Update with PICTURES

I went to bed way too late. I was wound up from my stippling, afraid I would not set the alarm right, not sure we were leaving enough time to get to the testing site. I tossed and turned. I woke up before my 5:40 alarm. But prayers were answered and God saw us safely to and from the testing site. My son said it all went well and he felt really good about how he did. Thank you for any prayers said on his behalf. I am so tired now though and I dont' trust myself to work on the quilt. I do have pictures to share though!

First of all a couple of close up shots of my first attempt at stippling a quilt. Now don't enlarge the image and get out your magnifying glasses. I TOLD you it was not great and you don't have to point out my flaws. Just look at the good parts. :D




Then here are a couple of pictures of my son's Cakeball Birthday Cake. That is a dinner plate it is on.




I need to make a graduation card, get the ingredients out for Caesar salad (church picnic/potluck tomorrow after church) and get ready for bed. If I can make it until 9 I will be doing good.

Tomorrow when we get home from the church picnic hopefully the guys will be full up and not need another meal. I hope to be well rested and ready to finish the stippling on the baby quilt. If I get that done then I want to finish sewing my strips together for the Quilt Along quilt. I am hoping not to fall behind with that so that means I need to finish the strips, iron them all and then cut the blocks. I love having a plan all laid out. What do your Sunday plans look like??

Praise - we had safe travel and my son was happy with how he did on the SAT. Praise that it is behind him!

Prayers - college girl is on the home stretch - just a few more papers, another test, a couple days of classes and then the packing. Praying that she would keep her priorities straight and not sweat the small stuff.

Groundbreaking News!!!

Okay here's the deal, I MUST GET TO BED RIGHT NOW! I am taking my son to take his SAT tomorrow. We have to leave the house at 6:30 AM! It will take us about an hour to get to the test site. Living in PODUNK and that is what you get, BUT I just had to share the news and will post pictures later, maybe when we get home from the testing. I stippled my first quilt!!! OH YES I DID! The Pinwheel Baby quilt mentioned a few posts down. I was stalling and today my son said JUST DO IT! So I did. It isn't perfect and it isn't 100% beautiful but I just kept telling myself three things. Only GOD is perfect, only God is 100% beautiful and the baby isn't going to be pointing out my mistakes (at least for a few years). I have only done the center portion. I will do the outside borders tomorrow evening if I am not too tired.
I am excited about it! That has to be a good sign!
Okay, night all.

Praise - I bit the bullet and tried something new and it wasn't a disaster. :D I'm so thankful for my sewing machine and this hobby and all the help I get from other bloggers.

Prayers - for safe travel to and from the testing site. That my son would do his best and that he would have clear thinking and good concentration.

SEWN Giveaway Update

I just wanted you to see which fabrics I used for the apron I am giving away for the SEWN Launch party.




Won't THAT cheer up your kitchen? Remember to go to the May 31st post to comment for the giveaway. Thanks for visiting and come back often. :D

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.

* * * * * * *

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'

* * * * *

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!!

* * *

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.