The Farmer's Wife Quilt Along

So I have decided to add another project to my long list (check out the right side of my blog : )

But I'm so glad I did. It is the Farmer's Wife quilt along. Angela over here started it based on the book "The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt" by Laurie Aaron Hird. The book includes 111 quilt blocks inspired by letters written to The Farmer's Wife magazine which was a popular magazine in the 1920's. The magazine asked their readers the following question: "If you had a daughter of marriageable age, would you, in the light of your own experience, want her to marry a farmer?"

Ninety four percent of the farm wives said they would want their daughter to marry a farmer!!

Here is an excerpt from one of my favorite letters:

....How beautiful our home was! It was only of logs, covered in summer with a wild clematis vine. I told our doctor that after five o'clock on winter nights we became New York milllionaires for we had our easy chairs, a big fireplace and good books. We could not have had more in a mansion.

Mrs. J.E.F.

Valley County, Mont.

I am not a farmer's wife - far from it, but I love the letters in this book because they emphasize how simplifying ones life makes for a rich life. I'd like to think I've tried to do the same. I don't have chickens or cows and my vegetable garden consists of two tomato plants, but my husband and I have tried to simplify the best we can. We live in a very small house, we don't have fancy cars or take elaborate vacations. We Do spend time with our kids every day and I try to cook a "real" meal a few times per week. I wouldn't trade it for anything!

This is my first block, attic windows. I'm going to incorporate as many farm themed fabrics as possible. This has been so much fun to do. I love the process of picking out the fabrics for each block and incorporating the title of the block into each design.

My color inspiration is aqua and red with grey, red and pink accents.
Inspired by a few bee blocks I have recently made.
You can find the Book here , the author Laurie Aaaron Hird's website here, and the Flickr group here.

I had to throw in a few photos of my garden : ) My roses just started blooming!
I really am a farm girl at heart....................

I love having flowers from my garden!

Happy creating to you!

New project, finished projects and Sunny days

I started this a few days ago. My first Dresden plate block make with Katie Jump Rope Fabric.

It is pretty big - it will be a 24" pillow. I'm thinking dresden for my next round of quilting bee blocks I finished this teapot block

and this teapot block for the 3 x 6 quilting bee I belong to.


Despite the crummy weather, things are starting to bloom in the garden!

A Sunny weekend to you!

Has a month gone by already?

It is hard to believe that it has been almost 1 month since my last post! I went on a wonderful yoga retreat here at Harmony Hill on Hood Canal. Four days of quiet, yoga, meditation and incredible vegetarian food. They have a wonderful cookbook which I highly recommend.

I've spent the entire last month working on these blocks for a Flickr bee I belong to. It took quite some time to design the block but are now coming along quite nicely. I'm really happy with the way they turned out. Five down and one to go!
I've been making some new pieces with the sterling silver branches I had cast years ago.
Trying to use what I have since the price of silver has tripled since I had these branches made!
And I've been weeding and cleaning up the yard. I can't wait until the dahlias, roses and lavender bloom! The weather has finally been nice and I'm headed outside to enjoy it before the Seattle rain returns : )

It took forever.....

I've been working on this for a couple of weeks now. Not continuously but off and on : )

It was a pain in the - you know what - but I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. I may make six of them - teapot only - for the 3 x 6 bee I belong to.

The cup was inspired by Quilting Line and color

and the teapot was inspired by this teapot here.from Ayumi's blog.

It is lovely outside and I'm on my way out to do some gardening and prepare for my son Luc's 4th birthday. Have a lovely day!

Progress. . . . . . .

Hand Stitching

Originally this sweet little patch of hexies was made for the back of the double wedding ring pillow in the previous post. But I couldn't do it. I Couldn't put those sweet little hexies on the back of a pillow and just occasionally see them. So I decided I would make a pillow. Then I remembered seeing the quilt below in this wonderful book. Yes, you can see where this is going. As I'm writing this I was thinking I should actually count the number of hexagons in that quilt. Each consecutive ring include six more hexagons than the previous one. I'm crazy, I know, but it would be an amazing quilt. Nope, on second thought, not counting, just gonna go for it.

I love having these as a hand sewing project to keep my hands busy while watching TV in the evening. My original stack for this project. If this becomes a quilt it will definitely grow......... Wish me luck. I have a feeling this will take a very long time : )

My first quilted project

Months ago I started the Pickle dish quilt along from Aneela's website here. I have lots of the arcs sewn but I was dying to see this made into something. Hence the pillow. It is my first quilting project and I absolutely loved doing the hand quilting.

I doubt I will do this for the actual quilt though it is lovely! Happy Sunday and Sewing!

A Saucer for the Tea Cups

A few weeks ago I started playing around making some tea cup blocks. I like them so much I think they will become a quilt. I felt they needed a bit of relief, so I came up with this:

I'm really happy with the way it turned out. It is all machine pieced and was pretty easy to do.

