Quilting!

I quilted this quilt for Pam, the Library Gal,.  It was a really fun quilt to do.

There were so many unique fabrics in this quilt that all worked so well together.

In all the melon shapes I did simple swirls,

I did a modified feather motif in this shape.

The border was a simple yet effective wavy line.

This was a fun quilt to work on, thank you Pam for asking me to work on it for you.

Thanks for reading, I appreciate your company and your comments.

Esther

Happy Memorial Day

I want to start off with one of my favorite pictures ever. 

Here is Holly taking her bunny for a walk.  This photo just melts my heart.  There is not much cuter than a 

lop eared bunny in a toy shopping cart, pushed by a little girl.  Adorable!

I put my serger to use this weekend and made some new dresses for the girls.  They love it when they match,and I am delighted to accommodate them.  I  know someday their feelings for dressing alike will change, but for now I will take advantage of it.

Love the fake smiles, and the all around cuteness of their ages.

Happy Memorial Day, happy long weekend. 

Esther

A baby chick and a doggy door

  My Sunshine hen sat for 21 days on one egg, and today I saw her one and only chick.

Ethan named the chick "Kitty Cat", because "that would be funny"  I was thinking more along the lines of Shadow, so I could have Sunshine and Shadow. but we may have compromised with "Shadow Cat Chicken"  

Then Holly had fun when she discovered the doggy door.

going, 

going,

and gone. 

Holly has left the building. 

Esther

Bloggers Quilt Festival

It's Bloggers Quilt Festival again thanks to Amy's Creative Side, and this is my entry.  This quilt was made with instructions that it be chocolate inspired.  My favorite chocolate treat is a Chocolate Covered Caramel Apple, so that is where my color scheme came from.  I have always wanted to make a Storm at Sea, so that is the pattern I chose. This quilt measures 86" x 86" and I am entering the professionally quilted category.

I went with the idea of water while quilting this, and did a lot of swirls to accent the natural movement in the design, and to mimic water.  I also added lots of "bubbles".

A view from the back.

Thanks for looking at my entry, and have fun looking at all the quilts.  Thanks again to Amy for hosting this Festival, and thanks to my sparkly friend for the encouragement.

Esther

My blog is like my diet.

Lately, it seems like my blog is like a diet.  You know, the "I'll start tomorrow"  and you say that to yourself with all good intentions, but then for whatever reason, you put it off again.  So, that's where I've been lately with blogging, but I am hoping that I will get back on it now.

So, first off my latest addition.

I really want to make more clothes for my granddaughters, and maybe some more for me, so a working serger is a bonus.  This is a basic model, and will do all and more than I need.  My newest favorite blog site is craftiness is not optional and it is full of darling clothes for little girls, and pattern recommendations, and also an endorsement for this little serger.  I haven't done any real sewing on it yet, but have big plans in my head.

And my Dear Jane quilt.  I made a few more blocks. I don't know why I like making these little blocks so much, but I do, and each one gives me such a feeling of accomplishment.  A little victory in each one.

I am packing my bags for a weekend reunion with my high school friend.  We actually were friends in Jr. high, joined at the hip in high school, went to college together, house mates after college, and even packed up our belongings and relocated to Oregon together.  Then for whatever reason, our lives went very separate ways, and our correspondence stopped.  So now, twenty plus years later, we are going to get reacquainted.  I am very excited for our time together.

Esther

A parade, a picnic, and a ribbon

This weekend was our annual May Day Parade and Picnic.  This is your classic small town parade, with anyone and anything eligible to enter, followed by a community picnic in our beautiful park.  This is an event we all look forward to each year.  This year was especially fun because Ethan and Micah were just old
enough to figure out that the more they waved, the more candy would be tossed their way.

This is our gang.

Snow cones at the picnic, great treat on a hot day.

Parades can be exhausting for a little girl.  How sweet is this picture?

And to make the day even better, my quilt won a ribbon at it's first show.

Happy Mother's Day.  

Esther

Weekend sewing

Oh I had so much fun making these little petal dresses.

I hope to make many more little dresses for these little girls.  My kind of fun.

Esther

All finished but the binding

My Chocolate Covered Caramel Apple Storm at Sea is nearly finished.  I just have to finish the binding.

This shot does not really show the quilting very well, but I will explain why I did what I did.  I chose my quilting with a sea and water theme in mind. A lot of swirls and movement, some bubbles, and then some areas of calm.  Always changing.   Here are some more close ups.

I am especially happy with the back of this one.

 Thanks for following me on the journey of this quilt.  I am hoping to put it in some local shows, so I will let you know what happens, if anything with that.  

This was a fun challenge for me to push myself and my quilting, and I am glad I did it, and I am especially glad it is finished.

Esther

I'm running out of thread

While stitching along on this Storm at Sea, I realize that I am going to run out of brown thread.   I gather all my other brown threads, and of course none of them matches exactly, some are not even close, and one is almost a match.  But, how to incorporate the new brown into a quilt that was started with another brown? The area of most concern to me was the closely stitched border, where a color change would be most noticeable.

I knew I couldn't change thread colors along the border, so decided to blend in the color change around the corner.  

Sorry for the bad lighting here, but what I want to show you is how I left gaps between the stitching around the corner, and then I filled in those gaps with the new thread color, and I think it worked.

Ignore the chalk lines, and I don't think you can really tell the new color from the original color. 

Thank you all for the positive comments on my progress report. I really appreciate them.  Here is a funny story about that post.  I wrote it up on Saturday afternoon, and thought I posted it then.  When I came back later that weekend, I checked, because really, don't we all like to see if there are any comments?  There were none.  Well, okay, so no one left a comment, or read my post, maybe no one reads on the weekends.  Well Monday came, and still no comments, not even from my "regulars"  I know I had been very lax in my blogging, and was starting to think maybe you all got tired of waiting for me.  I did some more checking, and it turns out I didn't  publish the post, I just saved it.  When I actually did post it, you were all so generous with your comments and compliments, it made my day.  Thank you.

Esther