Valentine Pillow

A few year's ago, before Bradley was born, I made Valentine pillows for my 3 older children.  They looked a lot like this one. Same idea.

Well, Bradley decided that he really needed one. It was really all he could talk about for the longest time. What could I do? I couldn't disappoint the child. So I made him one too.  It ended up, though, that I was at my Sister's for Valentine's helping while their youngest was in the hospital. I didn't get to see his reaction when he first laid eyes on it. But Bradley called me on the phone to say how much he liked the pillow.  I got a kick out of him telling me that he thought the little boy on the pillow was him :)

In case you where wondering, the pillow says, "You suit me to a tee!"

I'm very happy to introduce my Thanksgiving stitchery! These are my girls. I stitched them for over a year. This means that they are sweet and I adore them.


I made this thing with the idea of selling the pattern on Craftsy.com.  I don't draw. That is why it's nice that websites like Fiverr.com are out there. I was able to find and commission someone to make these sweet maidens for me. I told the artist what I wanted and sent samples of the girls to give him an idea of what I had in mind. I love what he did. I payed him for his awesome work and bought the commercials rights. So now I can sale them as my own. 





It was about 7 years ago when I first read the quote "Thankfully Live within Your Harvest". I immediately fell in love with it. I was in a quilt shoppe, that is no longer in business, in Provo, Utah. They had the cutest Thanksgiving quilt with these little words lovingly hand stitched into it.  I wanted to use the quote in my own festive turkey quilt but never got around to making it.  Ergo, a teeny, tiny stitchery with these darling ladies on it.





I am extremely pleased with how it turned out. Plus, it was a lot of fun to make.

Today's quilt is one I made for my dear sweet friend Jenielle. I feel connected to Jenielle in so many special ways. I met Jenielle while I was a nanny. She was a nanny too. But her family also lived in NY. She was such a dear friend to me. One of my favorites. She was one of those friends that I wish I could take with me wherever I go. She is someone that you can find happiness and fun with whenever she is around. 



Jenielle lost her sister, Danielle, and her father to cancer within just one year of each other. I cannot imagine. 



I told her I wanted to make this quilt for her hoping it might help in some way. Not that it could. 



I had a lot of help with this quit. Jenielle's sweet nieces and sister helped me with photos, names and a poem that one of her nieces wrote and I desperately wanted on the quilt.

 Her Father, Monk Bailey, was the branch president of the singles branch that I attended. Damon was his first counselor. Monk was an amazing man. He was a loving and caring person. He had a good sense of humor. He was a very passionate man. He made a huge impact on my life and many others. I'm lucky that I was able to know him.

Here is the poem….it's beautiful!

A year to mark your start at birth.

Until the year you leave this earth.

Our existence fills but one short day before our lives are swept away.

A dash separates 2 numbers here and the difference is a life so dear.

The years with in that simple mark are remembered now with heavy hearts.

But we are gathered here today not to morn your life away.

But to celebrate the days that come and went in many ways.

And now that your mortal journey's through, I’m glad I spent some days with you.

We love and miss you here tonight but we know it will turn out all right.

Because our Savior conquered death we know we’ll share our days again.

We do not stand here and for you weep-- there is not death, but only sleep.

By Madison Houghton

I love the little hexagons.

Jenielle and her mom, Kristine.

"You are the finest, loveliest, tenderest, and most beautiful person I have ever known-and even that is an understatement." -F. Scott Fitzgerald

This dresden plate is not placed right. I did not do this. My friend that quilted this quilt had removed all the dresdens and put them back on and for some reason, unbeknownst to me, she put it like this.



I really like the quilting on this quilt. And think Mary did an excellent job.


And the whole time I was trying to take photos of this quilt Ian was photo bombing me.

This was a special quilt for me to make. I truly love this family. I'm grateful that they were such a wonderful part of my life.

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Merry Christmas, quilty friends!

What holiday fun is swirling around in your homes this season? I hope piping hot chocolate, wet snowmen, snuggly sweaters, off-key carolers, and crackling fires are all involved!

My quilt guild did a cup coaster exchange for our Christmas activity, and this is the one I made.



I really like the colors and think they worked out nice. They are both paper pieced and Damon quilted it.



