souls as big as our planet itself!

To you all-only the very best to help you be your very best!

Thank you for being rays of sunshine and encouragement on cloudy days!

Mucho Gracias!

To all of you for your suggestions on the wallpaper!

I have tried to use the scoring thing in our upstairs hall, but found myself filling and sanding more spackle and drywall compound off the wall than I wanted to.

So, for me it was choosing the lesser of two weevils!

I would like to share with you, with permission, a beautiful quilt full of love!

Dolly made this incredible quilt for her grandson and I wanted my friends here to see it!  It such an awesome design and so eye catching!

and the back.

You need to click on the pictures to see the fabrics up closer!

Thank you Dolly for letting me showcase your quilt!  It's one of my favorites!

Meanwhile, progress continues on my vintage quilt.  Hubby muffin likes the design without sashing in between the blocks.  Okay.  He knows I'm easy!  LOL  I also decided to keep the yellows and oranges in after hearing from you all.  They do add interest, draw the eye and give "pop" to the quilt. 

Today, I'm hoping to work on the binding for Ansje's quilt and cutting up more fabric for the vintage quilt. 

Hope you all have a day full of wonder!

Skunk!

Apparently, our house is the new hot spot in the neighborhood.  We don't charge cover, the music is happening (Toby Mac), the buffet will be open soon (a good thing and a bad *gulp* thing) and the owners are friendly!

Looking out my window while lesson planning for school.

Again, a swift swath of color in the corner of my eye.

Along comes Mr. Skunk.

I wanted to take a picture, but ahem...didn't think my celebrity animal would like that.

Sew, I just followed him around the house as he went from the side yard to the back yard to the neighbor's yard.

I was inside following him from window to window.

As I often tell my boys, "I am not stupid!"

On my sewing table.  5x5" pieces of vintage sheets, pillowcases and some new fabric that looks vintage.  I like the blues, purples, pinks and greens together.

This is a layout I've already sewn together into a block.  I go back and forth between liking the oranges and yellows in there, and not.  What do you think?

Another block.  I'm thinking they will be 4 x 4 patches with sashing sewn around them.  At least, that's what they were telling me they wanted to be.

Isobel has been helping me in the family room and we are making progress.  I'm too cheap economical to rent a steamer, and this stuff is on there tighter than a wedgie given by a 12 year old boy!  Ick!

Some reality here.  I hate this room right now!  LOL  I hated it before too!  This is where the tv, gaming systems, movies, some toys are at.  This is where the 9-11 kids who hang out at our house in the summer congregate when it's too dang hot outside.

They have thrashed my couch.  My couch that I lay on when I'm really tired or sick and need to sleep propped up.  I love this couch.  Mother and father in love gave it to hubs snookums and I when we got married.  It needs help.  I'm working on finding the exact fabric I want to make a slipcover for it.

The carpet looks like it's been in a room with this many kids, Doritos, popcorn, freezie pops and juice boxes.  And there's a huge stain I'm praying is chocolate milk.

It will get cleaned when I'm all done painting.

My elliptical is trapped on the other side.  We miss each other.

Is it wrong to curse construction people?  And the people that just papered over the other stuff?

I'm losing my inspiration here people.

God bless our men and women in uniform!  Who labor day after day.  "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."  They bring us such lovely, happy packages.  Like the one from Penny that brought me my new fat quarters!  Thank you Penny.

Well, I leave you with this

 

Hope your day is awesome!

It's National Quilting Day!

And I've been waiting all week for it!

What does quilting mean for you?

For me, it is a love of colors, patterns and fabrics.

A tactile love affair.

A visual banquet.

A way to reach out and touch other people's lives and meet new friends.

A hobby.

A lifestyle.

An obsession.

A comfort.

Happy National Quilting Day!

The National Quilting Associtaion Inc.

Sunshine, Squirrels and Sheets

Can I just say I love sunshine?

I mean, really.

After about a year of snow, ice, clouds and gray,

sunshine is the best!

Suzanna's finished block to be mailed today.

Can't wait to see what April's block will be.

Yesterday afternoon, C-man and I were at the table doing Algebra I when I caught a shadow out of the corner of my eye.  This big fella

These awesome pictures are taken by C-man.

decided to come down and just hang out for a while.

Or so we thought.  Until a squirrel came over and played Chicago thug.

The squirrel was very quiet and just sort of sat there about 3 feet in front of the hawk.  Silently staring him down.  Daring him to make a move.

