It's Time Out for Women this week! I'm so happy! Happiness is just falling from all over the place. :) There is nothing quite like it. I must say I consider this weekend to be one of the funnest weekends of the whole year. Though I wish you could come with, I do hope you girls get to have a time out wherever you may be. =)

In other news, I made this quilt:

I really love it! Out of all the quilts I have ever made...

this one takes the cake! 

Seriously my favorite one ever.

Cambria even helped me on this one. I used thangles to make the pinwheels and she sewed the green thangles together.

Since all that involves is sewing on printed straight lines it was perfect for her to do.  Plus, she reached into her personal quilting stash and found the perfect border for the quilt!

I made this quilt for a dear friend's daughter.

She is a very talented artist who started her first year of

college this fall.

I wanted to give it to her before she left for college, and I even had it all ready to be quilted before she left.

A whole month before, to be exact.

But it just took a long time to be quilted.

That's fine.

I get it.
So now I have it ready for this week which turns out to be her 
birthday week. Yay!

I did a blanket stitch for the binding.

Every time I machine stitch a binding, I hate it.  I always say I'll never machine stitch another binding on, but then like a moth to a light bulb I always go back to it.

The back.

I named this quilt

"To Thine Own Self Be True"

I thought it was the perfect name.

Today my neighbor told me that she killed two of her chickens. 
Not just any chickens, but chickens I was quite found of. These two black chickens were best friends with 'my' chicken, Chicken Big (who actually is my other neighbor's chicken, but she lives at my house(the chicken. not the neighbor)). 

I must tell you that I am sad. My heart hurts. 
I loved watching the flock run together. They were pals they keeped each other company. 

I think my chicken misses her friends.

Anyway. For Enrichment we had a service auction where I offered to make a boy or girl baby quilt. The gal who won my offer wanted a boy quilt. And let me tell you--I was going to make this splendid & wonderful quilt. I designed it right away and was so excited. 

But then I cut the fabric out wrong.

And ended up having to make a patchquilt. And see that red border? 

I hate it. 
I couldn't decide what color to go with and went with red. Uck.

And while I'm at it... I don't like the outer border either.

And I'm not too fond of the backing.

So there you go.

I do like the name that I gave the quilt: Little Bunny Foo Foo.

Even though I don't like this quilt so much; I must dedicate it to my chicken's lost friends.

Rest in peace chickies-- as chickens should.

So anyone having chicken for dinner? =)

Hello Ladies!

 Here are the photos of the the family quilt that I promised! Tell me what you think!

Damon's aunt a while ago asked me to make a family history quilt. Saying that then the quilt would be raffled off at the next Brimhall reunion. I liked the idea but in the end decided to just give it to Damon's mom and her siblings to share.

 This quilt took a long time to make.  I spent hours and hours surfing the internet alone just looking for the perfect blocks to use in this quilt.

I had help from Damon on what to put in it and he assisted in putting it together as well. His mom helped with information and I used ideas from a family history book his aunt gave us.

Paper piecing was the main technique that I used with touches of traditional piecing through out.

The majority of the quotes came from Lori Holt's Family Reunion quilt pattern.

Damon's Grandma was known for her pies! Damon has made this strawberry pie for me and it is 

heaven in your mouth!  

His grandma also played the ukulele.

This is something his grandma would always say.

His grandma always cleaned her dishes with Joy dish soap and bathed with bars of Zest soap. It was said that she lived how she cleaned.

I had Esther make this family tree on her PhotoShop program that she has and then she sent it into Spoonflower and I ordered it.  I actually ordered it about three or four times for various reasons (we all know that means I goofed up that many times so I had no choice).

This flying geese panel Damon made and did awesome! I had made one like it first and some how, after it was all sewn up, I squared it up wrong. I was so devastated that Damon came to the rescue as he always does.

This quote I threw in there from off of Pinterest.

Damon's Grandpa played the Saxophone and he would always say this:

"I get a lot of requests but I play anyway."

Also, Mary, the gal who quilted my quilt, put a musical note right above the Sax.

Love it!

Damon has some Native American history in his family tree.  Damon's grandpa grew up in a family that ran trading posts at various locations in Northwest New Mexico. Anyway there is a Native American rug that is in the family and this block is supposed to be identical to a part of that rug.

This block is called Grandmother's Flowers. It is by Charise Creates. I love Charise and this is not the first pattern of hers that I use in this quilt.  Yes. There's more.

This is the second. It is called Vintage block Light and Shadow.

I really love this one and have made a whole stack of them to make a lovely quilt of my very own!

And just so you know--it's a paper pieced pattern.

I know you'll sleep better knowing that.

And thirdly, it was Charise who designed the grandparents house for me. 

So along the way of working on this quilt I would have dreams of things that I felt that I needed to put in the quilt. For instances this block: Damon's Grandpa was not an official barber but would always cut his grandkids hair. And from what I understand they didn't like it. At least Damon didn't.

I dreamed about the back ground color of this block and that there should be a bird in it.

Also, this is what Damon's granddad would always say.

This is a wall hanging that was found in the grandparents home.

This was either a dream or a prompting to put into the quilt. Damon's grandpa was a butcher.

I paid someone $50 to make this paper pieced pattern for me. It was one expensive pattern.

The label on back. =)

For the backing I pieced a lot of left over fabric from the quilt top, but not all of it. Oh no. I have more. Lots more. I bought so much fabric for this thing, it's sad. 

It looks like I neglected to get a close up of the knitting needles (and the jam too,-- I'll have to add them in next time I see the quilt). Damon's grandma knew how to knit and made afghans for her grandchildren.

If you can't read any of the quotes let me know and I'll translate them for you. :)

  You guys! This awesome quilt is a 'mystery' quilt! Let me tell you about it. It's totally fun! :)  I signed up for a "mystery class" at My Girlfriends Quilt Shoppe.   A Mystery Quilt class goes like this: they tell you what materials you need and how to cut it up, but you have no idea what the quilt is going to look like.  When you get to the class you are given a slip of paper telling you what to do for the first step.  Then when you finish that step, you get a new slip of paper with the next step on it. And so on.  You don't know what the quilt is going to look like until it's finished. The mystery really keeps you moving at a fast pace. In addition to all that fun, there are lots of freebies handed out and yummy food to eat.  Boy, it would be so fun to do one of these classes with you girls! Someday... :)

Not to toot my own horn or anything...but I really love the colors I picked out.

The purple especially.

I gave this quilt to Cambria for her birthday!

I really love the word fabric I used.  It has "New York City" words on it, where Cambria was born, and other lovely words like "love" and "joy".

I got the backing for really cheap at the Quilt-in-a-Day website.  I probably would have gone for a different background that matched better, but for the price & quality of the fabric, I settled for this one.

 Mary Christensen at the Shop did the quilting and she also was the instructor for this class.  I love how you can see the quilting really well here, Mary is so talented.  You can see the words "love" and "joy" in the fabric in this picture as well.

Isn't it lovely?