Sisterly Love

Today is just one of those days when you have to remind yourself that indeed you will get through it and that they are adorable! One has a cold, won't sleep and is generally miserable (poor little one) and the other one just wants to eat all the time and has a lot of gas!! :) Lots of crying here and "pick me up Mommy" but I'm sure you can relate - we've all had those days. All I can say is thank God for cartoons and other distractions...

I'm crossing my fingers that I get some sleep tonight because Grandma is coming tomorrow and I can't wait! She will keep Miss G busy - yeh for Grandmas!

Dresden Blocks

November's block in the PTQB is for Sarah. She has requested each of us to complete a full Dresden which I've never done before. Unfortunately, I've been behind on making it but finally completed it this morning. I've worked on it in little bits since Monday night and mailed it out this afternoon. Sarah chose a variety of fabrics in aquas, greys and oranges on a Kona ash background. I love her color and fabric choices. I think they make these blocks much more modern using a traditional pattern.

Sarah put together a really great tutorial which you can find here.

First I cut out all of the fabric pieces using her Dresden template. You then fold them in half with right sides together and iron. Once that is completed, I simply chain pieced them sewing the top ends together thereby forming a Dresden.

You end up with a nice little banner of Dresden pieces that you have to hide from your 2 1/2 year old because she thinks they're hers!

Next, you press your seams open, turn right side out and sew each side together to form your Dresden plate.

Once you've made two tiny snips into each piece as suggested by Sarah, turn them under using your iron, you have a nice circle. Sew around the circle and the outside edges of your Dresden plate and you are done! Voila!

By the way, I am so excited to have figured out about image placement in Blogger. It always drove me nuts that Blogger would place my photos at the beginning of my posts and not throughout. Well, it takes me a while, but then I realized all I had to do was update my editor under the settings section. So much better!!

How did she know?

My daughter came home last week from her daycare with this picture in tow. How did she know that these are the exact colors I'm drawn to right now with quilting! I'm loving Kona sage and plum...two new favourite colors. Sage is absolutely gorgeous in person. There is also a similar match with Moda Bella Teal. They both match perfectly with Flea Market Fancy blue seeds (it was a hard one to match). Some fabric swapping friends and Kathy from Pink Chalk Fabrics helped to color match for me....very much appreciated! Thank you ladies!!

Heather Ross - Dogs for Swap

Heather Ross - Dogs for Swap
Originally uploaded by BlueberryGabs

I've been saving these if I had a baby boy, but as you know had another little girl in November. I've posted these on flickr in a swap pool, but thought I might blog about it as well. They need a home!

I also have some of the Heather Ross Equestrian/riding gear, Blue Horses and Fish from her Lightning Bugs & Other Mysteries collection.

I'm planning on making the girls some more baby quilts and am looking for:

Flea Market Fancy - Blue or green seeds (who isn't looking for them:)

Kona Cottons-(cactus, tomato, banana, coral, sage, mango, lagoon, bone, robin egg)

Anna Maria Horner Little Folks Voile - solids and in blue/purple colorways

My flickr pics are here showing you all of the fabrics I have to swap.

If anyone is interested just email me at jodym7(at)yahoo.com (gee can you tell I'm eager to get started on those other projects- I'm shameless, I know but I'm into destashing right now. I've been on a buying spree and need to stop!). Have a great day!!! Thanks!

Petal Pillow - Pic

Here's another view

Petal Pillow

I've been wanting a quick and easy project to spruce up my home. I've admired Allison's Petal Pillow (tutorial here)for some time so yesterday I thought I would give it a go. I loaded up one of my daughters in the car (of course it was a blustery snowy day) and off to the fabric store we went. I bought half a yard of cream felt and some thread.

While the girls had a nap (same time? Wow - never happens:), I pulled out my accuquilt and used my circle die. I'm really glad I did buy that particular die as I love all things circular when it comes to quilting and fabric! The accuquilt worked great on the felt. I was able to get in three pieces at a time with perfect results - not a lot of waste too. Allison's tutorial called for 3 1/2 inch and 2 1/2 inch circles but I just used 3 and 2 respectively. I definitely ended up using more circles than expected but in the end I think it looks pretty good.

I couldn't resist taking some pictures of the pillow this morning even though I still have to add one little piece of felt in the middle to finish the flower.

The finished dimension of the pillow is 17 inches with an envelope style back. It's great because I was able to recycle it as it was not being used and had some ugly fabric on it (what was I thinking:) Presto, new and improved and adds a touch of femininity to our living room. My little girl loves it and now wants a purple one for her room - go figure! I was thinking I would recycle another rectangle pillow in the house and make three little flowers side by side for her.

I was out shopping the other day and these kinds of pillows are everywhere - felted in different shapes and patterns. I kept picking all of them up and saying - wow, I could make that!

Why I Quilt

Need I say more? (she's 7 weeks old already!)

You can read about this quilt in this post.Happy Thursday!

Mid Century Modern House Block

Jacquie from TallGrassPrairieStudio is a member of our Pieced Together Quilting Bee 2 and she had requested a mid century modern house block for her month. I must say I was a little nervous about coming up with something as I hadn't made houses before....you can make them as simple or complex as you want them! She gave us plenty of real life examples of mid century modern homes which were really helpful. After a few sketches, I came up with this one - it didn't come out exactly as planned as I had planned a third roof line and a window but in the end, this is what I came up with (here's the inspiration photo). I had hoped the roof edges would have been a bit longer but I wanted to keep to Jacquie's request of making an approximate 4 inch block house. I ended up piecing improv style as the thought of paper piecing (which crossed my mind) didn't excite me too much given I'm a sleep deprived mama right now:) (6 week old baby girl)

I love Jacquie's choice in fabrics. I can't wait to get her book later this year!!! Yeh...another modern quilting book for my library!!!!

Breaking Out the FMF Stash!

It's a New Year so it's time to break out the highly coveted FMF Stash....ooohhhh my!! I've collected it for awhile now and have only used it in small quantities in my projects but I've decided it's time to start making those quilts I've always wanted. First up is Ashley's Modified Bento Box. Awesome tutorial! I absolutely loved her quilt and knew I wanted to make one similar for myself. I've made up these three blocks so far and am still going through my stash for colour choices. I think I'm going to need to order some more Kona Cotton which is a bummer because you know when you're inspired you just want to get moving!! I need to remind myself one of my resolutions was to be more patient so here's my first exercise in patience:)

Will keep you posted.