I love it!

Isn't it adorable! My daughter did it - she's learning to do digital art. I think it's too cute. I'm going to put it on my side bar.

Happy Graduation!

What a week we had! Our beautiful daughter graduated from high school a week ago yesterday. It was quite an adventure. I took most of the week off from work, and it was a good thing. Our good friend came in from Phoenix and from Wednesday morning on it was go, go, go. Actually, from Tuesday evening on it was crazy, because after picking Grace up on the last day of classes, we got in a wreck on the way home! We were just about to turn into our neighborhood when we were hit by someone who wanted to be in the same lane we were in! We didn't need the extra stress, believe me. No one was hurt, though.

Wednesday was graduation rehearsal and fetching our friend from the airport. We spent all day Thursday at a theme park! I'm not a roller coaster girl by any means, but our friend and our daughter are big time roller coaster-ers. My husband was out of town for the week at denominational meetings, but the bishop let him leave early on Friday for dinner here,

followed by graduation.

We're so proud!

As far as quilting goes, I'm hand-quilting my redwork santas. I've entered it in the New Braunfels guild's show in July! Yikes! I have to hurry! Good thing we're on four-day work week for the summer.

Design wall Monday

Here's what's on my design wall today - a gazillion sister's choice blocks. I'm trying so hard to use up scraps and stash. It's a slow process. It's also a good thing I like scrappy quilts.I had this basket with a bunch of miscellaneous repro fat quarters and six or eight small (like 4 1/2 inch) 9-patches. Using the fat quarters, I made a bunch more 9-patches, but they were so small I decided to raid the beige and brown stash and scraps and turn the 9-patches into sister's choice blocks.

I think I like it. It's definitely going to be machine quilted - too many seams for hand-quilting.

Check out other design walls at Judy's place.

A lovely Mother's Day

I've had a very nice Mother's Day and I hope you have, too. First, these tulips and irises arrived Thursday night. How nice to get an early start on the holiday!


This morning began with worship. Every woman present in worship this morning got a carnation. Pastor Mike explained that even women who have never given birth can be "spiritual mothers" to others they come in contact with. I agree. After worship, Grace and I took my carnation to a special place. Mom never got to meet her namesake, which makes me sad.

Then, I was treated to a wonderful lunch at a nice restaurant and the two nice people below gave me the beautiful bangle above. I've been wanting a bracelet with the fruit of the
Spirit (from Galatians 5) for years. Grace remembered and told Dave, "I've got the perfect gift for Mom this year, don't give it a second thought." Isn't that great! I love it and plan to wear it as often as possible to remind myself that the Holy Spirit inspires all those wonderful attributes in us - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. I confess I do not exhibit all of those at all times! I wish I did. Sometimes I don't exhibit any of them.

Here comes the ring-bearer

My oldest sister's oldest granddaughter is getting married this year - the first wedding among my sister's grandkids. My sister and brother-in-law celebrate their 50th anniversary this year. (That makes me sound old. Let me hasten to add that my sister was 18 when I was born).

Anyway, a few weeks ago she called me with a project idea. She wanted me to make a ring-bearer pillow for Randi's wedding - and she wanted me to make it out of her 50-year-old wedding dress!

I had some grandiose ideas of box pleats and set in piping at the beginning of the project but lucky for me she had a much simpler design in mind. She did want me to embroider the bride's and groom's names on the back. On my "draft copy" I tried that, but the chiffon top layer was too thin to embroider on and when I tried embroidering on the ribbon it made huge holes. So I used a gold fabric pen, which looks fine. When the next granddaughter gets married (there are 4 so far) I can add their names and dates if they want to use the pillow.

I hope she likes it.

Great quilting minds think alike

Two quilters whose blogs I follow posted about the same pattern on the same day:This Schnibble is from Quiet Quilter.

And this belongs to Carol of Carol's Crafty Creations. Do you ladies know each other?

The sew-in was berry fun

Last night, after feasting on some delicious vegetarian fajitas prepared by my clergyman spouse, I headed upstairs to the sewing room for some strawberries! I found the pattern a few weeks ago at Moda Bake Shop and knew I had to make some. I changed the recipe a little bit. I really don't care for sewing tiny, fussy little shapes, (and besides, I couldn't find my pinking sheers), so I used wool for the leaves. I'm going to put the berries on this little plate for a Valentine's Day decoration and then get them back out in a few months and put them in a green ceramic basket I have for just a summer display in the kitchen. I'm thinking of making a bunch for my sister for Valentine's Day. I have some red fabric with little swirly white hearts that I think will make some really nice berries.

I can't wait to travel around and see what everyone else did at the sew-in. Thanks to Heidi and Bobbi for gathering everyone together.