Dad's Birthday Quilt

This year I'm making everyone in my family a little something from my mom's stash of fabric. Depending on what I find, some I know exactly what I'm doing, and others I have to figure out what she was planning. This quilt is one she and I had planned for my dad's Christmas present. We bought it when we went to Dell Rapids to the quilt shop there in Aug. 2010 when we were going to a cousins reunion. My dad sat in the car, so he had no idea we bought it. We cut it out at Thanksgiving, so mom could make the top. She got started on it and I finished it up and quilted it in March. My dad is a huge International Harvester fan, so much so that I have that song as the ringtone when he calls!

I did a huge meander all over it and used Thermore batting, so it's light. My dad is normally hot, so I figured a light quilt for the summer would be good. Mom had even bought 3 spools of King Tut to quilt it with. I used not even a 1/4 of one.

I added a label to the back, so my dad would know who made it.

The backing fabric is some she had left over from making my little bro Ed PJ's back in the day.

I picked up the green grass IH tractor fabric at the store this year and made up these two pillowcases for my dad using the leftover fabric.

I think he liked the quilt, but he was way more excited about the Ruger .22-250 that all of us kids went together and bought him. He even had to have my brothers go to Rapid yesterday so he could get a scoop and a mounting kit too. I don't remember my dad ever getting a new gun, at least in the last 20 years, so I can see why he was excited.

Dad's Birthday Weekend

This weekend we celebrated my dad's 63rd birthday which was Monday. Mikaela did lots of sleeping! Sunday morning she was smiling/sleeping so I just had to take a picture of her. Her daddy was sleeping too.

Sunday afternoon she took a nap with grandpa. I just had to laugh as she had her arms like this almost the whole time, which was close to 3 hours. Grandpa was nice and warm and he slept too!

Grandpa was holding her while I got supper ready. We were celebrating with the whole family home Sun. night. Uncle Ed was standing by me making faces at her to get her to smile. She loves how goofy he is!

My dad snuggled under his comfort quilt from Jen! It looks awesome and is so warm and cuddly. Thanks Jen for all you did making the quilts for my family! We LOVE them!

While my dad and Paul watched Mikaela, I was busy embroidering both Sat, Sun, & Mon. morning. I did a wall hanging for a friends baby. Since I'm not sure if she reads my blog, I'll hold off showing it, until received, but lets just say it was 4 different embroidery designs, 4 hoopings, and 4 perfect lined up pieces! Score one for me on Sat! Then Sat. night I downloaded 4 different designs for Paul and got them all transfered to ART format. I was doing awesome, since I've never done that before! I went to print and the computer and I had a fight! It would not work, wouldn't even bring up the program for embroidery. I fought with it Sun morning and most of the afternoon, in between cleaning up the kitchen. I left the dinner dishes though. Sun. late afternoon I finally did the dishes, went back in to check on the computer and the program was up, and it ran perfectly! I couldn't believe it. I guess mom was telling me to quit playing and do the dishes first, then I could have fun sewing! So I embroidered out the little and big designs on test sweatshirts and the did it for real on Paul's new neon yellow sweatshirt. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.
This is the small design on the upper left front of the sweatshirt.

This one is about 6"x8" on the back of the sweatshirt.

Then I put his name in the upper right front of the sweatshirt.

I think it looks great! He loves it too. With all the practice and making dad's birthday supper, I finished the back at 11:30PM Sun. night and went to work on the front two designs Mon. morning early before we left.

All in all it was a good weekend, though the rain kept us from branding. We also had a nice visit with my friend Erin and her son Daniel. They were home from St. Louis and we don't get to see them nearly often enough! The church was full of babies and little kids and there was coffee and cookies afterwards, so we got a chance to visit with lots of neighbors.

May Friendship Blocks

In May a group of friends and I started a Friendship block swap. Each month we make 2 blocks to send to two different members of the group, fulfilling their wishes for block type.
May was our first month and Jenn wanted a Wonky Central Park block. It was fun to make a wonky block since it's not my typical style.

Then I made this eight pointed star for Trish in Dark Purple. I just love this fabric and may have to get more of it.

Mikaela's New Horse Shoes

Mikaela got some new shoes last night. We're headed to the ranch for the weekend, so I made her a pair with horses on them. I fussy cut the centers, the bottoms, & the back side. I love how they turned out though I. not sure I have the elastic quite right. I didn't want them as tight, but they may be too loose.
We're going to spend the weekend with my dad. We'd planned to go fishing, but the river is flooding, so we won't be doing that. Hopefully we'll take a drive to see it, since I've never seen it this high before. The family plans to brand. I'm the official photographer, so if we don't get rained out I should have some branding pictures next week. It's my dad's birthday on Monday, so we'll be celebrating. I've got the cake stuff ready to go. I'll make it there instead of trying to transport it already made. I'll have pictures to show of his birthday gifts next week too. I made them a while ago but couldn't show them. My little bro Ed gets home this weekend from ND. He's home for 2 weeks and we're looking forward to seeing him again. So it's going to be a fun weekend. I'm looking forward to spending time with the family, especially my niece. Have a great Memorial Day weekend.
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Mikaela is 18 Weeks Old!