Well, the hawk got tired of the ground and decided to move onto a higher perch which we noticed was alarmingly close to a squirrel's nest in the tree.  Things are starting to make more sense now.  We understand why the squirrel is so brave.  So brave, he climbed the tree and is behind the large branch on the right.  You just can't see him.  At one point, the protective parent was only 12 inches from the hawk.  It was really weird because usually our squirrels get all uppity and loud when they're upset.  Not today.  Quiet as death.  And I think that's what the hawk had in mind for the baby squirrels we know are in the nest.

After about 5 minutes, the hawk flew off and the squirrel went home.  But later in the day, C-man was out playing basketball and the same hawk swooped in low over the driveway.  We love having such incredible and beautiful visitors in our yard, but we also hate the side of Nature where one animal is prey and the other is hunter.

A thrift store threw up on my table!

LOL

This is my collection of vintage sheets, pillowcases, valances and fabric.  With some new fabric that looks like it matches in there for good measure.

I linked you to the Vintage Sheet Marketplace yesterday.

I'm sending out a half sheet of

this to Penny in exchange for 4-1/4yd cuts of fabric she has to swap.

And there's another swap in the making.

I'm so excited.

Here's a pillow from Twinfibers

from For the Journey

from Philigry

and from Oh Fransson

I've started ripping out old seams and pressing my stash for folding.

I'm in vintage heaven.

Sweetest Lil' Block

My Shoo Fly block for Suzanna.

I had so much fun with this one.

I used 2.5" squares and then used the sandwich method for the HST.  Suzanna sent us a piece of flexible, clear 8"x8" plastic to sort of "frame" the block and sashing to help us see where to cut for the wonkiness of the completed block.

These are my finished test blocks I'm keeping for a quilt for me of all the blocks we've made through the year.  I will make a label with each lady's information so I can always remember how we met and which block they asked for.

Confession time.

I'm an addict.

Surfing flickr can be a baaaaad thing!

LOL

I've found some yummy new groups to join.

Vintage Sheet Marketplace

Vintage Bedsheets and Pillowcases Repurposed

The Vintage Sheets Pool

Vintage Sheet Quilting Bee

Vintage Linens Redux

Yummy, yummy, yummy!

Sew yesterday, I put all my vintage sheets, pillowcases, fabric and fabric that I think looks vintage enough to go with the real stuff, on the dining room table.  I'm sorting through by color and am going to go Google how to tame the larger pieces of fabric into manageable sized pieces to begin piecing, swapping or selling.

Happy St. Patrick's Day to you all!

Chock Full!

Of fun stuff going on at our house!

Saturday this package from Jen arrived in my mail.  I've left it all weekend so I could take a picture of how sweetly it's wrapped.

Inside,

a charm pack of Moda's Snippets and a nice size hunk of the red fabric with paper doll cutouts of boys' and girls' clothing.  Also included were some very funny and cute gift tags.

Thanks Jen!

This weekend, I also got to be creative and sew a little lovely for my dresser in the front hall. 

I liked the pink fabric with the black binding (WIP for Ansje) sew much, I decided to whip up a dresser topper out of scraps.  Something bright, happy and cheery for spring!

These started out as wonky Log Cabins, but dang if that ruler didn't keep coming out to square things up!

The back, which isn't even seen, but I know it's there and maybe just might be flipped to the top if I'm feeling ornery.

I also was able to sew the binding onto Ansje's quilt for STUD (Swap Til You Drop).  I need to hand sew the back side down.

Twelve more blocks came into being for my string quilt.  I need two more to be able to add another row.  I had forgotten how much I love this quilt to be.

I think this is my favorite set of four this time around.  The yellow FMF just pops!

Let's see, next I play around with more Log Cabins froms scraps to make another table or dresser topper and it sort of morphed into a wild, string pinwheel sort of thing.  LOL 

And my fabric from Suzanna came this weekend.  She's asked us to help her with her interpretation of a Gwen Marston quilt in Liberated Quiltmaking.

And this is what I'll be working on today.  I always use scraps from my stash first so I don't waste any of the beautiful fabric that my quilting bee buds send me.  I'm a little excited about this one!  You know me, I love wonky-buy keeping my ruler next to my sewing table is like having an old school teacher right there with her ruler poised over your hand if you mess up and don't write straight or on the lines.

Yikes!

The "50 Quilting Tips" is from a Fons and Porter's magazine my mother-in-love bought.  There were some really creative and helpful tips on there, sew if you get a chance to check it out, it's worth it.

Okay, off to tame the laundry monster!  If I'm not back in a day or two, someone please call 911.

I know I will appreciate it!