Tell Me a Story block swap

 Amy Friend from her blog/Instagram, is During Quiet Time.  These are the blocks that I made for the swap.

Once upon a time, there was a huge killer whale.  His name was Shampoo and he wanted to swim in the beautiful blue ocean with his family.  There was a problem though, he was in the confines of an aquarium.  As luck would have it, he was able to swim free one day.  All of his dreams came true, as there was his family waiting for him.  Off they swam together, as free as killer whales in the deep blue sea. 

Once upon a time there was a girl named little Miss Paisley. She grew up on a farm and loved doing her daily chores.  One of her favorites chores was milking her cow Bessie.  She would  take the bucket of milk to the kitchen and skim off the cream.  Carefully, she poured the cream into a little jar and screwed on the lid and put it in a basket.  Off she skipped to the garden where she could have some privacy.  She laid out a little picnic quilt and sat down on it right next to a strawberry runner.  Large, red, plump strawberries.  She carefully plucked the prettiest, juciest ones, put them in a bowl and poured some cream on top.  She savored every bite and dreamed of all the wonderful and incredible things she would one day accomplish.

Lola the llama thought she was better than all of the other llamas.  She pranced around on her tippy toes and showed off her white curly fur.  Lola prided herself on never having been pricked by a cactus needle.  "Oh, I'm so smart", she thought.  The other llamas thought of cactus needles as pins and needles.  Lola thought of cactus needles as safety pins.  

One weekend, there were some little scouts roasting marshmallows over an open fire.  They were laughing, thinking that they dodged the other scouts by sneaking away.  Little did they realize that they left their footprints everywhere, which led the other scouts right to them. 

Once upon a time there was a little kitty cat. She loved growing beautiful flowers and was so happy when it rained because her flowers became really big!

Once upon a time there lived a little cat who loved bird watching.  She stood in her garden where she had a perfect view of them in their nests.  One by one, the birds began disappearing.  To this day, no one knows what ever happened to them...

And that folks, is the end of my story telling for today 😊 

 

Stay Gold

 I’ve fallen in love with the most beautiful fabric that I just couldn’t resist. It’s called Stay Gold by Melody Miller for Ruby Star Society.

These fat quarters are so beautiful, Ruby Star and Cotton & Steel are my personal favorites right now. I also bought this two yard panel with designs from the designer’s past fabric lines. 

My friend Nedra and I are going to make this quilt together. The blocks are ver big, we’ve each made three when we got together for a sew day last week. We’re making the quilt below. 

The quilt is a little too big so we are going to make 4 blocks across and 5 blocks down. 

I think I must have 5 quilts in progress! 

Happy quilting and see you next week ❤️

WIP

 I've been working on a lot of projects, but don't have any cute photos to show you except the blocks on my design wall.

I'm up to date on the Riley Blake Design Block challenge, using Tasha Noel fabric.  I made another leaf block and another block with the heart in the center.  I made use the duplicates on the back of the quilt. I have 8 blocks completed, so halfway there.  The blocks are released every Tuesday, except for the last Tuesday of the month.

I'm also making the Heartfelt blocks from Fat Quarter shop. I had a fat quarter bundle of "Just Red" by Zen Chic and have been looking for something special to make with it.  I am using the beautiful Corey Yoder background just like the pattern.  

I'm also enjoying the 31 days of Amy's Creative Side's Instagram quilt fest.  Sometimes it's a little challenging finding the photo, but it's so much fun seeing what other people write about.

Have a great Quilty week!

A Christmas Carol

I found this blog a few years ago and have been dying to make some of these ornaments.  I showed them to two of my daughters and they loved them too!  My daughters love The Christmas Carol so that is the series we are making, The Ebenezer series.  Below is Mr. Marley, he is only about 4" tall. I really love the embroidery and beadwork, it's very relaxing to just sit and do some handwork.

 

After I complete this series which consists of Scrooge, and the ghost of Christmas past, present and future, I would like to do the series Twas the Night.  It includes Mr. and Mrs. Claus and some elves.  I think that Larissa is still adding to her series of ornaments.  What first caught my eye, was The Twelve Days of Christmas.