Mikaela turned 18 weeks old today. Boy does the time just fly by! She's starting to set up on her own, with a bit of assistance and loves to make different facial expressions. Her outfit tonight was one her Grandma Leslie bought for her. It says Grandma's Girl and is hot pink with a black skirt and pink MaryJane shoe socks.

She's not quite sure about this picture thing.


That's the smile I love! Even if I can't get my hands out of the picture quick enough.

We even tried on her KC Chiefs bib. It's the only baby Chiefs thing I could find to buy for our little girl. Her daddy is a big fan, but we live too far from KC to find anything KC related here. We're thinking of taking family pictures in KC t-shirts.
I swear she has my mom's smile/expression in this picture.


She was quite the poser! We took the KC pictures outside even though it was cool. She was much happier outside tonight! It was a beautiful evening. It quit raining and the sun even peaked out for a little bit!

Weekend Sewing

This weekend I got lots of sewing time in! Friday night I went to Groovy Girls. I worked on my blocks for the Friendship swap and showed the girls how to paper piece. It took me a bit to remember how, since it's been a while. I got Trish's block done and worked on some batik blocks. I worked on the hand sewing on a binding of a baby quilt too. We stayed out till almost midnight, but oh boy did we have fun! I'm trying to get rid of a bit of my batik stash. So I spent several hours pressing, cutting, and making a few jewel box blocks on Saturday. 
Sunday  I worked on this  block made from a Friendship HST swap I participated in last year. I love how the block turned out, but I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it. I have enough HST's to make 5 blocks. I think this would make an awesome wall hanging in a size 4" finished HST. At least I finally found a pattern I could use with my HST's from the swap.

Sunday night I whipped out this little mug rug for my co-worker Shannon. She graduated with her bachelors degree on Sat. and I wanted to give her a little something. She loves coffee and has her whole house done in that theme. I just have to laugh because I said I would never make a  mug rug, but it just seemed appropriate  and it was super quick and easy to make.

Last night I quilted up the camo and pink fabric and made these cute booties for Mikaela. I had enough fabric to make 2 pair, so I did. Only they are too big in the tops to stay on, so I'm going to have to do a little revision to the pattern. I think they turned out cute, but I wish they didn't have the pinked edge. They just look so unfinished to me.

Blogger Quilt Festival Spring 2011

It's Spring Blogger Quilt Festival time and this year I've been so busy I almost missed out. I couldn't think of any quilts that I'd made recently that were really special to me. I've made a ton of quilts in years past, but this year with the birth of my daughter and the death of my mother I realized I haven't made any quilts. It was a shocking realization! I've been sewing and quilting the whole time, just not making quilts. I've made blankets, shoes, burp clothes, pillowcases, and lots of other odds and ends, but no quilts. I finally decided I did have a quilt I wanted in the festival. This quilt is special to me because I made it out of my pink scraps and I hate scraps, so I was glad to use them up! I have a hard time using them. I was pattern testing for Gudrun Erla (GE Designs) new book Strip On back in Sept. of 2009. I made this quilt quickly and really enjoyed the pattern. It wasn't my typical quilt. In deciding what to make I pulled the pinks because my mom was a breast cancer survivor. She loved pinks and I figured I could give it to her. I made the top and quilted it up for her Christmas present in 2009. She received it for Christmas, just days after receiving word she had inoperable brain cancer. The breast cancer had metasticized into her lungs and brain. They started radiation and it slowed the cancer, allowing her to live well for a year.

I quilted it with loops in a dark pink thread on my quilt frame.

I even quilted my name into it, something I've only done on this quilt.

I made the label on mom's embroidery software and then stitched it out on her embroidery machine.


I put all my love into this quilt and it kept mom cozy and warm. The brain cancer came back strong again Christmas 2010 and she passed away on February 11, 2011. This quilt will always remind me of my mom and the strength she had in all the pain she endured throughout her 6.5 year fight with breast cancer.
Check out the other quilters on the blogger festival.

Mikaela is 4 Months Old!

Mikaela turned 4 months old on May 19th.

Darlene's 2nd Hannah Montana Quilt

I finished up Darlene's 2nd Hannah Montana quilt on Wednesday night.  This one went even quicker than the first one, since I had a feel for the flowers.

She gave me free rein in the quilting, so I did loops and flowers on this one. They are both going to little girls and I believe they are sisters, so I wanted them similar, but different.

The flowers kept getting better and better the more I did them. I found them to be easier with the loops.

I used a raspberry verigated King Tut thread.

The backing is a light purple. It shows the quilting a lot better and she pieced the backing on this one too.

Mikaela is 17 Weeks Old!

Mikaela turned 17 weeks old on May 18th. Her expressions are really starting to change and she's showing her personality more and more.

She's quite the poser!

Once in a while I can catch her smiling!

She holds her neck up so well and really likes being on her tummy.