Our Big Day

The last couple of weeks have been really busy with life and work.  Last Thursday we had a big day – we celebrated our 10th anniversary and Carter’s 1st birthday.  It was  great to share a milestone anniversary with our son’s first birthday.  Definitely a day to remember!  We celebrated with a little lake party – little as in both sides of the family, which makes for quite a house full.  After weeks (or even months) of crappy weather, we got the perfect day.  My favorite part was watching Carter get his first taste of chocolate cake.  I had to convince him to try it, but once he got going, he just buried his face in it.  As you can see from the first picture, Carter wasn’t sure about all these people in his house.  He wasn’t crying, just a little unsure about all these people watching him.

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More on the quilt centerpiece – My Mom makes each of the grandkids a birthday party quilt.  Each year the people at the party sign the block for that year.  She has made several now (see here and here), as this is her eighth grandchild.  She designed this one and it’s one of my favorite quilts ever!

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Posted in Family, Quilting | Tagged , | 35 Comments

Mom’s Quilts

Today I want to share a few of my Mom’s quilts.  As I have mentioned in the past, she does a lot of pattern testing for me.  The following quilts are the ones she made during the latest testing process – so they are all from the book “Angles with Ease”.

The first one is called Honeycomb Bloomers.  This is the lap size option (there are 5 size options in the book).

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You may remember that the one shown in the book was a little smaller:

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Mom was a bit more ambitious than me I guess!  She made 12 blocks instead of 4, and she left the borders off.

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The fabrics are from my Artful Home Collection.

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You can find the kit here.

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The second quilt is called Cosmo.  It features my Seaside Cottage fabric.

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I would love to steal this quilt.  Not that I have a shortage of quilts around here, I just really like how this one turned out.

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You may remember the original quilt – done with “Happy Go Lucky” fabric by Bonnie and Camille for Moda fabrics.

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Here’s are a couple close-ups on the machine quilting.

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You can find a few Cosmo kits here.

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The last one is a quick and easy one from that book – it’s called Hourglass.

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This one is also done from my Seaside Cottage fabric.

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There are also a few kits left of this one here.

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I thought she did an excellent job  –  of both the testing and the making of the quilts.    Mom just redid her sewing room in an aqua blue and these quilts will look great in there.  I hope to bring you some pictures of her sewing room soon, as I know quilters love to see pictures of sewing rooms and fabric!

Posted in Fabric Trends, Machine Quilting, Quilting | Tagged , , , , , , | 16 Comments

Carter’s 10 and 11 Month Pictures

I hope you all had a good Memorial Day.  Ours was fun, but it was cold, wet and gloomy so we weren’t out by the water like we usually are.  In fact, when we were outside, there wasn’t a single boat on the lake!

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Once again, I am behind in sharing Carter’s monthly pictures.  With all the market rush, I missed posting his ten months pictures, so I am going to share both the 10 and 11 month pics.  Along with the pictures, I like to share a few of his favorite things and what he is currently up to.  It’s so nice for me to be able to look back at his pictures and remember when!

This shot is taken just before he turned 10 months – Back when he would stay sitting for a short time so I could get his picture 😉

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At that point, he was pulling up to everything.  Now he is walking along things.  It’s amazing how many things we have that are at his perfect height.

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If they aren’t, he just pulls up to whatever he can reach, then pulls down whatever he can get his hands on.

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He loves to play with anything that isn’t a toy – remotes, phones, cameras, iPads, my camera cover, even things that don’t look remotely interesting – as long as he doesn’t usually get to play with it – he is interested.  I think he is already showing that he has a shorter attention span like his father  (squirrel!!)

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He especially loves the vacuum cleaner and squeals with delight anytime you try to use it.  His eyes just light up and he hustles over to where you are attempting to use it.

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He also loves books with flaps or books that have buttons to push.  He doesn’t really want you to read them to you yet, as that takes too much time.  He wants to quickly turn the page to get to the button or flap on the next page.

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He has started playing with shape sorters and stacking toys.  He actually knows what to do with them, rather than just sucking on the parts and pieces.

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Other new things include his first stay at a hotel and swimming in the pool.  I was shocked that he wasn’t scared of the water or water slide.

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We had our first Mother’s Day

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He has two new teeth – the top two, which have been dubbed “hippopotamus” teeth.   The shot shows what happens when he doesn’t get his way.  He waves his arms back and forth while he shrieks or complains.  He is quite an opinionated little guy.

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He has had his first haircut – which didn’t go that well.  He kept swinging his head from side to side to look the scissors.  I kept trying to even it out, but it just got shorter and shorter, without getting any straighter.  I finally gave up and left it crooked.   Plus, he insisted on holding the comb.  Next time I will be prepared with two combs.  And maybe a sucker or something else to keep him sitting still.

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He doesn’t seem to like having his picture taken, especially right before nap time!

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Here is he after the nap – smiling and happy once again.

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(As you can see he is still drooling, with more teeth on the way)

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Plus, he is just starting to get to go outside and seems to love it.  If it ever warms up, he will get to play outside longer.  It will be such a nice change or scenery from being inside all winter!

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It feels like he has really changed the last few months.  We saw several babies at quilt market and I was reminded again of how fast this is going.  I don’t know if there were more babies there this year, or if this is the first time that I am paying attention to babies.  I almost teared up seeing them and thinking of Carter at that age.  I practically can’t even watch commercials with babies in them or I need a tissue.  I told Joel, “I don’t know what has happened to me!”   He simply said, “Carter is what happened to you.”

Yep.   That says it all.

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