Here is the link to her blog.

On her blog is a link to her Etsy shop where you can buy the patterns and where you can get the wool felt and other supplies.

These would make such great gifts too!  One ornament a year, lol! Larissa is also on Instagram.

Have a great week!

Temperature quilt

 I think this photo is so adorable!

My 3 little grand daughters only live a couple of blocks away, spent the night at our house last weekend.  So fun!

I have my temperature quilt that I made using triangles on a roll, on the footstool/hassock.  All the papers had to be torn off the fabric.  Neo, Kylie and Izzy loved helping do that and with their help, it was  so much faster.  We talked as we worked too.  They each have a project they want to do.  Neo wants to paper piece the "Book Nerd" quilt, Kylie wants to make a half square triangle quilt  and Izzy wants to learn how to hand embroider.  They are pretty busy girls, hopefully we will have time to get started on their projects during Spring Break.  

I'm working on quite a few quilts right now.

• Silent Night by the Pattern Basket
• Riley Blake Design block challenge
• Heartfelt QAL by Fat Quarter Shop
• Red Sampler by Lori Holt
• Tell Me a Story Swap by Amy Friend
• Temperature quilt by ME
• Twig and Berries by Stitching Tree (free when you sign up for emails from Hummingbird Lane quilts)

I think that's it, LOL!

Have a wonderful week ❤️

Quiltcon 2022

I've always wanted to go to an international quilt show, and my dreams were realized this past weekend.  Quiltcon is a quilt show where people come from all over the world to attend, see their quilts displayed, and teach classes. 

I live 30 minutes south of Phoenix, so to get to the Phoenix Convention Center, it was a 45 minute drive.  I signed up for one class, "Photographing your quilt from every angle" by Kitty Wilkin.  It was a 3 hour class and I learned a lot about quilt photography.  

I also signed up to volunteer, which I did for about 6 hours.  My first shift was  "white glove", if someone wanted to look at the back of a quilt, I could hold it with my white gloves on and show them.  A couple of ladies wanted to see how the binding was done, others wanted to see the quilting, and others wanted to know what kind of fabric was used. I kept taking off my gloves to take some photos.  There were so many beautiful quilts, I just took a few photos because it was annoying taking my gloves off and put them on again, each time, lol!  I would suggest going to Instagram and looking up #quiltcon2022

I thought this alphabet quilt was incredible!

This one really touched my heart.  It was honoring all the Indigenous children who were taken from their families to live in residential schools.  They suffered terrible abuse and even death. It happened between the 1830's and the 1990's.  Unbearably sad....

I also walked around, enjoying the vendors booths.  I bought some cute little Japanese prints.  I wanted to buy so much more but resisted the temptation!

I learned that you should go to these shows with a friend, it would be so much more fun!  I also learned not to volunteer for so many hours, they seemed to have plenty of people :). It was a lot of time driving time since I was stuck in traffic twice and $15 to park each day was a lot since I was just volunteering.

Next year Quiltcon will be in Atlanta and in 2024, it will be in Raleigh, North Carolina.  I would take more classes the next time too.

Hope you enjoyed reading about my little experience at Quiltcon.

Happy Valentine's Day ❤️

 That's a lot of bags!  14 to be exact...15 grandchildren but one is a baby so I didn't have to make her one because she wouldn't know the difference 😂

Here's the tutorial for this darling little bag.

I received photos for the above grandchildren :)

Jacob is 5

Ben is 9

Maisie is 11

I received a wonderful video from the grandchildren above as they opened the box and each saw their bags.  Bridger on the left is 16 and it's always so difficult to think what I'm going to get him.  I thought he would love the Dwight fabric from "The Office" as he dressed up as Dwight one year for Halloween.

These girls live a couple of short blocks away from me, so it was easy to get their photos!

Neo (11) Izzy (6) and Kylie (9)

Each bag holds a small heart box of chocolates, a heart bracelet and a squishy ❤️💕

You can bet that this little cutie will get my holiday gifts when she is old enough to know.  

Happy Quilting ❤️