Playtime

It has been a lovely, lovely week of vacation here with my in-laws in Southern Arizona. Normally I'm not a desert vacation kind of girl. Broiling temperatures? Sharp plants? No, thank you. But there's something about the little retirement community of Green Valley that gets to me. The summer months are far more quiet than usual since half the population heads off for cooler climates, and there's a peacefulness here that speaks to my soul. The light is incredible in the evenings at dusk, softening the edges of the landscape and making everything beautiful. Since it's monsoon season in this part of the world, we've also been having nightly thunderstorms. I love to stand at the patio window and watch the lightning flash over the mountains.

My parents-in-law live in a complex that is surrounded by small stretches of desert wilderness which are full of little creatures: rabbits, quail, ground squirrels, and the occasional lizard. I do my best to catch them in motion, but they're quick. I'm afraid all these vacation photos are taken with my phone -- I just didn't feel like packing the fancy camera this year -- but at least you get a feel for the area this way. You can follow me on Instagram to see more.

Every night before bed, my daughters love to go exploring with us -- "bunny hunting" they call it -- hoping to catch a glimpse of those soft brown-grey rabbits playing games among the cacti.

With all the playtime, I've not done a stitch of sewing yet, though I brought some projects along with me just in case. Maybe tomorrow. For today, I'll share a few projects that I brought along as gifts for family members.

These patchwork wristlets were made using Ayumi's tutorial. To speed things up, I left out the inside pocket and used precut mini charm squares from the Posy and Baby Jane lines.

I love these pouches -- such a fun, personal gift and so useful.

I also made a throw quilt for my brother-in-law and his wife out of charm squares from Glimma and Bella by Lotta Jansdotter. It's a very simple design in layout and quilting, but that seems to suit these prints somehow.

I backed the quilt in that wonderful IKEA print I bought last month. I really need to get some more of that soon.

As I sit here typing, my little bunny hunters have finally fallen asleep after another big day, tired from the night's activities and excited about tomorrow's trip to the Tuscon Zoo. I'm tired too...and so very happy.

Linking up to Finish It Up Friday.

Carefree

I'm going to be perfectly honest here and say that sometimes quilts are my least favorite project to sew. Don't get me wrong -- I love quilts. But trying to piece together something so large and feed it through my little home machine, all while keeping the kids and dogs from trampling it to bits, can be rather stressful. And you know those awesome bloggers who can show you closeups and even the reverse side of their quilting because every single bit of piecing is a thing of beauty? Nope...not me. But when I worked on my chevron baby quilt last month, this quilt block quickly won my heart. It's quick to cut, easy to piece correctly, and perfect for simple quilting.

For the fabrics, I used my California Road Trip blogger bundle for Tactile Fabrics along with some special prints from my own collection. I can't tell you how delighted I am with the way this turned out. As I was sewing this quilt top together, I couldn't stop thinking of the quiet vacations my sister and I used to spend together at Huntington Beach every spring back when we were both single teachers. Mornings on the beach, afternoons at the pool, and sunsets on the pier -- it was absolutely heaven, and the memories led me to name this quilt "Carefree."

The back of the quilt is a large scale text print from IKEA which I picked up a few weeks ago for just ninety-nine cents a yard. Now, of course, I wish I'd gotten ten yards instead of just three. It's bound in a pale orange floral print from Denyse Schmidt's latest Blossom Reel line.

From this angle you can also see the small vineyard we have growing over our arbor in the backyard. Fresh grapes at the table for every meal have been a lovely thing this summer. Since they have a habit of adopting my projects before they're even finished, I've already let the girls know that this one is going to be Mommy's special quilt. It's taking a spin in the dryer as I type, and I'm looking forward to snuggling with it -- yes, even in the 106 degree heat we've been having here in Southern California.

After spending a few weeks on the drawing board, my new blog header is finally in place. I had so much fun drawing an updated version of our little Naomi for the blog, and there's even a new blog button there on the side to grab if you like. Enjoy!

Linking up with Sew Cute Tuesday & Fabric Tuesday.

Lovey

It happened this week -- the thing I've been dreading. My little Mouse suddenly became aware that her room is dark at night and that darkness is sort of, well, scary. I've been in with her three or four times each night as she wakes up crying from bad dreams that she can't completely remember. Now she won't let me put her down for a nap without looking at me with those big, blue, tear-filled eyes and pleading, "Mommy, will you wock me and sing a song foh me?" So we rock and I sing and then she cries quietly when I finally tuck her in bed. It's the stuff of life that every child goes through, yet it still tears at the heart of a mother. To help her cope with it all (and me too, I suppose), I decided to make her a special lovey to keep with her when it's nappy time.

My friend Lori held a low volume print charm swap a while back, and I was so happy to finally dig into the pile I've been keeping in my cabinet. I mixed in a few brighter prints to balance it all out, backed it in an American Jane print, and quilted it all over with a wavy stitch on my machine. The binding is made up of leftover scraps from previous projects. It's a simple little quilt, and really that's all it needs to be.

