Popsicles

There's nothing better on a hot summer day than an icy cold treat...

...unless it's a new quilt in happy popsicle colors! 

It's so refreshing, don't you think?   

Blue raspberry, lime or orange creamsicle... what's your favorite flavor?

I don't know about you, but I like to eat my popsicle under a nice shade tree so that it doesn't melt too fast.

That's especially important after a long bike ride!

Ahhhhh....summertime...

...and the livin' is easy!

Visiting the Neighbors

Remember this quilt? I was so excited to have rOssie contact me about featuring a picture of the Anniversary Quilt and my tutorial of how  I made the blocks. If you haven't visited rOssie's blog yet...Don't Walk....RUN right over there now!  She is full of inspiration, I'm telling you!! I love visiting the neighbors, don't you?!

Marble sure loves visiting the neighbors.  It gives him a chance to practice his mole catching techniques! 
Have a great weekend.

Anniversary Crosses

The Cross Quilt is finished! I ran it through the washer and dryer to highlight all the puckered goodness of the Warm and White batting.  Kona and Moda solids in green, aqua, yellow and white blend together for a fresh looking summer quilt.

The random quilting was fun and fairly quick to do on my machine.  Every once in a while I made a little blip in the quilting line creating what I'm officially calling my Organic Quilting.  I am loving how it texturizes the surface.....especially with this liberated style of quilt block.

The blocks themselves are fun to make. I created a tutorial, if you are interested in making some for yourself.  The blocks in this quilt all vary in width but are the same 10.5 inches high. To put the quilt together, I Iaid the blocks all out in rows of similar length, then beginning with the shortest row, I started sewing the rows together. I subtracted a little off of some of the blocks so that each row measured the same as the shortest. My quilt has 6 rows and is approximately 60 inches square.

The back is almost as fun as the front, I think.  Using leftover solids, I pieced two strips with narrow yellow pieces between green and blue. You can't see it in the picture, but I used the lower whitish strip on the edge as my label.  I loved the way that looks and may start doing that on all my quilts instead of sewing on a square in the corner as I usually do.

I found a wonderful, soft aqua print for the main backing.  The textured quilting really sings on the simple backing.  I love it.....and will definitely be using this quilting style again.

Picking a binding color was not the easiest decision.  I contemplated piecing together scraps of all the fabrics from the front.  Another idea was to piece together just the yellows as a flash of color around the edge.  In the end, I settled on ash grey Kona that I found in my stash.  I think it makes a nice finish to the edge of the quilt, keeping the crosses from falling off the edge, yet not competing with anything.

I couldn't be happier with the final look of this quilt.  I am so glad that I joined Joan, Heather, Jennifer and Amy in this project.  Be sure you take a look at their awesome quilts too.  The quilt is going to a happy home......Today is my daughter and son-in-law's 5th wedding anniversary.
Happy Anniversary, you love birds!! Hope you like this gift of love!

This is a picture of a picture, but aren't they a beautiful couple! I can't believe that it's been five years already.  I bet they can....baby number two is due to arrive in a few short weeks!