Kinsley's baby shower

Middle child is finally close to her delivery date!  9 months seem to drag along when you are grammie waiting to meet a new grandchild!  Little Kinsley is due April 9.  Last night we had a baby shower for Janessa.  Lots of friends came and Janessa was even surprised with a visit from her sister.  I told Janessa that I could keep a secret!   It was pretty funny how Janessa saw Jessica walking across the parking lot and didn't recognize her since she wasn't expecting her to be there.

I have been busy for the past month making decorations, etc for the shower.  I am not a party person so I stress and stress but in the end everything always works out fine.

I made banners to go on the tables.


Kinsley's baby quilt made with love.  I make a quilt for each new grandbaby.  

Thank you gifts for the shower attendees.  26 owls in all!  These were fun to make with a fat quarter.  I found the pattern here.  I'm proud to say I used fabrics from my stash!

My test owls.

Wasn't sure how many friends to expect so one of the girls reserved a room at the library.  Here is the food table.  

Lil' Kinsley received so many presents!

Janessa seeing the quilt for the first time.  I'm usually not very good at hiding my sewing projects but this time I don't think Janessa even knew the colors I was using.  Hope she likes it!  Every time I sat down to sew, I thought about how this lil' one that will soon be joining her mommy and daddy and our family.  I am so excited to meet her.


It has been a busy, stressful month and I am so glad it is over!

Almost forgot to show!

Here is Janessa's take on our "watermelon" blocks.  She made her blocks into a Ladybug quilt!  I think it turned out darling and can hardly wait to see it quilted.

Almost done!

Now to decide if I keep going around with a black border or just stop and wait for binding.  

To make the quilt, I modified a Circle of Nine setting with my BOM blocks.  I will put the 3 extra blocks on the back of the quilt.

Way back when...a whole year ago...when I first heard the LQS ladies calling this a watermelon quilt (because of the red and green colorway) at our January meeting, I knew I had to incorporate some of the design I saw from a quilt in Fons and Porter's Love of Quilting magazine.   The issue is May/June 2010 and the inspiration quilt in found on page 18 of that issue.  It's called Watermelon and Shoofly by Tammy Johnson.  I quickly made several watermelon blocks from the inspiration quilt and they have been waiting patiently to somehow make their way into my own quilt.  A few months ago, I watched a demonstration on how to make a Circle of Nine quilt.  I knew that my watermelon blocks would work perfectly with some modification on my part.  I added the ants and crows onto the corner blocks just because.

My Watermelon Quilt

This is what is on my design wall today.  Trying to figure out how to put my BOM all together.  The blocks are the 2011's BOM from our LQS.  Will talk about it all later once I get it sewn together.  I'm pulling from everywhere to make this into a quilt.  Hope it comes together like I envision!

One Down and One To Go!

Finished one BOM from our LQS a few days ago.  Now trying to get my mind and body in gear to finish the 2nd one (different from this one).  This one is called "It's a Wonderful Life" designed by our local quilt designer Geralyn Powers.  She is so creative!  It was always fun to attend the Saturday Sampler each month during the year to see what the next block would look like.  I think I only missed one Saturday out of the year so this quilt only cost me $12 to make, excluding sashing and border fabric.  You pay for the first block in January and then your next block is free if you bring it back the next month finished.  If you miss a meeting, you also have to pay for the next block.  Not too bad!

Let it Snow!

Winter has still not come to Wyoming.  We are hoping for some good storms in the next few days.  I'm afraid no snow now means we will have our Winter in Spring and then our Summer will be cold....once again.  Having no snow does not mean we don't have the cold temperatures though!  High today in the 20's with nights below zero.  Wind is already blowing hard so the temp won't even feel in the 20's today.

Here's a lil' quilt I made a couple of months ago but haven't shown.  I let it sit in the closet for a year before finishing it.  It's a cute little tabletopper but a new quilter showed her over zealous handiwork and went to town on it.  I guess since I hadn't already put the buttons on for the eyes, she figured she would help me finish the snowmen.  LOL!  I think of them as wearing goggles now, waiting for the next big storm!  :)

Kinsley

My daughter is a secretive one, that's for sure!  She called me the other day and asked if I had any mod podge.  Of course I do....that stuff seems to multiply in the bottle!  I can't seem to find enough projects to use it all up.  While she was picking up the bottle, being the curious mom that I am, I asked what she was doing with it....she said I would have to wait and see.  

So now we all know the name of the newest addition coming in April!  Janessa cut all the wood by herself then painted each block black.  She then mod podged each letter onto the blocks.  She found the letters on flickr.  Some guy likes to take pictures of the alphabet so you can find any kind of letter you need.  

Little Kinsley has a pretty special mommy!

Kinsley's baby quilt is coming right along.  One more border to go with some appliqued wording on it and then it is finished.  Janessa has done a great job!  Reminds me that I need to start thinking of what kind of baby quilt I want to make for this baby. 

Winter Welcome

I use to subscribe to several different quilting magazines.  As the time came and went to renew each one, I usually opted to not renew.  There are a couple of magazines though that I really love and hold on to.  One of those is McCall's Quilting magazine.  In the Holiday issue (Nov/Dec) 2009, I spotted this quilt pattern designed by Susan Guzman.  I have been wanting another Christmas quilt and loved how different this one was.  I used only fabric I had on hand.  It's called Winter Welcome.

Cute Hootin' Owls!

What a surprise we had while eating at Olive Garden last month!  My daughter pulled 3 of these cute owl blocks out of her purse while we were waiting for our food.  So CUTE and of course I was oohing and aahing over them but in my mind I was wondering how and why she kept this new quilt a secret especially since she knows I have a owl quilt pattern she could have if she wanted it.

