Welcome Journey!

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Something that you may not know about me, is that I have been working on becoming a Search and Rescue volunteer with out local SAR group, and also CARDA, which is California Rescue Dog Association.  I would like to introduce you to the K9 half of my team, Journey.  She is eight weeks old, she is a Wirehaired Pointing Griffon, and I am totally over the moon with her already,

I brought her home on Sunday, and we are getting to know each other.  The song from the King and I keeps going through my head.  "Training" has started already in the form of games, routines and experience.  I am making play dates for her, arranging meeting of as many people as I can, along with regular puppy training.  So far she is doing fabulously.  The first night was long, but the second was much improved with both of us getting quite a bit of sleep.

I will post on her training and progress from time to time so you all can join me on my journey with Journey.

Esther

Andrea's first quilt

This was the first quilt I quilted for Andrea, and I think she told me it was her first quilt she made.  This quilt was here in my studio a long time ago, and I'm not sure why I never blogged about it before.  Anyway, Andrea is an amazing piecer, quilter and color coordinator.  Here is her quilt, and I don't remember what she named it.  I named it Amazing.

This quilt was big, and Andrea's original design,  

I always like a "before quilting" shot

As you can see, I did a different design in each color section.

Please notice how the pieces were all fussy cut!

And finally the center star burst. Notice the fussy cutting here too.  Amazing.

My thanks to Andrea for trusting her quilting to me, and for giving me such amazing quilts to work on.

Esther

Liz's Quilt

One of my close friends, Liz made this quilt, and this is what I did with it.  A few notes before all the photos.  This quilt was deceptively difficult, the square blocks are not square, they are taller than they are wide, which made things a little tricky with the curved lines I wanted to do on them.  What I ended up doing is using two different sizes of curved rulers.  I used the ones made by The Quilted Pineapple, and I love them.  Here are the photos.  I apologize that I don't have a good photo of the entire quilt, this was one that came in and went out as fast as possible.

This is the overall design of the quilt,  I chose five different designs and rotated them through the blocks.

The photos are kinda dark, the quilt was much prettier than it looks in the pictures.  Thank you to Liz for sending it my way. 

Thanks for joining me,

Esther

Birdie Quilt for Angie

My young friend Angie loves all things birds.  So, when I saw this cute bird quilt kit a few years ago, I knew I would be making it for her, (or one of her little ones)

These assorted silly birds were hand appliqued, and the legs were stitched with embroidery floss.

The fill was large pebbles with swirls sprinkled in.  This was fun and relatively fast.

Minimal quilting on the birds to accent wings.

Thanks for joining me, and I apologize, again, for my poor blogging.  I miss it, and I miss my connections with my blog friends, and my excuses are lame.  Life is good, quilting is good, and my family is great.  Two new grand babies, and everyone is doing really well.

Esther

Two babies, two quilts

Hello, hello.

I made two of Elizabeth Hartman's Hedge Hog quilts

Here they are as decorations for a baby shower, along with cake pops, and other yummies.

This shower was especially fun because it was for my two girls, Stefanie and Emily who are both expecting their third baby next month.

  I stitched the backing pieces together and loaded it as one piece, and then added the tops like normal, just side by side.

Here are some close ups of the quilting

We also decorated onsies at the shower.  I had prepped assorted fabric with wonder under, and the guests were so clever and creative.

I am feeling very blessed.

And for those of you who want to read more, here is the poem I wrote as the invitation to the shower,  Enjoy.

It's time to party, let's all share the joy

The birth of two babies, one girl and one boy.

Stefanie and Emily their tummies are growing,

Pregnant together, their faces are glowing.

With two children already, now baby makes three

How can we help them?  What do they need?

Blankets and rattles, sleepers and jammies,

Carseats and teethers, highchairs and lambies.

These treasures they have from showers before.

What could they use, do they really need more?

But how can we help them, to ease the transition,

From two babies to three, that is our mission.

Though babies are tiny, they can be most demanding

Sometimes a new mother can fall asleep standing.

But, Holly and Ethan, Micah and Zeb

Joey and Chad all need to be fed.

So this is our plan, what we want to do

A change from the usual, let's do something new.

Prepare food for their families, their freezers let's fill

With yummy and tasty ready made meals.

Crockpot dinners are convenient and fun,

Pour it all in the cooker, and dinner is done.

Disposable pans are always a winner,

No dishes to wash after eating their dinner.

So make just one meal, no need for a pair,

The girls can decide which meal will go where.

Please join the fun, please save the date,

We will all come together on Sunday March 8th.

Angie's house is the place, three O'clock is the hour

We will celebrate babies at a Freezer Meal Shower!

Before and After

This was a quicker than I thought project that made a huge difference.

I have this great comfy glider that I love, but the denim type upholstery was really dingy and I thought how fun it would be if I recovered it.  I was hesitant for a long time thinking it would be more difficult than it was, but when I finally decided to tackle it, no problems.  I took the back, seat, and each arm pad, and used them to trace a pattern.  Basically it was like making a tight fitting pillow case.

My biggest concern was how to tackle the industrial snaps that were on the arm cushions, and on the wooden arms of the glider.  Ah ha, I just cut out a button hole, or really a "snap hole", and pushed the original snap through the new cover and snapped them onto the chair frame.  Easy.

Thanks for reading,

Esther

Theresa's Quilt

This is a quilt I finished for Theresa.  This is her original design, and if your are headed to PIQF go see her and this quilt at Honey Run Quilters booth.

In the checker board areas, I did alternating up and down lines which always gives great contrast and texture.

Some McTavishing in the solid burgundy areas,

And my favorite part is the blue,

Well, that's it for this beautiful quilt, thanks for your company.

Esther