Zazu

This is what's on my design wall at the moment. I have to sew the pieced border strips on and then three more border strips after that. This is based on a design found on Judy's blog. The pattern is Peaches & Dreams. I've changed my version slightly. When you go to Judy's blog look on the right side of her page and you will find lots of free patterns.

For my quilt I have used fabric designed by Tina Givens. It is called Zazu. I just love it!

Haley's Hearts

This is another decoration for little Haley's room. Just picture it in a cute little girl's room, not my dining room that has been taken over by other projects.

I used one piece of Therm O Web HeatnBond UltraHold in between two fabric hearts. You can't sew through this stuff so I didn't! I made a template that had tabs on top of the heart so I could sew the binding to. The tabs did not have HeatnBond so as to allow me to sew through them.

Really close up you can see I used a pink heart print for the binding and some white ric rac for trim. It was a quick project for a cute little girl.!

Little girl's room decoration

My little friend Haley is having a birthday this month. She'll be seven years old. It seems like yesterday that I was giving her bouncy rides on my legs when she was 18 months old. I'm making some fun things for her to decorate her bedroom with.

First is this fabric wrapped clothesline that has her name in fabric letters attached with clothespins. The butterflies look like they're holding up the line.

Happy Birthday Miss Haley!

Tamales!

I decided it was time to learn how to make tamales. My husband gave me a phone number of someone who had made tamales at Christmas and had her husband bring them to his work for a party. It must have been at one of my husband's supplier's businesses. My husband brought one home to me and I told him it was the best tamale I had ever had. The only problem with calling this woman to ask if she would teach me how to make these delicacies was that she spoke no English. I'm not fluent in Spanish. So, instead of calling this great tamale maker, I chose to go online to watch some videos on You Tube about how to make tamales. That was a great help.

I told my daughter I was going to make tamales on Sunday and she said she wanted to learn too. I then went about procuring all the supplies and ingredients we would need to make these tamales. I live in California and the ingredients are more than handy. You can even find the masa already prepared in some stores. I chose to make my own masa. I went online once again to look for recipes.

Our friend Bethany also came over and helped us make the tamales. We made pork tamales and vegetarian (cheese and Anaheim chiles) tamales. It took forever to get them all steamed. We played Cranium while we waited. One batch ran out of water and almost had to be trashed (Cranium got competitive) but I saved them.

I'm happy to say that our tamale making endeavor was a success! Bethany is pictured below showing you her delicious tamale!

Sophie Grace's Debut

Sophie Grace made her debut into this world today! She weighed 8 pounds 1 ounce and was 20" long! She is busy meeting her extended family. She is healthy and strong and appears to have lots of experience sucking her fingers.

Grandma and Grandpa are very proud of Sophie's Mommy! She did such a good job!!!

Run, Don't Walk!

Run, don't walk on over to Canton Village Quilt Works! Jackie is having a great giveaway. Some beautiful fabric will soon find a new home! Hope mine is the new home!!!

Bag Ladies

At the aforementioned quilt retreat my friend Jeanne and I made some bags in between our other projects. Making bags is what I call productive procrastination. Sometimes you just need to make something that doesn't take very long and gives you almost instant gratification. The eye glasses are just for perspective.

These are cute tiny boxy bags. The thread is again just for perspective. We have collected lots of charm packs over recent years giving them to each other as gifts from trips we've been on and such. These bags are a great way to use these charm packs!

Jeanne is a very prolific bag lady! Aren't these bags cute!!!

Retreat, Part Two

These are some more quilts that were worked on during our retreat last week. Above is a quilt that Janene was working on. It is the result of a block exchange. Click on it to see the beautiful dahlias.

Patti put these alphabet redwork blocks together. They are so cute! Her granddaughters helped to draw the owls and ice cream cones. It is further personalized by signatures in the appropriate lettered blocks. It really was precious.

JoAnn's quilt top finished! No matter that it was 16 years in the making, it's timeless.

Another quilt by Janene.

There were so many pictures that I took, it's hard to remember who did what. I believe this quilt top was made by Kate. Kate is our officially blind quilter. She has macular degeneration and is in fact legally blind. She is also a very prolific quilter.

This is another quilt by Kate. She used old phone book paper foundations for the strips.

Patti's friend Lou picked out the fabric and pattern for this sweet quilt top with the intentions of making a quilt for Patti. The two worked on a block together, sewing it the wrong way. Lou became ill with breast cancer and asked Patti to finish it for her when it became apparent that she would not be able to. Lou has since passed on but Patti will forever remember her through this quilt.

This is what happens when your fabric is so yummy, your machine just has to eat it!

You get a throat plate attached to your quilt top! Good job Katie!

Retreat, Part 1

I organize retreats throughout the year for a group of quilting buddies that have been getting together for retreats for over ten years now. This past weekend we had such a great time sewing, talking, laughing, creating, and giving and receiving inspiration. These weekends are pure bliss for me. The following are some of the pictures of projects that were in various stages of progress.

Here's Jane with a couple of the quilt tops she assembled. I caught her on the downside of her smile (sorry Jane!). She really was happy : )

This was an old quilt top that Jill backed and had our friend Shari quilt on her long arm machine. Shari does a wonderful job!

This is another quilt by Jill.

You just can't help but smile when you're around this happy quilt. Pam sure knows how to work with color!

This is a challenge quilt that Pam started and completed with binding attached and all. The only thing left that needs to be done is the hand sewing of the binding to the back and possibly a label.
Did you notice the fun zebra border?

Stay tuned for Retreat, part 2!

Baby shower fun!

First of all, I need to point out that I'm having problems with the way my pictures are uploaded. If I upload a picture after uploading one prior to it, then the second picture appears above the first when I want it below. I used to be able to move them around and put them where I want them, but blogger isn't letting me do this. As a result this post, containing lots of pictures, might seem a bit disjointed.

Last weekend we attended the Co-ed baby shower for our Son and Daughter in law. It was like no other baby shower I've ever attended! It was a Moroccan theme complete with belly dancer and henna tattoo artist! Bravo Autumn and Genna for a job well done!!!

Above is a picture of the pillows I made for the baby's room. The Baby's room decor is vintage. My DIL purchased an old fabric baby book at an antique fair and wanted to turn the pages into pillows. The middle of each pillow has a page from the baby book. The prairie points were done with a continuous piece of fabric. A new technique for me that I really enjoyed implementing.

This is one of two fabric garlands that I made for Sophie Grace's bedroom. Only one has her name on it. In the background you can see the large scarves that were hanging overhead. They were very appropriately decorative and gloriously shade providing at the same time.

This is a little dress I made for Sophie Grace. There also is a little matching headband.

This is a blanket (not quilt) that I crocheted the edges of. This is something my grandmother used to do and I thought someone in the family should still be doing this work so I taught myself how. I also made a burp cloth and a bib to match. The bib didn't get crocheted edging, I used ric rack for decoration instead. The flannel fabric has little kitties on it and the words 'daddy's girl' on it. The back is a yellow minkie type fabric with raised hearts.

Here is an example of the henna tattoo artist's work. She was busy working on everyone for four hours. She is an amazing artist!

The Los Gatos Creek runs right next to our host's home, AKA "The Creek House". It's just spectacularly beautiful. The perfect place for this special event.

So many in attendance not everyone fit in the shot. A good time was had by all! Sophie is a lucky girl. She already has a very large fan club!