Farm Girl Vintage, Mama Hen Quilt!

I'm going to tell you the story of how my "Mama Hen" quilt was born....

I made the quilt for my son Jordan's family.

Jordan built a really nice chicken coup in their backyard, which houses their chickens.
This is one of my little grandsons in their coup, he was a little nervous of the chickens, lol!

I thought Jordan's family would appreciate this quilt.

I'm a member of the Bees Knees, a Quilting Bee, and my month was September.

I cut out the fabric (all of it is Lori Holt fabric) for each Mama Hen block with some details, and mailed them all out.

This is the block that I made, red is my favorite color and I love the Mason jars!

Eventually, the blocks began to arrive, very exciting!

I was making a Country Fair quilt for my daughter Rebecca at the same time.

The block that my friend Nedra (her blog is Cactus Needle) sent matched Rebecca's quilt so well, that I used it in her quilt, instead of the hen with the star that I had planned to use.

So exciting, Lori Holt (her blog is Bee in my Bonnet) was in the quilting bee and this is the block that she sent me, along with one of her fabulous Seams Sew Easy!  for sewing flying geese.

Here are all 12 hens, notice the hen with the star that I made?

I think she's a great focal point.

Sinta from the blog Pink Pincushion, very graciously made me an extra hen, because she knew I was missing one.

It's the cute hen under the star one, with the wing upside down.

I just love that little hen, I wouldn't change a thing about her!
The little hen represents kindness and thoughtfulness :)

I used the trick of taking a black and white photo to make sure that the color saturation was even.

All the posts are a different print, and I used chicken wire fabric for the sashing.

I have a long, wide tiled hallway where I lay my sandwiched quilts to pin them before I machine quilt.

The border fabric looks like newsprint, which is often used to line the chicken coop with.

I don't really know why, I've just heard that!  LOL

I bought a class on Craftsy and loved it!

Jacquie Gehring was the instructor, she taught how to machine quilt with your walking foot.

I learned a lot!

I taped painter's tape from one corner to the other, to keep a straight line.

It's so much easier to keep straight lines on a mini quilt though :)

I used the little arm to measure my lines 1" apart.

It took 3 days to finish the quilting, and I really like all the little 1" squares.

Ta da!!!

I used yellow fabric for the binding.

Here's the sweet family who I made the quilt for.

My son Jordan, my daughter in law Kimalee, and their precious little girls.

 Reagan is 5 years old, and Paisley is 20 months old.

Paisley is named after me, we both have the same middle name, Louise :)

Jordan and Kim are expecting their third baby girl on February 26.

I wonder if she'll look just like her sisters, I can hardly wait!!!

Dwell from Simply Retro

There are so many quilt patterns, it's often difficult to decide which one to make :)

I love Camille's style and I love Bonnie (her mom) and Camille fabric.

I have a lot of it!!!

I chose the "Dwell" quilt, it's really cute.

I made the quilt for my 22 year old son Sean, for Christmas.

I don't really think he'd appreciate red, pink and aquas for a color scheme, so I went against my color grain and chose more masculine colors, sort of!

 Well, here are my little dwell homes.

I added 9 more homes than the pattern called for, because I wanted it to be a good size lap quilt.

I threw in some orange, purple and aqua,  I think the colors are very suitable for a young man.

I took a black and white photo to make sure the colors were balanced before I sewed the homes together.
 I see that they are.

I chose all the fabric from my stash, I love doing that!

I had to purchase the sashing though, because I only have feminine prints :)

The sashing I chose is ecru with a little wood grain looking weave of brown.

My friend Cindy Paulson machine quilted the quilt, she always does an awesome job!

It reminds me of "Oh Starry Night".

The quilt is backed with a super soft minky, a caramel color.

Here's Sean with his quilt on Christmas morning :)

Who's that beautiful young woman, you say?

That's Karina Ramirez, Sean's fiancee.

Sean proposed to Kari the week before Christmas, in a winter wonderland.

