My Baby's Birthday

That chubby cheeked 6 month old pictured above turned 17 today. He doesn't have an ounce of pudge on him despite my best efforts. He is now 6'6" and just as happy as he was when that picture was taken. Where has the time gone???

I spent the day with him, just hanging out. This evening when hubby got home we went to see the new Night at the Museum movie. I will have to post a picture of the cake, all his idea, a cake sized version of Bakerella's cake balls!!

This is the first birthday he has celebrated without his sister here, that was different and kinda sad. She will be home next week though and they will catch up then.

Praise - for the wonderful Godly young man my son has grown to be and continues to grow into daily. That I have had the privelege of being his mother.

Prayers - for my son, that he would continue to desire God's will for his life. That he would seek to please Him above all else.

Joining in the fun

I don't remember how I got there but I came across the Old Red Barn Co.'s blog right before they started a quilt along/giveaway. I decided to join in.






Here is a look at what the quilt is going to look like. This is one that Dana made last summer I believe and then she GAVE IT AWAY!! I know! My quilt will look a lot like the sample because I am using those same fabrics that I had in my stash. I think that is a bonus! I decided to buy one piece of fabric for the front, the orange with little clusters on it. For some reason I didn't have that one and I only needed a half yard.

Here are my fabrics,Sandi Henderson's Ginger Blossom. I ended up not cutting the striped one. I have more than the required 12 so I am mixing it up more and I think I will do a mixed border with my leftovers.

Here are all my strips ready to go! Well the orange one is missing. That fabric should arrive in the mail today or tomorrow. It will be pretty easy to catch up at that point. I do have that baby quilt to be thinking about in the meantime.

Check out the quilt along and if you don't join at least follow along in Flickr to see all the gorgeous quilts. Many are being made from Paula Prass's Flights of Fancy line. I get so caught up in the quilt I forget that there is a huge giveaway at the end and many great giveaways along the way. If you use the Flights of Fancy line you get more entries. As much as I love that line and see how gorgeous those quilts are going to be I really needed to avoid buying more fabric.

My son just came in with the mail and told me that my new fabric is here!!! Now I can get to cutting strips WOO HOO!

Praise - the weather has cooled off and the temperatures are in the 70's. Much more comfortable!
Prayers - for the group of young people that God would like to be assembled at our home for a study.

HAPPY JUNE!

Can you believe it is June 1st already??? ALMOST summer! Spring here is so slow to be 'springy' that by the time it really looks like spring it is June 1st and almost summer.

Thought you'd like to see some of the wildlife that I see right out my window. This was actually taken from the car window on the way to Bible study. He was just standing there chewing away on the tender young leaves and I told hubby to stop!! He rolled down his window and I leaned across and took this picture. Moosey didn't like the intrusion so he started moving on. We've had a moose about this size tromping through our property lately, might be the same one since this was just down the road a ways.

This is one of my latest projects in progress. This is the Moda Bakeshop's Pinwheel Baby Quilt done in the blues and greens of Moda's Neptune. I don't think I had ever made these half triangle squares before. I didn't do them the way the instructions said to. I knew I had seen a different explanation that would be much quicker. I went to Quilt Taffy and found some help there. Thanks Des and Corrie!

Here are my 12 blocks all sewn together. I am even further than this now, I sewed the inner border on and made all my prairie points and sewed those on and then I sewed on the outer border. I did take a picture of that but it is horrible.

Now I am procrastinating/stalling. I don't know what to do for the quilting!!!! The other night I decided to attempt free motion quilting. My first attempt was small and tight and close together and not at all pretty. I watched Amandajean's video again as well as emailed her with some questions (that she so kindly answered right away). My son came in to see what I was up to and he watched the video with me while I explained what this was all about. I asked him if he wanted to try it and he did!! He did amazingly well for his first time then he asked can't you slow the machine down?? Well I had read that some people did indeed change the speed of their machine but that wasn't something I had ever done. I checked out the manual and sure enough it was a simple adjustment and then we tried again. The slowest speed was way to slow but right in the middle range was perfect. I took over on the sample where my son left off and just did a small area but what a difference! I just don't know if I could do the entire quilt. I realize I need more practice - LOTS MORE! But I am still doubting whether I am capable of doing the entire quilt. I am toying with the idea of some sort of straight line quilting following the lines of each block and then straight lines all around the inner border. I was then thinking of either stippling the outer border or getting those paper rolls that you sew over the top of. I need to decide. I want to have this done and ready to present to the baby on the 12th!! That means quilted, binding made and applied and sewn down. Yeah, I'd better get busy on that.

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Over on The Fabric Shopper you can enter for a chance (or two or three) to win a stack of 30 fat quarters of Katie Jump Rope fabrics! Wouldn't THAT be a lovely giveaway to win??

