The Sun is Shining

I got the chance to baste my Sweet quilt. I used a cafeteria sized table to baste it, as many of you suggested. I think it's gonna have some puckers because I couldn't get it as secure as I do when I floor baste. I'm going to quilt slowly and adjust as I need too. It's the biggest quilt I've made, like a queen/king size. Wish me luck.

I made Kerry a house block for the cocorico bee. She gave this link to a free pattern. I used the paper piecing technique. I think it came out really cute. I could totally see a whole quilt made of scrappy houses. This was a fun block.

I painted some clothes pins with the Valspar Tranquility paint I mentioned in the prior post. I love this color!

We've been spending a lot of our time outdoors. Planting gardens, flowers and veggie. Hyacinths have always been one of my favorite flowers. Don't they smell wonderful? Everything is starting to come alive. I love this time of year. We have always gardened and started seeds but this is our first year starting asparagus from seed. They actually germinated rather quickly. It was so exciting watching them pop up through the soil. Now just three years until a good harvest!

My father-in-law was visiting this weekend and he and my husband built us a deck from repurposed lumber. A friend of ours asked if we wanted an out building he was gonna tear down. So my husband and his dad took it apart and salvaged all of the good lumber. It was really cool to watch them work together. My FIL is an excellent carpenter.  My husband's not half bad either ;)

I hope the sun is shining on you wherever you may be!
xo Erin

 

Hey, Hey, Hey...

What's happening?! I started this post 2 weeks ago. The title and first picture are all I got on here before I had to get off. I just wanted to take a minute to say "hey" and catch up. I finally made a permanent little sewing space for myself. I'm really happy about that. I painted an old sewing table we had and added new knobs that I also painted. I think I found the perfect shade of aqua. It's Valspar Tranquility. Love it! I have only had the chance to use my sewing space to make a few small and quick things. I made these cute little fabric baskets from this tutorial as thank you gifts. I machine bound mine. They sew up in about 20 minutes.I wanted to make the baby a few dresses. I found this cute Peasant Dress pattern here. They sew up in about 20 minutes also. I got two made and have fabric pulled for one or two more. So no quilting going on but I am drawing out quilts again and have the backing almost ready for my "Sweet" quilt. That is going to be a beast to quilt on my machine.
 I hope you all are well and hopefully having some nice weather.

Hope Valley Twister Blocks

I'm trying to decide what to do with these blocks. I'm not sure if I should just make it small like this and use it as a wall hanging or if I should use the little bit of Hope Valley I have left and mix it with some other prints to make a bigger, more useful quilt. Any thoughts?

Random Acts of Kindness

Thank you all for the congratulations on our new baby! Your comments were very sweet and I appreciate each and every one. I'm sorry I haven't replied to them yet. My inbox is overflowing right now from not checking it regularly and with all this Google Reader ending stuff I am getting a lot of notifications from Bloglovin when someone follows me on it. Thank you for that by the way!!! I am so happy that you want to continue to read my blog.  I'm considering replying to comments in the comments thread for a while until I resolve some e-mail issues I've had.

I also want to take the time to say THANK YOU to a few special ladies. My very dear friend, Heather, restashed me!!! She sent me a beyond wonderful package of my all time favorite fabric Sweet by Urban Chicks. The package included a very thoughtful card that made me ball like a baby.  Not much longer after this package arrived she sent me the nicest package of baby things. Diapers, a sleeper, a Moby blanket and nookies (pacifiers). Thank you, Heather!  Your kindness touched me beyond words, really. Thank you, friend!

Then, my very sweet friend, Heidi sent me this beautiful baby quilt. I love every print she used. Heidi also sent along a card, and it too, made me cry. Thank you so much, Heidi! The quilt is already well loved! The gifts are so special but when someone says that they have been praying for you, well, that is something that means more to me than anything. But I love the gifts too ;) Heidi has some great pictures of this quilt here.

Kylie, my friend and bee mate for the cocorico bee, sent me an adorable baby bib along with her bee block for me. Isn't it sweet? Melinda and Leila also sent some cute fabrics that I can use for a few baby things. These random acts of kindness blow me away and it really reinforces the fact that quilters are the most awesome people ever! 

(melinda's itsy bitsy spider, amy's there was an old woman who lived in a shoe, kylie's hey diddle diddle, muriel's a little mouse with clogs on dutch nursery rhyme, leila's twinkle, twinkle little star)

Speaking of awesome quilters, I got to play with the cocorico bee blocks I've received so far from my bee mates! Boy, do I ever love these blocks!! My theme was Nursery Rhymes. Aren't these the greatest blocks? So much detail and thought went into each and every one.

Thank all of you so very much. Every package was a little piece of sunshine!

She's Here

Our little pumpkin was born Friday morning at home. She is so sweet and calm and has brought such joy to our home. I praise God for a healthy pregnancy, labor and delivery. Thank you all for the comments, e-mails, prayers and gifts. I am so touched by the friends I've made through this little blog of mine. I treasure your friendship.

It was so pretty out this morning I wanted to get a few pictures of my finished scrappy trips quilt. I love it all washed and crinkled. It was really windy and I couldn't get many good shots but it felt great to be outside with the sunshine.

I hope you all are well! Happy Sewing!


Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish It Up Friday!

Waiting...

Still waiting on baby here. Guess she's just not ready yet. I feel great, baby is doing great, so we will just wait a bit longer.

To keep my mind busy I've been working on my hexagons I started in April of last year. My mom is visiting so we've been sitting and sewing while watching The Waltons on DVD. I am glad I had some hand projects waiting to go because it is not comfortable to sit at my machine at this point. I've totally fallen in love with these hexagons again. I'm going to make a Grandmother's Flower Garden, something that has been on my "list" since I started quilting.

I pulled out these old Twister Blocks  from June of 2011. I think they are one of my oldest WIP's now. I've always loved them but just haven't taken the time to work on them. I pieced them on the machine but I'm going to put them together by hand and finish the quilt by hand too.

My husband's dad and step mom sent me an Amazon gift card for my birthday (last week) and I was able to get a few books that I've had in my cart FOREVER. That was fun! The day after the books came all of us girls (me, my mom and daughters) snuggled in bed and looked through the books and picked out projects we wanted to make.  I haven't had a nice morning of lounging around like that in a long time. It was lovely!

I hope all is well with you and hoping my next post will be of my finished Scrappy Trips quilt and cute little baby feet :)
xo Erin

I'm linking up with Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday.

Spam Sushi, Anyone?

I finished Tamiko's block for the cocorico bee. Her month was October (yes, I know ~ hanging my head in shame). Her theme was Hawaii. She had a list of different ideas and one of them was Spam. I had seen something about Spam and Hawaii a long time ago on Netflix, maybe it was Bizarre Foods or No Reservations?? I can't remember now but I thought it would be fun to make Spam into a bee block. I drafted SO many blocks for this it's silly. Then I thought maybe I'll make something else, like Elvis or a ukelele, but  I kept wanting to make a paper pieced can of a Spam. I just could not get it to look right. So then I decided to just go with the Spam rolls. I think their proper name is musubi. Although these still are not paper pieced I think they came out pretty cute. If Spam can be cute. I think this block feels hawaii-ish. I hope she thinks so too.