I think it will make a pretty quilt!

I'm off to a quilt show in Monroe, WA. Can't wait as I've never been to one before.

Happy Sunday and Happy Sewing!

Traveler Quilt Block

This week I joined a group to help make a quilt for an expectant Miss.

Parameters were using some Heather Ross fabric and I chose the color Red. I tried my hardest to make it gender neutral (we don't yet know the gender of the baby) and I think it turned out well. It is suppose to be an "improv block". Though I did plan a bit so it wasn't done entirely by the seat of my pants. I couldn't resist adding a wee bit of pink.

The boys got along rather well this afternoon and I was able to sneak in this bit of sewing!

A finished bag

Yay! A finished project. I'm embarrased to say I started this one a few years ago!

I'm happy with the way it turned out and it is larger than it looks so it will hold all my stuff! The pattern is Amy Butler's Madison Bag. The instructions were great and it was really easy to put together

I Love the removeable flower detail. I used a mother of pearl button for the inside as well as a lovely little antique brass button.


Happy Creating!

Another Tea Cup Block and A Nice Little Surprise

After yesterday I really wanted to make another tea cup block. I love this one. The secret is hand sewing the handle.

I redid the handle on the original and it came out really well!
I think I'm addicted to making these as I am working on a third. Looks like it will become a quilt someday!

I had a nice little surprise lastnight. I was going through my box of silver chains and I found the necklace below. It didn't look like this. It was a sad little mess in knots - I didn't even know it was a necklace! Happy to have it as I made it and forgot about it years ago.



And lastly, a lovely little stack of fabric. I bought the solids today and love how they look with some of my existing stash!

Happy creating!

Playing

I had a bit of spare time this afternoon and decided to try out this quilt block. It is from the book Quilting Line and Color. It is my new favorite quilting book. The projects are very minimalistic and predominately white based. The quilts are beautiful - true works of art.

I'm happy with the block though the handle is a bit wonky. OK for a first try!


Here are a few images from the book.
Happy creating!

Another Give - away!

Check out Heather's blog for yet another give - away! This is the new line by Denyse Schmidt and I just love it. Check out True Up for more on this line!

A Giveaway!

Heather over at House of A La Mode is having a fab fabric giveaway. Check it out here

Good Luck!!

A Good Thrifting Day ! ! !

I had a fun day doing a bit of thrift shopping. Jay watched the boys and I was free to browse! I found two flat twin size sheets, two pairs of vintage pillowcases, 1/2 yard of lovely blue fabric and a few sewing notions.

The sheets and pillowcases remind me of the wonderful collection from Urban Chiks by Moda. Image is from True Up.

I've seen some incredible quilts made with vintage sheets and pillowcases on Flickr. Check out this beautiful one by Jeni. She also has a flickr shop and sells pieces of vintage sheets for an incredibly reasonable price.

The boys are busy playing with papa so I'm going to sneak in a little sewing time!

Happy weekend to you!

Portrait Series

I've been working on a new group of jewelry pieces I'm calling the portrait series.

I like to cut or saw a design into the back of the bezel (cup that holds the stone) to add interest and make it special. And my necklace will sometimes flip around to show the back so I think it is really quite lovely to have a pretty image on the back. This is # 3 and my second favorite.

This is my fourth and favorite. I like the thicker lines used by cutting with a larger blade.

This is my second attempt.

This is my first attempt.

Here is the front with the lovely Crazy Lace Agate Stone.

I Love my Featherweight

Ok. So I am the absolute lamest blogger on the face of the earth. Can I even call myself a blogger when I haven't posted anything since November?

Anyhow, we had a lovely holiday. Jay waded across a river to get our tree. It was beautiful and about 17 feet tall. (He left 4 feet by the riverbed and cut 4 feet off the top when we got it home!) The boys had a magical Christmas and were terribly sad to see it end. Luc kept saying "It is Christmas tomorrow" days after it was over!

I have been doing a bit of sewing the past few weeks. Mostly working on a few different quilts. Last year, I bought a Singer Featherweight for myself for my birthday. I bought this particular model because it was made the year I was born. I took a class on servicing the machine last summer but I never actually did any sewing on it.

Well...lastnight I decided to plug it in and I Love It. It is a wonderful little machine. It makes the most beautiful stitches and if so sturdy.

Here's to 2011, doing lots of sewing and actually finishing projects!

Jewelry Show

So I've been working on a few pieces to put in the House Show at Danaca Design. Some are reworks of older pieces. A few are brand new pieces I'm pretty excited about!

The party is this Saturday in the U-District and includes work from those of us that work at Danaca Design. We created beads that were fashioned into a necklace that will be auctioned to raise funds for a student from Seattle Public Schools to pay for metalsmithing classes at Danaca.

Check out the link above for all the details!