Bear Lake Parade of Homes

You will have to click on the picture to see the interesting things we found at this year's Parade of Homes at the lake. Last year's was so good with several extremely expensive and well decorated homes to look at. You never go to these parades with the thought of buying a home but we go to find new or clever ideas to put in our home. It was really helpful to go to these parades when we were building our home to get some great ideas.

This year's parade was disappointing. Most of the homes weren't professionally decorated as they are in years past. I think the builders are hurting but still wanted the show to go on. One home was decorated with the owner's trophy animals. It was a bit strange walking down a staircase with a crocodile staring at you. I didn't like it one bit.

The Honey LOVED the BYU murals at one of the homes. Guess what we are now getting on one of our cabin's walls? We are big fans of BYU football. Doesn't matter if they win or lose, we enjoy the college games. I guess our game room will now be a cougar den. It wasn't quite what I was picturing for the area but if it makes Honey happy....

I did like the colorful tile on the floor in one child's bathroom. It matched the grandchildren's bedroom. So cute and fun to have lots of twin beds all in one room when the whole family comes to the lake!

My favorite house was a craftsman style home. It had lots of crown molding and cabinets all through the house. Loved the bookcases that were lit in the living area.

We had fun being at the lake once again. Hard to believe August is almost done and summer is gone for another year.

 

Little Prince

My finger still hurts from when I sewed it last week. Looking back, I probably should have gotten stitches so the cut would have closed properly and maybe not hurt as long as it has. With it being my index finger, it has been hard to sit at the sewing machine and sew much of anything.

I put this quilt off as long as I could so my finger could heal some more but finally yesterday I knew I really had to get going on it. I am using the same quilter that did Lil' Man's quilt and I need to get this quilt over there so I don't lose my place in line. Red Rooster in Logan does a wonderful job at quilting but they don't schedule you on a calendar. They put your info on a hanger and just hang it up and every day the hanger works its way to the front of the line. I put my hanger on the rack about 5 weeks ago.

So knowing I had my hanger moving forward, I couldn't decide what kind of quilt to make for this lil' guy that is coming into the world around Thanksgiving time. I have been intrigued with the disappearing 9-patch for awhile though so decided this was the time to make one. I don't always like making 9-patches though. Seems like some days all the seams match up and then other days I will have a mess on my hands. Thank goodness working on this quilt went smoothly. I will definitely make one of these again. Maybe a crooked one next time that I saw online.

You don't need to follow a pattern. Just cut your squares to whatever size you want them to be. Start sewing your squares in a row.

Here is one of my finished 9-patches. With this being a baby quilt, it didn't take long to get them all made.

I use this alot while I am sizing my squares. So much easier than trying to clean the mat with your hand.

Now the fun part of cutting the 9-patch into 4ths. Then you rearrange your new blocks however you want.

This is how I put my blocks back together.

For the last several days I have been craving French Onion Soup. I have an abundance of onions in my garden so I pulled several in the a.m., went onto the internet to find a recipe since I have never made this before, and then let it cook all day as I sewed. Oh my!!!! It was perfect and yummy! I'm sure it was better than usual since I was using my own onions in it. I felt like a proud mamma when I took my first taste.

And here is the finished top! Sometimes pieces just go together and boy! was I happy about that! My brain does not like math and I haven't figured out how to use the quilter's calculator yet so I wasn't too sure how to make my border come together correctly. I started at 3 1/2" but then I just felt I needed to change to 3 1/4". Boy! am I glad I listened to that voice in my head. It came out perfect! Yes. I am patting myself on the back. LOL!

Now to get the backing ready and off to the quilters it goes! I can hardly wait to snuggle the Little Prince in it. It is so exciting to have 2 grandbabies coming this year!

Junior Misses Quilt

Our first granddaughter will be here in just a few short weeks! I wasn't going to show this until I had mailed it but I am slow at putting my label on the back. Guess her parents can see it here first. I hope the lil' one will get lots of use out it. It certainly was made with lots of love from gramma. I can hardly wait to meet Junior Miss!

Junior Miss

When I was a teenager, I starred in a play as Rapunzel....

I also played Cinderella in another play....

My daughter-in-law called yesterday and I guess now I am known as Mary Poppins!

