A Sweet Heart, a Sweetheart, Playful Kittens, and a Blog Hop

This sweet little heart shaped mug rug with dark brown ric-rac edging is from a pattern called
"Be My Valentine Heart Mug Rug" by Amy DeCesare of Amy Made That.  I made it with lots of different chocolatey scraps of fabric and had a lot of fun putting it together.  If you click here, here, here, and here you'll get to see some of Amy's adorable renditions of her "Be My Valentine" mug rug. 

Amy also guest posted at Sew Mama Sew this week!  She created a list of her Top 5 Timesavers for Busy Sewists + Quilters and is having a giveaway to celebrate!  So hop on over and share your favorite timesaver!

I've always noticed how beautifully Amy and her sister Susie, of Susie's Sunroom stage their photos.  So when I finished my little "Be My Valentine" heart, I wanted to stage a nice photo too.

Be My Valentine Heart Mug Rug

  
At first I thought it would look nice to do a scene with some chocolate candies on the mug rug.  But... There isn't any candy in the house!  Then I thought I would just have to be happy taking a photo with a nice mug full of tea and a cookie.  Except... There aren't any cookies in the house!  Dieting does not lend itself to yummy photoshoots.  LOL  

There's nothing like a nice cup of tea

Hungry Quilter and the Goblet of Fire

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We got a surprise for Kaitie & Eden from a real life Sweetheart this week.  It came all the way from Ireland!  Sandra, of Studio Sew of Course, and I became friends during the course of doing a pincushion swap together.  She sewed up this adorable little elephant zippy pouch for Eden & Kaitie.  Check out the baby bracelet beaded zipper pull and the lucky Irish baby socks too!  
Thank you Sandra - Kaitie loved your surprise and so did I!

Sandra's Zippy Bag for Eden

Complete with "Eden" zipper pull

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Playful Kittens Baby Quilt

Eden's first baby quilt is coming along nicely. (I have three quilts for her in the works, LOL)  I decided to use an Allison Harris pattern, from Cluck Cluck Sew, called "Playful". 

What do you enjoy doing most?  Do you like to sew from patterns or create your own designs?  I love to use other people's patterns, just as much as I like to make patterns up on my own.  I think is is nice to vary between the two for a relaxing change of pace. Plus, you expand your skills and construction techniques by seeing how other people put their quilts together.  Allison did an excellent job with Playful"!  I ended up with all the seams pressed in the perfect directions for nesting the seam intersections between rows and blocks, which made assembly super easy.

First I sewed thirty scrappy Cookies and Cream Pinwheels.  One of them is twirling in another direction, but I left it like that because I didn't want to redo it as a reminder to do your own thing.  Yeah... I'm sticking to that.  Can you spot it in the photo of the completed flimsy a little further down the post?  I lost track of which one it was, but when I noticed it again I wondered if maybe I should have sewn a new one.  

Scrappy Cookies & Cream Pinwheels  

I cut the squares from peachy pink scraps to go along with rectangles in Heather Ross Tiger Lily fabrics.  Now I only need to quilt and bind it and it will be ready for Eden to use.  It's going to have a cream colored Minky backing.  Here's a picture of the flimsy below.  I'll get some better shots after it's all quilted. 

"Playful Kittens" quilt

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Blog Hop Time!

In another bit of exciting news: From February 9th - 22nd, a few of my very favorite bloggers are hosting stops in the "Craftsy Sweetens My Quilting Life Blog Hop"!  Below is Sandra's schedule of stops and they each are absolutely worth a look!  The posts, the fabulous giveaways, and the discounts are all Fantastic!  

Sandra, from Musings of a Menopausal Melon, aka mmm! quilts and Julie, of Pink Doxies organized this blog hop to celebrate the crush they have on Craftsy.

 

