Lots of Progress! (Photo Heavy)

I'm made a lot of progress over the past week.  About a month or so ago I made a baby quilt as a gift.  I posted a pic of it on my blog and facebook.  My SIL's mother wanted me to make 2 of them for her as gifts for twins of her niece.  They will be 2 yrs old this summer.  I added a border on these to make them a little bigger so they could use them for several years.  

 They ended up being 52" square.

 I quilted a simple stipple on them.

 I did the binding on them Saturday morning and she picked them up Saturday afternoon.  She seemed very pleased with them. 

 I also made a few pin cushions.  :)  I did not make the pretty one with the tiny flying geese.  That one was a gift from a dear friend several years ago.  I use it all the time.  I actually made 4 but didn't get a pic of the other one.  These were all made from leftover blocks or small orphan blocks.  I filled them with crushed walnut shells.  I like the weight that it gives to them.

 I have a huge jar of vintage buttons that I picked through and used.  I want to make several more when I get a chance.  I think I would like to use some of them and also put several in a basket to display. 

 I also started a new quilt for myself.  I feel the need to work on a few things of my own between customer quilts.  I need this!!!  LOL! 

 These colors are not my usual so it's totally out of my comfy zone!  I guess that is a good thing!  My plan as of right now is 30 blocks.  I was going to do just a bunch of random fabric colors but once I started I wanted to do blues and greens. 

 By the time that I got ready for bed last night I had 10 blocks pieced.  I'll get better pics of it when the lighting is better. 

 I signed up for the Fat Quarter Shop monthly subscription of reproduction fat quarters a few months ago.  It alternates between Civil War and 1930's.  This is what I received this time.  Love them!!!

 This is the line that they are from.  It's not the whole line but just 12 each time. 

 These purples are my favorites!  I have been on a purple kick lately.  I need to make a purple quilt! 

 Other life happenings this week...  

Andrew's cash offer on the apartment building was accepted!!!!  He is very excited and this momma is very proud of all his hard work.  I'll post more details as time goes on with it.  

I was out shopping with mom and Chantal a few days ago and found a big cactus that I bought! Actually in the cart you can see two but we actually bought three.  We each got one.  I've been looking for one of these big ones for years and finally found one.  20+ years ago I had one that was over 6 ft tall.  I had over 50 houseplants.  At that time I was married to my first husband and went back to get my plants about a week after I left only to find that he had poured bleach in every one of them.  I lost them all.  The huge cactus was my favorite.  Anyway...that was a long time ago and I now have another one.  :) 

 Today my niece, Addison turns 4.  Hard to believe that.  :)  Her birthday party was Saturday.  She had a blast of course.  She owns my heart.  :)

 Here is a pic of her cake!  She had a beautiful Barbie cake and 36 cupcakes.  :)

 Hunter has been on Spring Break this past week and goes back to school today.  I will sure miss him.  I have always loved it best when everyone is home with me.  That is my "happy time" 

Oh and I didn't get pics but Richard and I were able to take another short motorcycle ride on Thursday while he was off and the weather was nice.  I think sometime in the near future we are going to get a GoPro to attach to his helmet to video some of the beautiful rides that we go on.  

Today I have a customer quilt that I need to do some repair work on and hopefully get it quilted and the binding done as well.  Fingers crossed that I get it done.  LOL!  The top belongs to a coworker of Richard's.  Her sister had purchased it for her in PA.  It's all squares and hand pieced.  Someone has washed the quilt top and it has came apart in several places.  The seam allowance is very narrow and the stitches are pretty big.  I actually worked on some of the repair work yesterday but I hope to finish it up today.  I also need to quilt and machine bind it too.  I'll post pics of it tomorrow. 

A gift and an order for two more...

I pieced this baby quilt over the weekend.  Andrew's first cousin on his dad's side has a baby girl due any day.  I still have a good relationship with most of my former in-laws and family.  LOL!  Anyway, his cousin Chris is just a couple years younger than Andrew and he's such a nice young man.  I wanted to make a quilt for the new baby.  I think they are inducing her on Thursday the last that I heard. 

 

A dear friend of mine sent me the Wing Clipper Ruler for flying geese.  I really wanted to try it out so it was the perfect time to make the baby quilt.  So much easier than the old way and they could put pretty close to perfect.  I put my back out over the weekend so it was slow going for me.  I got it pieced and quilted it yesterday morning.  I will send it by Andrew to the new baby when she arrives.

I posted a pic of it on FB yesterday and my SIL's mom (my brother's wife) asked me to make TWO of them for her.  She needs them as gifts later this summer for a set of twins...a boy and a girl.  So it worked out well for this pattern.  :)

Sunday, Andrew turned 26!  Oh my where has time gone?  Shew.... hard to believe.  I'm so proud of the young man that he is.  He works 100 hours a week and I've tried and tried to get him to cut down some.  He works hard and saves almost every dime.  :)  He and his girlfriend, Hannah were here Sunday evening after work.  I made him a Key Lime Pie.  That is his favorite and I make it every year because that is what he wants.  I also made chocolate cake for the ones that didn't like pie.  :)  

I mentioned that I put my back out.  I've been on the couch with a heating pad for a few days now.  I did get that baby quilt quilted but then I was back on the heating pad for most of the day.  It's getting a lot better...not perfect but better every day.  So yesterday while on the couch I was on Pinterest way too much.  LOL!  I have so many customer quilts and so many quilts that I want to make and not enough time to do it all.  I'm sure we are all like that.  

Oh I started a new applique quilt.  I'm just going to work on it between customer quilts.  It is a purple tulip design.   The blocks are 22" so they are big.  I have one pressed on the background with heat-n-bond but haven't stitched it down yet.  I'll post a pic of that tomorrow.  

Before I close I want to thank everyone for the wonderful comments about my published quilting.  A few of you were "noreply" so I couldn't respond.  It was a fun experience that I really enjoyed.  

Let's try this again!

So let's try this again!  :)  I really used to love posting on my blog but for the past couple of years it has been hard for me to concentrate on posting regularly.  So my New Year's resolution is to post regularly on my blog.

Here is a random pic of a custom T-Shirt quilt that I made for a customer and dear friend.  This was a birthday gift for her daughter.  I absolutely love making these T-shirt quilts for people.  

I have a ton of other customer quilt pics that I have quilted lately and I will probably throw them in on my posts occasionally.  

I recently quilted a couple of my own tops and I am so excited about that.  I will post pics of those soon.  I don't have the bindings on them yet.  I have a stack of about 7 quilts that I need to bind.  

I also have some exciting news coming around the first of February!  Well...it's exciting for me!  LOL!  It is quilt related and I will let you in on that in the next few weeks.  

All is well here on the homefront.  Richard is working today, Andrew is working today and Hunter had several of his buddies that stayed over last night.  Me.... I'm trying to decide if I want to go upstairs and load a customer quilt on the longarm or if I want to go back to bed.  LOL!