THEN........

She pulled out an ultrasound picture of a lil' baby and at the top of the ultasound was Janessa's name!  Yea!!!  A new baby for grammie to love!  It is also Baby #1 for the happy couple!  I am so excited for them!  

I asked Janessa several weeks before she told us if she was pregnant but the lil' stinker opened her eyes so huge like "how could you even ask that mom???!!!" that I let it drop......I can't believe she kept it a secret so long!  Of course it makes the 9 months go by alot faster for me this way.  :)  Here she is at 17 weeks.

This was taken December 2.  She is due April 9th so that would make her 5 months along.

AND.....it's a GIRL!!!!  Now I can start shopping!

Bow Ties

A few months ago I joined a group on Facebook so I would be challenged to make a bow-tie quilt. Many years ago I picked up a bow-tie flimsy at a garage sale and told myself way back then that I needed to make one for myself. I decided to use my bright scraps and make it a perfect size to snuggle up in during the winter months. Here is the finished project. I think I would make another one again but use calmer fabrics and not have it be so scrappy but in the meantime this one will do and I accomplished what I set out to do. Sorry for the not so great picture....the wind we are having makes it tough to want to go outside to snap any pictures!

Also, if you have a chance, could you take time this weekend to go vote for my Welcome Fall (scarecrow) quilt? I hate to beg but I know that the other entries do the same thing and who wouldn't love to win a prize?! Go to: http://quiltinggallery.com/ then click on the topic "Vote now: Thanksgiving quilts". Mine is towards the bottom called Welcome Fall. Thank you!

 

Fall Quilting

So windy in my part of the world! It brings the temp down to not just chilly but chillier! Weather.com says we are at 33 degrees but feels like 22. I'm not too sure I believe that. We are cold inside and out! We have been having strong winds for the past week. Hopefully this isn't a sign of what we can expect all winter. In the meantime, I got my Fall Quilt back from the quilter! Thought I would share the finished project. Just have time to hang it for a week or so and then on to Christmas but I am thrilled I now have a true Fall Quilt.

Fall doings....and a quilt!

I've been absent from the blogging world for a few months. Last post was in August. I was taking advantage of the last few days of warm weather. As of today, we have about 4" of snow on the ground with more to come this weekend. I'm just not ready for it yet!

I have been quilting but the 2 quilts I have finished in the last few weeks are already at the quilter so I will show those when they come back.

In the meantime here are a few pics of what I have been up to..........

Here is Baby Annaly (named after her 2 grammies---one of them ME!---Jana and Lana). It was her blessing day so she is with her proud parents. She is such a good baby and I can't believe she is already 3 months old!

Oh the green tomatoes!!! We had a cold front (with snow) come through and so I picked all the unripened tomatoes. I like to make salsa with the red ones but wasn't sure what to do with these guys. I searched the internet and found a blog that said you could ripen them by placing them in a covered container with a banana. Here they are one day after putting them in the container.

Sure enough it worked! Here is a pic taken only 3 days later showing the tomatoes turning red.

I also searched for recipes using green tomatoes. I came up with ketchup, fried tomatoes, salsa, bbq sauce, etc. The one recipe that really caught my eye though was the sweet one! It was a green tomato spice cake. It was SO VERY YUMMY! I made it several times (I was overwhelmed with green tomatoes!) and everyone that ate it was surprised to hear there were tomatoes in it.

Just finished this quilt and will take it to the quilter later today. This was a pattern that I have been itching to make for 4 years now. When we moved to this town, one of the first things we did was attend a benefit auction for a member of the community. A similar quilt was auctioned off there and I fell in love with it. The quilt had been a BOM from our LQS but the pattern had not been replicated for those of us who were new to the valley. I have been bugging--begging--bugging the designer to make it in pattern form for me to buy. She finally did. I just love the scarecrow! Will add the eyes, etc when I get the quilt back from the quilter.

Geralyn is a wonderful, generous designer. Many of her designs have been our BOM's at the LQS. You can find her patterns here.

That's it for now! Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Not Your Grandmother's Log Cabin

Middle child's 2nd quilt she finished this past week. We took a class at the Wyoming State Quilt Guild retreat a couple of years ago and made this. Mine was done in red, black and white. I love the colors of this one! We choose a pattern from the book that was a bit of an odd shape. You use a 60 degree angle ruler on these log cabins. The book and ruler can be found here. I hope to someday make another pattern from the book. One that isn't so wonky in it's shape. We had a great time in the class!

 

Jelly Roll Sampler Quilt

Middle child finished her marathon sewing! Here is her Jelly Roll Sampler Quilt! I love the colors! She had most of her blocks finished from when Moose on the Porch Quilts organized the quilt-a-long but she never got the time during the school year (middle child teaches 3rd grade) to complete everything. The quilt is now at the quilter's. If you would like to make a similar quilt, the patterns are still available! It was a fun quilt to make and got rid of a couple of my jelly rolls (middle child "borrowed" one of mine) that have sitting around in drawers.

 

Big Girl Pansies

Really?! I just now noticed the title to this quilt pattern! I thought it was Bee Happy or something to do with the bees. Not Big Girl Pansies. That title does make me laugh though. When I saw the pattern, I knew I had to make it. It just looked like a fun, easy top to make. A happy quilt. I started it awhile ago but just now picked it back up again to finish it. I had to do some sewing while middle child was doing her sewing marathon.

The pattern is from Out On A Limb. I can hardly wait to get this one quilted!