Blog Hop Schedule

Wednesday, Feb. 10
Judy at Quilt Paradigm: Review of classes "Design It Quilt It" and "Machine Quilting Wholecloth Quilts" both with Cindy Needham 
Helen at Midget Gem Quilts: Review of class "Creative Quilting With Your Walking Foot" with Jacquie Gering
Thursday, Feb. 11
Cindy at Stitchin At Home: Review of class "Quilting With Rulers on a Home Machine" with 
Amy Johnson
Vicki at Vicki's Crafts and Quilting: Review of fabric purchases:  Stonehenge Strips and Christmas Fat Quarter Bundle
Friday, Feb. 12
Zenia at A Quilted Passion: Review of classes "Start FMQ" with Elizabeth Dackson; "Secrets of FMQ" with Christina Cameli; "Help! How Do I Quilt It?" with Angela Walters
Jayne at Twiggy and Opal:  Review of quilting supplies: Pressing/cutting mat and mini iron 
Saturday, Feb. 13
Tish at Tish's Adventures in Wonderland: Review of classes "Dot to Dot Quilting" with Angela Walters; "Product Photography at Home" with Jessica Marquez; "Shoot It! A Product Photography Primer" with Caro Sheridan,
Anja at Anja Quilts: Review of patterns  Postcard from Sweden; 1 Hour Basket; Star Bright; Reusable Handwarmers
Sunday, Feb. 14
Beth at Cooking Up Quilts: Review of Amanda Murphy's class "20 Fresh Appliqué Techniques"
Preeti at Sew Preeti Quilts: Review of fabric purchases:  Kaffe Fassett Classics Design Strip  
Monday Feb. 15
Julie at Pink Doxies: Review of class: "Color Play for Quilters" with Joen Wolfrom
Sandra at Musings of a Menopausal Melon - mmm! quilts: Review of Classes "Machine Quilting: Small Changes, Big Variety" and "Free Motion Quilting With Feathers" with Angela Walters; review of fabric purchases: 10-yard bundle and fat quarter bundles; review of patterns:  Paper-pieced Snowflakes Snow-along

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This post was packed full of so many good things. 
Thank you if you read it through to this point; whew!  
Happy Valentine's Day!

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Oh Baby!, One Monthly Goal, & Wandering Camera

Happy Groundhog Day!  It looks like Spring will have no trouble in arriving this year.  Winter has been unusually mild here... knock on wood.

Jim and I are now officially Lolli & Poppa!  We became the grandparents of this little bundle of sweetness and joy on January 15th:

Eden James Ward - 8 lbs, 9 oz - photo taken by the hospital photographer

Kaitie and Eden and Zak are all doing well, for which we are very thankful to God!  They seem to be naturals at first time parenting.   

Kaitie and I have been playing with the camera and learning to take better pictures.   I hope you recognize the great restraint I'm using when posting only a few of them.  Heh heh yes, I'm going to be one of those grandmothers.  

Below are photos we took when Eden turned one week old.  Our whole family came to visit and meet her over a four day weekend.

Kaitie and Eden

Blecchh!  A boy bear... with cooties. :)

Kaitie & Eden with their surprise from Colleen

Thanks!

The last photo is of Kaitie opening a surprise gift, sent by my wonderful friend Colleen, who blogs at Fancy Foot Farm.  Colleen made the cuddliest bathtime apron from a towel and decorated it with woodland animal fabric, which was a real hit with Kaitie and with me too.  What a clever idea and wow do I wish we had these when our kids were little.  Thank you for the sweet gift Colleen! 

My sister-in-law Cindy crocheted the beautiful baby blanket you see in the photos.  She makes one for every new addition to the family.  Kaitie and Zak love the one she made for Eden.  Thanks Cindy!   

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More Thanks!

A few weeks ago, I was the lucky winner of a giveaway that Kaja held on her blog Sew Slowly.  I won a whole yard of fabric from the Vishruti Dev who has a beautiful Etsy shop called EcoFabricStore.  While looking at her shop, I could not help but order two more yards of Khadi handspun and handwoven fabrics.  The fabrics are simply gorgeous!  I'll let a picture speak for itself.  Thank you Kaja and Vishruti!  

All natural fabrics from EcoFabricStore

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One Monthly Goal

Well, it's time to write up my One Monthly Goal and link up to Heidi's party!  Last month I didn't make my goal of cleaning up my sewing space.  It's neater than it was, but I got a bit sidetracked, LOL.  It didn't help that we coughed out the contents of two closets into my sewing area.  

This month my one monthly goal is easy to choose.  I need to make a baby quilt for Eden!  Some grandmother I am, not having one made already.   These are the fabrics that I have pulled for that:  Tiger Lily, by Heather Ross.  I'm thinking of mixing in some Moda Grunge from my stash and making a stacked coins type quilt, but haven't decided yet.   

  

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Also starting this week, Soma is beginning her Wandering Camera Series, which will be the first Thursday of every month!  It's a chance to experiment with camera play and then join a party and share what you did every month.  Soma will also be sharing tutorials on photography and if you have seen her photos, you know this is very exciting!  We all take photos and we all would like to get better at it, no matter our skill level, so this is a fun way to advance our abilities and also to swap ideas and encouragement with others.     

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Thanks for visiting!  

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