Late for This Year, Early for Next Year!

Valentine’s Day may be long past, but I only just took the last stitches on my Valentine’s Day quilt this weekend.  Late for this year – early for next year!

I took this picture on an angle to show the quilting.  The finished size of this wall hanging is 45.5″ x 53″.  The quilting design is Swirls.  

This is a table runner made from St. Patrick’s Day fabric sent to me from my FAB pal, Pam.  Pam sent the fabric to me back in 2008.  I made the flimsy right away, I only did the quilting this weekend.  I took the last stitches in the binding tonight.  There seems to be a theme here–late for this year, early for next year.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

This is a picture of my Mom, taken last Wednesday on her birthday.  I can’t tell you how old she is, but I can tell you it was a milestone birthday and she doesn’t look her age!  The flowers were from my brother and his family.  I wanted to get both the flowers and my Mom in the same picture so Mom crouched down behind the kitchen counter for the picture.



Our weather has not been very spring-like.  The only flowers that will survive right now are flowers inside the house.  I made my Mom this daffodil table runner and matching hot pad.  On my Mom’s birthday, she got to see the table runner as a flimsy.  I finished the quilting today and delivered it to her today as a finished table runner. 

The table runner finishes at 17″ x 43.5″.  The pattern is,  “#144 – It’s Fast, It’s Easy” by Canadian designer Ursula Riegel of Designs to Share With You.  http://www.designstoshare.com/patterns/index.php5

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Merry Christmas!

This year was a very special Christmas for our family.  All 12 of the members of my family were able to celebrate together on Christmas Day!  We did have to wait for two members of my family to get off work before we could eat our turkey dinner, but the important thing was that we were all able to be together.

To commemorate this occasion, we took a picture.  Well, actually, we took several pictures!  It took some time to get all 12 people to be looking the same way, not be talking, etc.  We were a bit challenged because of limited space in our living room, but we managed to get a decent picture in the end.
Pictured, standing in the back row, left to right:  my husband, myself, my son, my son’s finance, my daughter’s fiance, my daughter, my nephew, and my brother.  Sitting in the front row, left to right:  my niece, my dad, my mom, and my sister-in-law.
Years ago, (I am not sure how many exactly, let’s just say many years ago) my mom and I were at a local quilt show.  My mom spotted a table runner that she just loved.  She purchased the kit and I brought it home.  I pieced the top right away and then the project sat on the shelf….for years.  While going through some things in my studio before Christmas, I came across the unfinished table runner.  I decided I would finally quilt the runner and then surprise my mother with the finished product in her stocking at Christmas.  My mom was surprised when she opened up the runner–truth be told, it has been so long since she purchased the runner, she likely forgot that it existed!
I also came across a runner kit that I bought from the same shop during a shop hop one year–poppies instead of sunflowers.  My kit is still in the plastic.  *Sigh*  Maybe I will finish my table runner in 2012!

Two More Flimsies from Pansy Fabric

I spent today piecing two new flimsies. Both tops are made from the pansy collection of fabrics I purchased in Oregon when I was there over a year ago. This fabric seems to go on forever as I continue to piece projects from it in an attempt to use it up.

This first flimsy is a table topper. I made this one from 2 1/2″ strips instead of the usual 3″ strips. This one finishes at about 27″ across. The purple fabric on the outer edge really looks blue in this picture. This next flimsy is a table runner from Terry Atkinson’s book, Let’s Do Lunch. This one finishes at 16 1/2″ x 66″ – nice and long. Terry calls this one Seven Layer Salad. Even after piecing these two tops, I still have more of this pansy collection left!

Progress on Projects

Yesterday, I finished the center of the Double Four Patch quilt. I just need to add borders now and quilt it.

I also got out the shamrock / St. Patrick’s Day fabric that Pam sent me last year and made a couple of table runners. These need to be quilted as well.

Notice the socks of the quilt holder? She specifically asked to be “cropped out of the picture”. I couldn’t resist showing her feet since they matched the table runner!