Sunday, August 10, 2014
What?!  You made this fabulous little quilt just for me, Grammie?  Why, I don't believe it!


Hahaha, are you pulling my leg?  Well, I just LOVE it!


In fact, it's so soft & comfy, I think I might lie down and take a nap now.

Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Chevron Baby Quilt & Card

Our niece had her fourth child this month, a baby girl (lucky little girl - she has three older brothers!) so I thought I'd try my hand at making this quilt (can you call it a quilt when the fabric comes already quilted??) and a coordinating card:



Tuck in a pink teddy bear & it's ready to go.
The finished size of the quilt is 35"x42"; a good size to be used as a changing pad, play mat or quilt. I followed the tutorial by Amanda at: http://www.jedicraftgirl.com/2014/06/riley-blake-blog-tour-baby-play-mat-tutorial-with-matching-zipper-pouch.html. This quilt is so quick & simple because it uses Riley Blake's quilted cotton fabric (chevron) that I purchased online at Hawthorne Threads. To make the extra wide binding (5"), I followed this tutorial that Amanda provided: http://www.mccallsquilting.com/content_downloads/Making_and_Applying_Extra_Wide_Binding_WEB_BONUS.pdf.
Sunday, July 27, 2014
It's that time of year again....

One batch done.
  

It took Bruce 3 hours to clean 288 ears of corn!  It took Stacy & I much longer to make 18 batches of sweet corn for the freezer but boy, is it ever good this year.  Thank you Kevin!!!! 

Kevin's Sweet Corn Recipe

9 cups of sweet corn (Iowa grown, of course)
2 cups water

Use electric knife to cut kernels off the cob.  Put the corn & water in a 5 qt. pot & bring to a boil (need about 16 ears for 9 cups of corn).  Boil five minutes & cool (place the pot in the sink filled w/cold water...change water often or let cool at room temp. for a bit then put in the fridge to cool).  Once it is completely cool, put in freezer bags & freeze.  I put 2 cups per bag; lay the bags flat & they'll stack nicely in your freezer. Enjoy a little piece of summer this coming winter - yum!

Monday, June 30, 2014
Happy Tones Quilt - Done!

My very first quilt - hope it's not too obvious!  It seems to have turned out okay...of course, it hasn't gone through the wash yet, not sure it will survive that.  I have a new-found respect for quilters....it's not easy!  And this is supposedly just a basic, simple quilt.  Thank goodness for YouTube and Bloggers, how did we ever learn how to do anything back in the day?

Front of the finished quilt:

Back:

The sandwich is pinned.  I used Fun Foam to cover the tips of the pins; just cut squares about 1/2" in size and poke them on the ends of the pins. Got this idea from Blair Stocker at: http://blairpeter.typepad.com/weblog/2013/03/how-i-baste-my-quilt-layers-together.html

Sewing w/the Janome AcuFeed Ditch Quilting Foot - fun!:

Wow - someone needs to straighten up this mess.


Now on to this quilt top...it's all pieced and I would love to try free motion quilting on this one, don't think I'll attempt that just yet.  The fabric is Twice as Nice by Riley Blake - love the red and turquoise.
  
The directions for Annik Miller's "Four's A Charm" twin size quilt can be found here:  http://www.minneapolismqg.com/2013_02_01_archive.html and here:  http://minimushrooms.blogspot.com/p/fours-charm-baby-quilt-pattern.html.  Her directions are very clear and concise, a necessity for a beginner like me.  Thank you
Annik - I love your Blog!
Saturday, June 21, 2014
My First Quilt Top!!!!


I've always wanted to see if I could make a quilt...a friend and I took a quilting class for beginners about 20 years ago where we made a little table top quilt. I really enjoyed making it but I guess I was busy w/kids, work, life in general and didn't go any further with it, but the idea of making a quilt was always in the back of my mind. Then one day recently I was looking at some Blogs and saw this post at Sew Adorable Fabrics: http://www.sewadorablefabrics.com/easiest-baby-quilt-ever/. The bright colors of the Happy Tones by Michael Miller fabric line are so fun and cheerful and I wondered if just maybe I could make a small quilt using these fabrics for our 6 month old granddaughter.


So after a little more searching I happened upon this site: http://gogokim.blogspot.com/2012/04/happy-weekender-on-moda-bake-shop.html and Kim's Happy Weekender Quilt. I liked the borders she added to make the quilt a little larger.  After watching several of Jenny Doan's (Missouri Star Quilt Co.) Youtube videos I felt brave enough to give it a shot and...tada!

It's a simple quilt and far from perfect but to tell you the truth, I'm surprised it isn't all wonky and misshapen.
 It's a bit large for a baby quilt and I still have a couple Happy Tones Charm Packs left so I think I'll make another smaller quilt for Kendall.  My plan is to try to straight-line quilt this one, we'll see.  My new Janome 7700 sewing machine is supposed to be delivered Monday, can't wait to see if I can get this thing quilted.
Sunday, April 27, 2014

Pretty Pink Posh Sequin Shaker Blog Hop

I created two cards for the Pretty Pink Posh Sequin Shaker Blog Hop...the first one is kind of sweet, I think. I like the brighter colors of the flower against the paler dsp. The flower is from Papertrey Inks Doodlie-Do set (one of my new favs); the stamped & and heat embossed butterfly is from a Stampendous set, Flutterfly Friends and the sequins are from Pretty Pink Posh (love!). The second sequin shaker card is a sunburst shaped card using the WPlus9 Blanket Stitched Blooms stamp set. This is the first time I've used stamps by WPlus9 and I was really impressed...they stamped very crisp and clean. Again, the sequins are from Pretty Pink Posh. My sequins (& fabulous ribbons) just arrived two days ago, I can't wait to place another order...I heard Paulina is adding more 4mm sequins to her product line; love 'em, they're so cute.