Balloon Heart Quilt

I found this pattern a couple of years ago and I finally found the time to work on it. I hoped to have it done by Valentine's Day but I made it by the end of March.  It is still pinned to my design wall, so I can enjoy it for a little while.

I did this a little different, I quilted it first. 

I did not follow the instructions at all.  

One I wasn't going to hand applique, two I wasn't going to work with thread going from each heart to the basket and then quilt it.  

Lucky for me I had the perfect color of variegated thread here at the house. I love King Tut thread, and so does my machine. 

I use So Fine or bottom line in the bobbin. 

I just did my wave meandering, since I wanted the effort 

of clouds in the background.

Here it is with all the hearts on.

From here I sewed on the sleeve and finished the binding. Once all that was done I added the thread to each heart to the basket.  The first gold thread I picked was a little too thin.  Plus in a couple of places I pulled it so tight it bunched up the quilt. I tried thin ribbon but I couldn't pull it through the quilt and I didn't want to glue it down.  Luckily I found some thicker thread in my closet. 

Here it is, I am so happy with how it turned out.  If you look closely you can almost see the gold thread. Double click the image to see it bigger.

Here is a close up!

I finished this on the day of March, so that is one quilt 

done for each month of the year so far! 3 for 3!!

Our Home

At the end of February we have been our home for 23 years.  In March we celebrated our 24th wedding anniversary. 

Needless to say our home has undergone some changes during that time.  Four years ago we had a big remodel.  I have been seeing pictures on my Memories on Facebook.  On one of my pictures the caption said, new paint for the soon to be guest room.  Little did I know in April that by November my guest room 

would house two little girls.

So Mr. B doesn't want to park on the street any more because, the second night we owned the new to us van someone came and broke his window.  So he has been parking behind me in the drive way. I park in the garage.  So it is a pain, to have to pull out his van if I need to leave before him in the morning.  So he is taking down the side yard and leveling it so he can pull in and park on the side of the garage.  The way he talks this will be a long process. 

So the first steps were to remove the bricks.  Our big boys helped him put them in and Bigger Bit helped him take them down. Our poor mail box is leaning against the wall and is very wobbly. 

Next someone with some kind of machine, (Back Hoe, I just asked Mr. B, what it was.) I had forgotten what kind. I wasn't here when it happened, removed the side wall and leveled off the dirt.  

The third step is a truck full of tree chippings to fill it in. That came yesterday morning and he parked there last night.  

Yes it is a two car garage but with a big son's broken motorcycle in it and four bikes and extra stuff there is no room for two vehicles. 

The street view.  Yes I can get out if I need to.

In the future, he wants to remove and rebuild the wall on the side and fix the mail box, nice like our neighbors and pave the area. Don't hold your breath hubby takes a while to do things.

In November of 2014 we planted a stick of a Palo Verde tree in our front yard.  I received the tree for attending a free class on how to reduce electricity use in our homes by planting shade trees.  I earned two of them, but the one in the back died. 

Here it is in March of 2015.  We were excited it had survived winter and it actually bloomed.  As you can 

see it is still a pit of a twig.

Here it is this year.  We thought we had lost it last summer because Mr. B whacked it with the edge trimmer.  I wasn't sure it was OK until I saw it bloom this year.  I was so happy to see this.  As you can see it is more than a twig.  It is suppose to be full grown in 5 to 6 years.  We have had it about 18 months. 

The only problem with trees that bloom, is the blooms fall off.  Here is one on the ground, it won't be a big problem now but when it is full grown it will be like yellow snow all over the ground. 

It is my second favorite tree in Arizona. 

My favorite is a Jacaranda.

Have a great day!

Scrapbooking

One week in March I decided to only do scrapbooking.  This is not the easiest thing to do in my home since all my scrapbooking stuff is in my front room. My supplies are in an old roll top desk see the original post on how I set it up. Of course the desk has gone through several re-organizing steps as I accumulate more supplies.   Other supplies are tucked beside the sofa and next to the piano.  There is no large flat surface to work on. I bring a TV stand in the front room to work at table height and spread out on the piano bench and coffee table.  And it is sort of a mess until I decide to stop. 

I am in the mood for another week of scrapbooking and I am tempted to ask Mr. B to set up one of our 6 foot tables and leave it in the middle of the room for awhile. 

Here is a four page layout I did of the girls on their Baptismal day. Look at how far I made four 12 x 12 pages go. On the bottom left is my binder with all my Kiwi Lane Templates in it, bottom right my desk top caddy, middle right my Cuttlebug die cutter and embosser.

These are the fronts of all the pages, which also includes the stories of the events.  I started with their adoption, baptism, temple open house, temple sealing and a couple of birthdays and different activities.

The flip sides.

Be happy being creative!

Christmas Stocking Update!

I haven't done a stocking update since last July.  I have been working on Little Bits stocking on and off since then.  I stopped all together when fall came because I knew they weren't going to get done, so no sense in stressing over them.  

Here is a picture of where I left off in July.

Here is how her stocking looks now. 

As you can see I have done a lot.  When I made the stocking for the other kids I would take pictures weekly but now I want to take pictures when I get a section done.  So it always seem like a long time until I see progress being made. 

She is loving it! And she is happy with all the pink I put in for another color that was used.  Because she loves pink.

I am going to show you what progress I have made on Bigger Bit's stocking since I am taking photos.  The last time I worked on her stocking was in May. 

Here is how it look last May.

Here it is now, I have only been working on it for about a month.

It is rolled up on the frame I am using.  There is a mistake some place in that donkey, but I am not going to fix it. 

Happy Stitching!!

Yo-Yo Quilt Update

I had a Facebook memory popup this morning on my feed of my first picture of my Yo-Yo quilt, taken five years ago today.