Kari lives in Costa Rica, they met online.

When Kari and Sean met in person, they hit it off immediately.

A spring wedding is planned, another happy day for our family.

We are looking forward to gaining another daughter in law :)

Quilty Fun Birthday Cakes and more!

It's Kylie's birthday today, she's 3 years old! 

 I made her a Quilty Fun Birthday cake, the pattern is free at the

Fat Quarter shop's blog, the Jolly Jabber.

Kylie loves little cutie mandarin oranges, she can eat 5 or more at one sitting :)

I made her this cake banner for her birthday.

I also wrote a tutorial for appliquéing the letters and adding a border, you can see it here.

This is the back of Kylie's banner.

This is cute little Kylie today, on her birthday :)
She looks very grown up!

I made a mosaic of all the quilty fun birthday cakes I've made :)

I made one for each grandchild, Lindsay is my daughter, and "Celebrate" was created for Jordan and Kim, my son and daughter in law. 

(Kim reads my blog)!!! Thank you!

The idea is that each child will display their birthday banner for their birthday week (or month...), every year.

If you want to see the banners close up, you can just search my blog for "quilty fun birthday cakes", I've posted about them a lot!

The ones without names, I made into a beautiful table runner.

It's really long!

I have an update for a quilt I made for Christmas for my daughter, Vanessa.

You can see the finished quilt here.

As an update, here's Vanessa and one of her little dogs Walter, with her quilt.

Sometimes it's fun to see who the quilt that I've spent so much time on, goes to!

I hope you enjoyed seeing some of my creations :)

Farm Girl Vintage Silo Barn

I made another silo barn from my Farm Girl Vintage book by Lori Holt.

The six inch block is called "peas and carrots", so I used green and orange fabric.

I bought a Craftsy class, it was machine quilting with your straight foot, by Jacquie Gehring.

What  a great class, I learned so much!

This is the first time I attempted crosshatch or square machine quilting, and I just love how it turned out.

I find it easy to machine quilt a mini quilt, because it's so simple to maneuver.

I made this mini for my friend, she loves pink and aqua colors together.

I used a Miny Moo back, it makes me feel really happy with all the colorful owls nesting in trees.

I bound the quilt in orange accentuate the orange in the block.

EOS lip balm Christmas gift

I found a great idea on Pinterest that I want to share with you :)

I can't send you to my Pinterest board, because it's a secret one!

Here is the link to Simple as That, making every day beautiful.

All teenage girls love EOS lip balm, so I thought this would be the perfect gift!

I priced lots of stores online and found that Costco had the cheapest price, and the balms come in a 5 pack.

Aren't they just the cutest?

Maybe you can make some for Christmas, they're quick and easy.

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas!

Not enough time!

To say I've been busy lately is an understatement!

I just arrived back from visiting family in Florida and Utah for three weeks, and my daughter and her two little children drove to California to visit us 2 days later.

What a wonderful time we've been having together!

We saw the sights in San Francisco :)

Saturday, my husband was scribe for 5 year old Maisie as she told him what she wanted to do for the day.

We completed everything on her checklist!

I was making the "dwell" quilt by Camille Roskelley, before all my travels and adventures.

I laid the blocks on the floor and took a black and white photo to make sure the contrast in the colors was pleasing to the eye.

I think it looks pretty good.

These are the blocks in living color!

There is sashing between all the blocks, and I added 9 extra blocks to the quilt.

I'm also working on a quilt from the magazine Love Patchwork and Quilting.

I thought it was a pretty simple pattern, but the cutting was so time consuming!

I love the low volume prints, especially the text ones :)
I really think they add a lot of interest.

I just have to sew the rows together, and will machine quilt a radiating circular pattern.

It will be my first time, but I bought one of Jacquie Gehring's Craftsy classes on machine quilting with your walking foot.

It was well worth the money, I highly recommend her classes!

Hopefully I can show you my completed "Dwell" quilt next week.

Wish me luck, I'll be sewing like one of Santa's busy elves!