At the end of this month I will be celebrating my ONE YEAR Blogiversary and maybe sometime this month will be my 100th post as well. Those could be worth celebrating. Just sayin'

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Praise - we have a wonderful church and pastor and church family! College girl will be finished with school the 11th and we can pick her up on the 12th!!

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Prayers - that college girl would put forth her best effort in her year end studies, final papers and projects and then final exams.

All SEWN Up!

I've decided to join in the SEWN launch giveaway. I am excited to see what exciting things the website will have for those of us that are interested in all things sewing related.



I am having trouble getting that link to take you to where you might want to go, try this
http://www.thelastpiece.net/ . That link will show you a list of all participating bloggers - go to the second page on that blog. The SEWN link at the top right will take you to the site.

I am going to giveaway a half apron made using Jona's tutorial. You will get ONE entry for a comment here and you will get ANOTHER entry if you become a follower of my blog and leave a comment telling me that you have done so. Your comment must have a way to notify you via email, otherwise I will have to draw again.

Winner will be drawn on Monday, June 8th and I will notify the winner by email as well as post here.

Quilt Show!

Now that I have my big project for the month out of the way I took some time to enter Kelly's online Quilt Show;


I sure would love to win one of her prizes!!!!

I submitted my Lakeside Charm quilt and the Woolies Light Baby Rag Quilt.

A Few Things That Make Me Smile

On Saturday my son came home and brought me a big envelope. Strange, I didn't order anything. Then I looked at the return address and saw it was from my friend in Maryland. Look at what she sent to me, just to cheer me up and because she knew that I was trying so hard not to spend money on scrapping or sewing. There are red glittery alpha stickers (they remind me of the Ruby Slippers!) an assortment of chipboard shapes and alphas, stamps that will be perfect to use on greeting cards, some paisley emery boards and a notepad and some chipboard embellishments for scrapbooking. What a FUN envelope to open and it sure did make me smile. I can't wait to spend a day scrapbooking and use some of this! Thank you, dear friend!

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Another package I got a week or so ago. This was from Victoria at Bumble Bean. I had entered a giveaway and this was a consolation prize! There is a Martha Negley print (on the left) and the print right is from a collection called Holly Hill. I am not sure who designed the middle print. Thanks so much!

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Something I love to do is bake and although I certainly do NOT need to be eating the baked goods, I have a willing family (none of whom put on a pound no matter how much of the stuff they eat). I had been making different cookies lately and when the last of those were gone I asked my son what he wanted next. He said 'remember those filled cupcakes you made awhile back? Those would be good.' So last night, while the guys went for a 4wheeler ride I whipped up these.

( right after I piped the PBish filling into them)

(and here they are after I frosted them)

I was going to get all fancy and pipe the frosting on but I got tired and just wanted to be done.

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Praise - I got back on the treadmill today! No more excuses!!! I walked for 60 minutes/3.25

miles.

Prayers - that I would get back on the treadmill tomorrow and the day after and the day after...

Swine Flu roots discovered!

I can see how this was clearly the beginning of the Swine Flu outbreak and panic. This innocent child had no idea what was put into motion after this simple act of love. Does anyone else find it hilarious that the parent grabbed the camera instead of the child??? Must not have been a first child. Gives me shivvers just to look at it. My sister may have to cancel her vacation to Mexico in a few weeks and if that is the case this child may want to go into hiding. Just sayin'.


Did anyone else think that The Wizard of Oz was one scary, freaky movie?? No?? Well it was really just those MONKEYS! Hubby and I both thought that it was a scary movie to see as children and so we didn't let our kids watch it when they were little. Well then they weren't so little anymore but it was kind of a family joke at that point so they still did not watch it until they were both in high school, I think. Of course they did NOT think it was scary in the least and rolled their eyes at us even when the monkeys were doing their thing. They've lived a sheltered life, what do they know about scary anyway? Besides the house falling on the Wicked Witch of the East, and Glinda's entrances and exits, my favorite part of the movie was when the Wicked Witch of the West rides her broom over the Emerald City and writes SURRENDER DOROTHY. When I saw this fabric:

I knew that I had to do SOMETHING with it. I saw it online but when I ordered it they informed me it was out of stock. I had them give me this print instead;

Today I went to the local craft store and they had the Surrender Dorothy fabric! WOO HOO! I got a fat quarter. I THINK I am going to make a small purse for my sister. I'm not even sure if she will carry it. Her family gave her a license plate frame that says 'My other car is a broom' ! Nice gift huh?? I have a picture of her riding a broom around my property in her pajamas. I thought she just might carry a little purse that says Surrender Dorothy on it. I'm going to use the Ruby Slippers as lining. My other option is a half apron. Hmmmmm, maybe she would get more use out of that.

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I sure hope I didn't shock anyone by posting three days in a row. No harm meant.

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Praise-the guys had a safe time unloading the trailer although they were gone way longer than they anticipated.

Prayers - I have nursery duty tomorrow. 'nuff said.