So I thought, yes let's see how much progress I have made in five years. Here is that picture. Just six little blocks and three with centers appliqued down.

I understand why I haven't made as much progress as I would like.  Something about other projects to do and kids. 

Here is the link to my last progress up date. 

I had 37 blocks done and 44 to go. 

I now have 38 and a half blocks done, since August of 2013.  But I have made a lot of yo-yo.  I have 17 blocks with the centers appliqued down and 25 centers just tacked on to the blocks.  I have a total of 81 center blocks to make and four corner ones, which the backgrounds aren't even made. They will have the opposite coloring of the center blocks. So I am still a tag short of the half way mark.  

Here is block 39, the half completed one, and the Yo-Yo's I have made on the last three car trips we have taken as a family.  I like doing this while driving it helps make the drive go faster. 

I guess I need to start doing some of this when I watch TV with Richard after the girls go to bed.  I find it too hard to work on their stockings that late in the day.

Here is my container with all the blocks except the one above. 

The baggies have sets of 10 in them, 

so I don't have to keep recounting them.

The pile on the left are the Yo-Yos I have made during the last three car trips.  The pile on the right are the ones I have made since my last update, August 2013. 

I think it is time to start sewing Yo-Yos unto blocks!

Happy Stitching!!

Another Finished Quilt

Have you missed me? I haven't posted a thing in over two months.

  I am grateful to all of you you stop by and visit.  On December 1st I noticed I had 97,670 visitors and I thought I should have a little something fun for when I hit 100,000 visitors. Well that must have happened during the mid-night hour and I missed it.  Because as of today, April 15th I have had 113,00 visitors. Thanks again to all you stop by and visit.

This quilt was on my list to finish last year when I was going to the Get R Done group.  Yes, my Pink Princess is done and sent to my great niece in Florida.  

Here it is when I was finished with the quilting on the frame.  I used pink variegated thread. 

I really enjoy this moment when I can say it is all done!!

Close up of the quilting. In this picture the color is my accurate compared to the one above. 

This quilt also has a label, I used the healing tool to block out my great niece's full name.  And the picture was taken on March 1 2016,  I finished the quilt on the last day of February. So my record for the year is, one quilt per month. 2 for 2. 

And here is the sweetest picture of all, my great niece, "Sweetpea" looking at the back of her quilt. 

I was originally going to make this quilt for my Little Bit since the Princess fabric matches a pillowcase I made for her first Christmas with us. The quilt is too small for her now, so when Sweatpea was born I thought it should go to her instead.  I found some fun ballerina fabric to make a quilt for Little Bit. 

Now For Some Quilting

Yes I have actually been doing some sewing.  

Actually it turned out to be a lot. 

This project turned out bigger than I thought it was but I am so happy with the end results.  I must admit at one point I was ready to chuck it all.  

It is a Twister Easter Bunny and a class sample. I was in a rush to get it done for Meet and Greet at the shop but I didn't make it. 

All the fabrics except for the background fabric. I had to cut 409, 3.5" squares.

Then sew them together and add a border, so I can cut it apart again and sew it together again!

Here the bunny is about half twisted. 

See how much small it becomes. 

Some were around row 21 one I realized I was missing a piece.  

I almost cried. 

That is where it should go!

I was so relieved I found it.  It had been hiding in that pile of blue waste squares.  I am planning on making a small bunny out of those left over waste squares.

Here is the backside of the bunny, yup there are a lot of seams.  This is one of the few projects where I press my seams open.  

The mini clover iron helps a lot. 

The bunny is still on my frame here, I had just finished the quilting. Before I arrived at this point I had basted it and was quilting it on my table top machine.  The quilting was pure ugly.  The fabric had started to bunch up and wasn't laying flat.  So I spent three hours ripping out the quilting and decided to quilt it on my frame.  

I am so glad I did!! It turned out so much better!!

A close up of the quilting.  I actually changed the thread three times on this project, the first time I had done that on a frame quilt.  

I was so happy to have it all done!  The binding was on the sleeve was on!  Than I realized I didn't do the whiskers.  Luckily I noticed they weren't on before I took it to the quilt shop to hang up as a class sample. 

Now he is done, with his little whiskers!!

This little guy kept me busy! Now on to other stuff. 

Fun in the Snow

On New Year's Eve Mr. B had off from work so we took a day trip to find some snow in Northern Arizona.  We found some up on the Rim around Wood's Canyon Lake.  There were a few people there but we had our little section to ourselves.  We don't have a lot of winter cloths but we make do with what we have.  It is also called layers!  We wear lots of layers.  The girls even bought extra pants, shoes and socks to change into, without being told.  They remembered from our last trip when we had to stop in Wal-Mart and buy them new jeans. 

The first thing Little Bit does is lay down and make a snow angel. 

Yes she has rubber gloves on over her knit gloves in hopes to keep her hands dry and a little warmer.

Little Bit found this log that had been covered with snow, that had been packed down and made the little hill there a little bigger and she started sliding down it.  Those were brand new blue jeans she had one and her undies had a very dark blue dye on them when I went to do the laundry. Actually both girls had the same dye stains. 

Here is Bigger Bit trying it out. 

Mr. B. found this piece of broken plastic sled and the girls started using that to slid down the little hill.  Boy did it help make them go fast.  They had a blast!!

That is Bigger Bit all the way down at the bottom. 

There goes Little Bit!  So fun to hear them squeal in delight. 

Mr. B took some pictures of them in an igloo they had found and built up a little but they are on his phone.  I was freezing and sat in the car for a while to warm up, so I missed it.

That is one of the nice things about Arizona, you can go a couple of hours away and find different weather. 

That evening the us girls went to a friend's home and they had some small fireworks to exploded, so it was a fun way to end the year. 

Happy Day to all.