It turned out Well.
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I can hardly believe it but I joined a guild! I never thought I would speak those words. But it's true. I did. And the really good news is that I haven't regretted it. I've felt welcomed by this group of ladies like nothing I have ever experienced before. I just know that I belong there.  

One of the many things I like about being part of a guild is the encouragement to sew. I have done a lot more sewing. But I'm getting behind.

Below are two quilt tops that I donated to my guild for charity. I really love this part of my guild. I was praying before I joined the group for opportunities to make quilts for charity. I really wanted to find people who needed and would really appreciate a home made quilt. I just didn't know how to go about it.

This quilt top that is on top is dear to me. There are so many pieces of fabric that I love so much and am thrilled that they made their way into a quit top. This top also has a lot of fabric in it that was given to me by some of my quilty friends. 

The bottom quilt top is combination of projects started and never finished or projects left over from other quilts I made.

I like the colors and think they go well but the pattern is all is disarray. I know it's just a scrappy quilt, but deep down I wish it was better.

The nice thing about unfinished projects is that they make it easy to put a quit top together in no time.

Today's lovely quilt is from a quilting beginners class that I took after being a quilter for five years. And now that I've been a quilter for eight I would totally do it again. Refresher courses are always good. I loved this class and it taught me some new tricks and reminded me of things I first learned years ago but forgot.  

I wasn't able to get any really good photos of the quilting. But I'm happy to report it was all done by me. 

This quilt now sets on my living room couch and gets lots of love.

Row by Row H2O

I have the happiest news ever today. 

I was one of the 2015 Row by Row winners!

If you didn't know, the Row by Row is a nation-wide competition where you visit participating quilt shops, they hand you a free pattern, and then you complete a quilt using 8 different patterns from any of the shops.  If you are the first to hand in your quilt to one of any of the participating shops then you win 25 Fat Quarters! 

Hooray!

This sweet, sweet lady that I'm standing with owns the quilt shop in Hurricane, UT. By the time we got to her shop it was closed. This couldn't be! We were on our way to CA and would not be back this way and I needed her pattern! Why? Because it was a easy pieced pattern and not hard appliqué.  Lucky for me I noticed the sign that you see right next to her head that says 'for fabric emergencies' and the number underneath.

So I called it and she came. She saved the day! I wish that I could remember her name because she truly was the nicest person.

One of the highlights of our trip to CA was this shop called M & L Fabrics Discount Store. It has all the name brands at a deep discount. I was in fabric heaven!

The top row of Sail Boats is from Main Street Quilt Cottage, Hurricane, UT.

Right below that is Quilt Etc. in Sandy, UT.

The row with the blue, green, yellow, red boxes is from Allen Drug in Malad, ID.

Damon quilted an octopus! 

The fishy row is from New Moon Textiles from Pasadena, CA. It was a paper piecing pattern. I loved this one. Such fun!

The one below that is from Scrap Apple quilts from St. George UT.

In this row Damon quilted a turtle and a crab. I love Damon's quilting!

The row with all the fish swimming up (I don't know what to call it…the school of fish one?) is from ETC. in Mesa AZ. 

We were there in June because our dear friend, Monk Bailey, passed away. We love the Baileys so much. Even though it was unfortunate circumstances that brought us there, it was good to see Jenielle and her mom Kristine.

The row below that with the green, yellow and orange squares is from Simply Quilts in Mesquite, NV.

Finally, the last row is from Tranquility Quilts of Cypress, CA.

All of my patterns were pieced. I avoided appliqué like the plague. I worked as hard as I could to find shops that offered pieced patterns and only went to those ones. It wasn't easy as most every shop sports appliqué.

The back.

 I was also able to use the sashing for almost all the backing. I had four yards of this chevron fabric that I got for free when I bought four yards of any other fabric from My Girlfriends Quilt shoppe. I thought that was a deal so I went for it!

Little Bradley is the lucky boy who got to be the proud owner of this quilt.

 I took my quilt in to Allen Drug in Malad, ID.  Since I used one of their rows in my quilt I got an extra prize from them!

They so graciously gave me this cute Tote Bag.

It says Downton Abbey on it.

That's how you know it's awesome.

My 25 Fat Quarters!

They let me pick the ones I wanted.

That was awesome!

I'm a winner!