Happy Mother's Day

She keeps an eye on everyone in her household,

and keeps them all busy and productive.

Her children respect and bless her; 

her husband joins in with words of praise:

"Many women have done wonderful things,

but you've outclassed them all!"

Charm can mislead and beauty soon fades.

The woman to be admired and praised

is the woman who lives in the Fear-of-God.

Festoon her life with praises!

Proverbs 31:27-31 The Message

Love

The quilting is finished! Love it!

Yes, it's another Love Beads quilt.

This one features Amy Butler Love fabric.

Lot's of LOVE going on here!!

 Another thing I love.......binding clips!

If you haven't tried them, you should!

Love....guaranteed!

Straight Line Quilting

I love the look of straight line quilting.

Straight line quilting is easy to do...

Putting that crazy walking foot on the machine is the hardest part!

Straight line quilting is like eating potato chiips...you can't stop at just one!

Straight line quilting is a bit boring and tedious to accomplish...music helps.

 Straight line quilting plus Amy Butler Love equals pure bliss.

I'll show you soon!

Clotheslines

It's sad that I have lived in this house in the country for 4 years now and never used this....

 I even have one of these.......

 to hold some of these....

 So I could have been doing this......

 and even this!

Am I the only one who's been avoiding a clothesline for so long? 

This quilt reminds me of what else I need to be doing!

Weekend Stitching

In between helping my son's family move to a new home over the weekend,

 I had some fun in my sewing room...

 Little Jane is teething and in need of some cute new bibs.

 Hopefully, little Janie Sue will feel very stylish wearing

 Sherbet Pips and Denise Schmidt!

It was fun to add a little decoration to the front of each bib.

I made the pattern by tracing a purchased bib 

and adding seam allowances.

 I like to use a snap as a closure on the back, rather than velcro.

 Flannel makes an absorbent backing.

 I also had a couple of Bee Blocks for April to finish up.

This wonky star for Andie, in the One Block Over Bee, is made from

 gorgeous blue and black fabrics

with white linen as the background.

It was my first experience with using linen in a quilt block....I like it!

 

"April Showers" fabric by Alexander Henry is the perfect background print

for the April block in the Calendar of Houses Bee.

Mary's tutorial at Molly Flanders was the inspiration for the cute house.

So far, 22 quilters have officially signed up for the

 I SPY SWAP!

There's room for lots more, so let me know if you would

like to play along and I will send you my address.

See this post for the guidelines.

I have a couple of entries that did not leave me an email address.

Plima, from Canada and Emily Sands, please contact me again

with your email, so that I can let you know my info.

Thanks!

Official I Spy Swap

Okay! Let the I Spy Swap Begin!! Here's the skinny.....

If you would like to be part of the I Spy Charm Swap, here are the guidelines. Please read carefully:
1.Leave me a comment on this post telling me that you want to enter the swap. I will then send you an email giving you my mailing address. This is important....leave me your email address in the comments if you are a no-reply blogger. If you do not hear back from me, then that will be because you are no-reply and I don't have your email address! If you are unsure...check your blogger profile.


2. We will be swapping sets of 20 charm squares, each 5 inch square.  You may send more than one set of 20 charms, up to 5 sets. Each set that you send to me can be cut from the same fabric. You should be able to cut 20 five inch squares from around 1/2 yard of fabric depending on the design spacing. If you send more than one set, please use a different fabric for each set. I will divide up the charms randomly and return back to you 20 different charms per set. At least that is the goal, and I will try hard to do that! (If you send several sets, please realize that you might get duplicate charms in return.)


3. Please send 100 percent cotton, quilt shop quality fabrics only. Do not prewash the fabric.
Be accurate in cutting the 5 inch squares. The novelty design should be good size, not tiny...it needs to be easily recognizable from a distance.Try to have the character centered on the charm as much as possible. Please do not send licensed designs, i.e. Disney characters, NFL mascots, and such. Be creative in your shopping...it would be great to not have too many sending me the same fabrics! (If you send me licensed or tiny prints, then I will have to mail them back to you....sorry.) See samples below and above...

THIS!

NOT THIS!

4. Place each set of 20 charms in a zip lock sandwich size baggie. Include your name, address, and email on a piece of paper inside each baggie. Put your baggies in an appropriate size envelope. When you take it to the post office and have it weighed for accurate postage, please buy and include the same amount of postage inside the envelope so that I can return your new charms to you. I will provide the return envelopes. You just need to give me the postage. Does that make sense?


5. The last day for me to receive the charms is May 31. I will email you when I receive your charms. If you are sending them from outside the US, please keep this in mind as it sometimes takes weeks for packages to arrive. I will divide up the charms on Wednesday, June 1. Anything received after that will be returned to you.


6. Several of you have indicated that you would like to swap pairs of charms so that you can play a matching game with your quilt. If this is the case, then I would suggest that you send me two sets of charms and I will do my best to return to you two sets that match. Let me know when you sign up if you would like two exact sets in return.

We've got fun ahead! I'll put up the pattern tutorial in the next few weeks.

Thank you for playing along!

I Spy Collection

Over the last few years I have made several I Spy themed quilts (here, here and here, and here)...all of them for my grand children and in different patterns. I've found that three years old is the perfect age to begin playing this game with kids. Younger children can certainly enjoy looking at all the hidden pictures in an I Spy but at three they finally have the attention span to really get involved. 


Because Lula is turning three in July, it's time to get busy on her fun quilt. Jane will enjoy it too, I'm sure!

Yesterday, I was pumped to get started....here's what I have so far..... If you are unfamiliar with an I Spy quilt, just imagine looking at all the pictures on the quilt with a toddler and taking turns saying "I spy with my little eye....." and then giving a hint, like an orange owl, or a pink bird, etc. Sometimes we use a little car or trinket to put on the picture when it is found.

 I'm really liking the pattern I'm using this time, even though it takes some thinking to keep it straight. My seam ripper came out at least once last evening!

I'm going to need 100 different squares for this quilt. Would anyone want to do a swap if I organized it? We would need at least 20 participants to make it work, I think. Let me know if you would be interested. I'm planning to do a tutorial on the pattern also. Meanwhile, I'll keep searching my collection for more possibilities!