I've always told my girls that when they're wrapped up in one of my quilts, they're all wrapped up in Mommy's love. Hopefully we can all sleep better tonight...especially this precious little girl.

Linking up to Finish It Up Friday.

Fireworks

This morning we went to visit my grandmother, and I brought her a quilt. She's accumulating quite a collection of Fabric Mutt originals -- every time she sees something new that she likes, she asks if I can make her a quilt just like it. When she was asking for a new lap quilt last month, I showed her the Thimbleblossoms quilt patterns that had just been released, and she immediately went for Camille's Fireworks pattern. These blocks are not hard to put together, just a bit time consuming, but the final result is really beautiful. I used Splendor 1920 for the fabrics -- gorgeous prints.

When I put the blocks together at the end, it was a little busy, so I added a grey stripe (for some reason it looks almost like a soft brown here) to break things up a bit. I don't remember what shade of Kona this is - I picked it up at my local quilt shop -- but I decided to use it for the binding too. Normally I hand sew the binding on my quilts, but lately I seem to be in a time crunch for so many projects that I've been attaching the binding entirely by machine more often. There's pluses and minuses to both techniques -- in fact, you can check out a great post about that topic here.

The back is all one piece of Azure Decodence. I love the colors in this collection -- it all has such a great vintage look to it. There is so much detail in these designs, and I start to appreciate it even more as I work with the pieces of fabric to assemble the blocks.

So last week Grandma got a look at the Heather Ross quilt that I made for the girls, and guess what she wants me to make for her next? That's right.

Is this the best hobby in the world or what?

Merry Christmas

Christmas this year has been a little more blue than usual, only in the sense that we all seem to be constantly coming down with one thing after another. At the moment we have three colds, two cases of bronchitis, and one ear infection. On top of that, both of my poor mother's eardrums have burst in the past twenty-four hours due to the enormous pressure that built up from her terrible cough of the past few weeks. Thank goodness for antibiotics and pain relievers... In spite of all this, we are still so happy to be celebrating Christmas Eve together tomorrow. We were all talking about it today, how the trials of life are just part of the package, and we learn to deal with it and go on. They don't have to steal our joy unless we let them. We're trying hard not to let them...

My grandmother saw photos of my Weekender bag last month and became absolutely enchanted by Heather Ross's market piggy. So much so that she insisted that I make her a new lap quilt with that little character at the center of each block. I've been making hexagons out of scraps at night after the girls go to bed, and I pulled a bunch of these together to make four rosettes, each stitched to a square of yarn dyed linen.

I used some fat quarters from Pat Bravo's beautiful Summerlove collection along with a Denyse Schmidt print as an outer border, and I think that all the fabrics work together to give the quilt a sweet vintage look. Kona Navy makes a simple frame, and I used a Joel Dewberry print for the backing. Grandma loved the quilt, which makes me ever so happy. And I have plenty of hexagons left over from my evening sewing, so I expect there will soon be a hexagon pillow -- or two -- in the works.

I'll be taking a break from blogging for a few days so that I can spend the time with my family. I expect there will be plenty of baking, playing, laughing, singing, and "Christmas traveling" -- as my Bear likes to call our evening excursions to look at the neighborhood Christmas lights. It's my hope that all of you will have a truly wonderful holiday with the people you love. Merry Christmas!

Linking up to the Let's Get Acquainted Link-up.

Vintage Holiday Lap Quilt

Hallelujah, it's done! Thanks to my darling husband who entertained the girls for almost an hour after dinner while I finished hand stitching the binding upstairs in our room, the Vintage Holiday lap quilt is ready for delivery. It was a lot of fun to make a version of this quilt that is so different from the one I'm making for the QAL, and now that I've completed this project, I'll be starting on the backing for my own quilt tomorrow.

When my grandmother asked me to make this quilt for her, she had only two requests: Christmas themed fabric and a green border on the front. I made sure to add both. Because this was a lap quilt, I dropped the number of ornaments from twelve to just nine and eliminated the inside grid of sashing as well. It gives the quilt a simpler look and makes it the perfect size for a lap quilt.

I love the retro prints in the Dear Mr. Claus collection by Cosmo Cricket -- you would think that they were truly vintage if you didn't know better. My layer cake was enough to make all the ornaments and part of the backing with plenty left over for other projects. I also used a green snowflake print for the border and backing, one of the stylized red and green ornament prints for the rest of the backing, and a red striped print for the binding that looks just like it belongs on a candy cane.

For the quilting, I returned to the wavy stitch on my sewing machine that worked so well for last month's baby quilt, only this time I sewed rows across the entire face of the quilt. I love the way it makes me think of ric-rac, garlands, and icicles...

I cannot wait to deliver this to my grandmother tomorrow. She's been one of my biggest cheerleaders since I started sewing and has often insisted on funding my fabric purchases so that I could afford to make the projects you see on this blog. Though she has no computer and very poor eyesight, she uses a magnifying glass to study the details on my sewing projects in the pictures I send her, and she's been so excited to hear about the QAL and all of you who are taking part in it. It has given me so much pleasure to make this quilt for her.

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend!

Linking up to TGIFF.