A few friends of my dil gave her a baby shower Saturday night. I have been accumulating some outfits for "Junior Miss" and decided that I would mail them to my son so he could take the package over to the hostess' house so dil could open it there. I stuffed (STUFFED) all the outfits into one of those large(ha--large???) priority boxes that have the flat rate and mailed it off. Couldn't use any of the cute wrapping paper I had. I just had to make do with tissue to keep the outfits clean. When dil opened the box, she kept pulling outfit after outfit out of the box. Some of the ladies said it reminded them of Mary Poppins and her magic carpet bag. Funny. Here's the darling clothes I stuffed into that little box....

 

And look at this! Calvin Klein now uses minkee on his baby outfits! It is so soft!

 

Done!

But not without blood and tears.....

I finished my swap blocks and will get them in the mail tomorrow a.m. I was hoping to be finished alot sooner than today but life sometimes gets in the way of quilting. Imagine that. I almost didn't think I would get the blocks done since my finger got in the way of the needle today. Oh my. If you have ever sewn your finger before, you know the throbbing feeling you get after putting on the band-aid. I was just hoping that by putting on 3 band-aids, it would keep the blood from making a white ghost a rust color.

Now to start the next grandbaby's quilt. This time in blue!

 

Tea Cups part 2

I added words so now it is ready for the quilter.

 

Do You Remember Having Tea Parties When You Were Young?

I do. So I thought it would be fun to join another Pat Sloan swap. Actually it is suppose to be a Mad Hatter's Tea Cup swap, with the idea of remembering the book, Alice in Wonderland. I couldn't quite get a good idea for the quilt to wrap around Alice so I decided to change mine into remembering those days when I was a little girl and use to play "tea party". I can actually remember one time when my friends put coffee in my little cup. I was so grossed out! We had never done that before! It had ALWAYS been just Kool-Aid or water. It stunk and I didn't want to drink their "tea" so I went home.

Do you remember having tea parties with your dolls? I still have my tea set in my cedar chest, along with my dolls and stuffed animals.

For the swap, we each made 6 tea cups and exchanged them. Background fabric had to be beige and the cups had to be "bright" or "bold" colors. I actually didn't use any of the blocks I received except the one that my daughter made. I will save them for another quilt.

I am also debating if I want to applique some words around the quilt to remind me of those days gone by.

 

Bewitching

This is a pattern I bought during the Wasatch Shop Hop in Utah.

 

And this is what mine looked like before it headed to my quilter.

 

Garden Blessings

I've probably mentioned this before, but I'm not a gardener. This is the first place we have lived in our 31 years of marriage where you can actually dig in the soil and actually grow things! I have tried a few veggies in pots before but haven't had much success. The growing season is very short where we have lived. It is short here too but I am having success! We have already harvested lots of lettuce and spinach plus a couple of green and red peppers. Now lookie what we have! I planted two zucchini seeds because I have heard you always get an overabundance of them. Here are our first 2 fruits from our crop. Guess what we are having for dinner tonight?!

I have also learned that I will not plant pumpkin and zucchini close to each other again in the raised beds. Next year I will plant them both outside the beds so they won't take over everything else that I planted. Such a learning experience but it has been fun watching everything grow. I told myself that I would be happy if the plants just grow. I wasn't even expecting anything to eat. It has been fun to see that even this novice gardener can grow a few things, even with her not knowing what she is doing.

 

Been awhile, hasn't it?

I've been sewing but can't show them right now. I have 3 quilts to get to the quilter this week and have been busy trying to get them finished. I always make my appointments and then piece my quilt. I knew summer would be hard to keep sewing but I also knew I had a couple of grandbabies coming in the Fall and wanted these done before then. So all I can say is that one of the quilts is PINK.

The Baby came home today because she has a break from school. We have been visiting family tonight and loving this lil' one. He has been away from us for a month and I have missed him so!

Have also been traveling some more with the Honey and been to the cabin this weekend. It is always fun to run over there and just relax. Not that we really just sit, it always seem like we are busy doing things and come home more tired than when we left here but we love it! I love looking out the cabin windows one direction and seeing the gorgeous lake and then looking out our bedroom window when we wake up and seeing the mountains the opposite direction. The best of both worlds!