My husband is quite the baker – especially of bread! He truly enjoys making us luscious treats to enjoy. Here is his latest culinary conquest:
They look as good as they tasted – can you just imagine the SMELL that these lovely rolls make while baking? He has a knack for baking breads and we definitely love nearly all of his baking efforts. YUMMO!
I mentioned here about making the quilted Lovies for my second cousin’s three children. Over the long weekend, I totally surprised myself (and my family) by not only piecing the tops of each of the Lovies, I even quilted them!
I posted a photo of each of them to my cousin so she could decide which child received which Lovie and her response was very special to me:
They are beautiful…words cannot express my gratitude.
Here’s a photo of each of the three Lovies made from fabrics that my cousin had chosen as “her colors” before she passed away:
Each are about 28″ square and they are perfect as a special memory for a loved one. If I didn’t have the fabric that my cousin had already chosen, I would have asked the family if I could make them out of my cousin’s clothes.
All that’s left is whip-stitching the binding to the back of the Lovies and adding my tag! I know, without a doubt, that these Lovies will be treasured by both my second cousin and her children.
As I was searching through my stash baskets this past week, I ran into the fabric that a first cousin of mine had requested a number of years ago, to be used to make her a tote bag. As far back as I can remember, this cousin loved the Spanish style – her sofa was an antique and covered in a red plush fabric. Her dining table and chairs were the heavy, dark woods associated with a Spanish style. Her house was even Spanish style, from what I remember. Needless to say, when she asked me for a tote bag, she wanted it to be be in black and red fabrics! I completed the ‘bones’ of the tote bag (shown below) but then she asked me to add a zipper so it was still a work in progress.
My cousin then asked me to make her a baby quilt for her new grandson, who was to be born soon. Unfortunately, she unexpectedly passed away before the baby was born and even before the quilt was done. But, while she was in the hospital recuperating from a hip replacement…and then when she was at home recovering…we chatted often via Facebook. As she felt weaker and weaker and had a premonition that she was going to have to go back to the hospital, she still visited with me when she was able. She told me that if something happened to her, she wanted me to finish the tote bag for her oldest daughter, finish the quilt for her soon-to-be youngest grandson and to try to be available online in case her middle daughter needed a supportive ear or a virtual hug.
I tried very hard to keep my promises that I made to her. The tote bag was finished and went to her oldest daughter. The baby quilt went to her grandson when he was born and then I made another quilt (same pattern, different fabrics, additional borders) for the baby’s older brother – children of her youngest daughter. I also made a lap quilt for her middle daughter, so she could wrap herself in the quilted love that had the fabrics that were near and dear to her mother’s heart. I then offered to make small quilts for her oldest daughter’s three children.
Of course, disaster struck me before I pursued the last three projects – my dreaded MS diagnosis I received in December 2010.
I have not forgotten my promise, however, and that leads us back to searching through that stash of mine. Since I’m feeling a bit better and have some of my quilt mojo back, it’s time to get that to-do list better organized. Once I recovered all of the leftover fabrics that my cousin had picked out from my stash, I had a bit more than I expected – but not enough to make three child-sized quilts. What I decided to do was to make three quilted lovies. These will probably be about 24″ square but will include a heart in them, made with my cousin’s red fabrics and then I will use the black fabrics as the borders. Perhaps they will look something like this:
Of course, my biggest hope is that I am once again able to create some quilted love from fabrics that their grandma had chosen – and they can love on their lovies to help them through good times and bad.
As I’ve mentioned before, I designed two quilts for my foster mother’s twin grandkids – who are seniors this year and will graduate from high school next year. I already made a quilt for her granddaughter and now it was time to make her grandson’s quilt.
I have shared bits and pieces of this robot quilt already, which you can find here and here.
This past weekend, I was able to finish the gigantic quilt – it ended up being about 6′ x 8′!
When trying to take a photograph of a large quilt, it helps to have children who are at least 8’ tall…or 6’ tall. Since I do not have children that are that size – you get the best quilt photo I could take with the children I have to help me (standing on a chair and the coffee table).
The photo of this quilt shown above is not worth keeping. I couldn’t get the kids to hold the quilt so that I didn’t catch all of the furniture and their heads in the photo. I edited one of the photos that I took and ended up with the same results.
My husband actually came up with a brilliant idea and that was to hold the quilt off the highest part of our deck and take a photo that way. It was pretty easy to snap some photos of the quilt, though it did take my husband and all four kids to hold the quilt for me.
The moral of the story? Listen to the hubster (shhhh, don’t tell him that, though 🙂 )
My son came to me the other day and said that the button fell off of his shorts. He gave me the button and said the shorts were in the laundry. I told him once the shorts were clean, to put them on my sewing table so I could sew the button back on. While we had a few minutes to ourselves yesterday, I called him into my sewing room. I told him that his dad didn’t know much about sewing or quilting but the one thing he DID know was how to sew a button back on. So, it was time for our son to learn the same skill!
I explained why the toothpick was there (to keep the button loose enough for him to hit the buttonhole) and I started sewing the button on, explaining what I was doing along the way. Once I’d completed the first run of the needle and thread through the button, I handed it over and told him to repeat what I had just done, all while holding onto the button and the toothpick. I was very pleased to see that he not only listened to my directions – but that he didn’t even put up any arguments as to why he couldn’t do the task at hand! He finished two more rounds and then I showed him how to tie off the thread.
He was set – and I am pretty confident that if he has another button come off on another pair of shorts and/or pants, he will at least be able to help me help him with the basic sewing of a button!