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Quilts For My Sisters

May 17, 2014 3 Comments

I have three wonderful older sisters that form an amazing tag team caring for our aging parents. Although I only live an hour away from them, it is not often that I am involved in their day to day care. I have a friend who refers to herself as a “Disneyland daughter”. Well, I feel like one at times… Anyway, since I am so into quilting these days, I decided to make them each a quilt for their birthdays:

Dear hubby is also a bit of a “Disneyland son”. His mother lives in Europe, and is cared for by his older brother. Perhaps another quilt is in order…

Filed Under: Quilting

Darlene’s Row

May 7, 2014 2 Comments

I have been keeping very busy lately. One of the things that have been occupying my time has been our Quilting groups row by row project. Here is one I did for Darlene. Her theme is “Stars”. I found this most wonderful Crane Star block. I made two Crane Star blocks, and combined them with six 9″ star blocks to complete the double rows. It was my first attempt at paper piecing – lots of mistakes, and lots of fun:

Filed Under: Quilting

Pillows & Tomatoes

April 23, 2014 4 Comments

It was way past time to switch out my family room couch slip covers from the holiday red to a spring/summery cool off white. After doing so, I realized it needed a pop of color. So, I decided to make new slip covers for the pillows. It may be a bit flowery for dear hubby, but I like them:

I even added some butterflies, a dragonfly, and a ladybug for some whimsy.

And my neighbor who owns SunnysideLOCAL Nursery, kindly gifted me with these heirloom tomato plants. Here they are with Hiro:

Filed Under: Garden 2014, Projects And Interests, Quilting

Shoe Shopping And Antiquing

April 13, 2014 3 Comments

Dear Hubby decided it was time to go and get some new shoes. This entails driving to the outlet malls and looking through various shoe shops, and Electronics shops as well… So, the ever supportive wife that I am, I decided to tag along. I am not the stereotypical woman; I am not into shoes. Anyway, after much patience, going in and out of different shops, we were finished – yay! The best part came on the drive home. We stopped by some Antique stores, and I picked up a few things. A family of cute vintage ceramic bunnies, six vintage orange juice cups, and a Little Kiddles doll. I love everything orange since we live in a small grove. and the Little Kiddles doll reminded me of my childhood. Oh, and I did get a pair of new sandals too 🙂

Filed Under: Outings And Adventures

April Garden 2014 And Update

April 9, 2014 1 Comment

I went out to my garden, thinking what I wanted to plant, and beheld this beautiful sight. My artichoke plant from last year had flowered! So beautiful!

And there are more on the way. Not sure if I should harvest them, or just let them flower:

And, I have been very busy sewing away. I have two days rental of a long arm machine coming up. Here are some scraps from my current projects – gifts for some very special people:

Filed Under: Garden 2014, Quilting

Photomask Freebie #21

April 1, 2014 9 Comments

I was playing around with Photoshop and made this mask – flower themed, for spring:

Filed Under: Scrapbook Freebies, Scrapbooking

Show And Tell

March 31, 2014 4 Comments

While dear daughter was home on spring break, she crocheted this adorable elephant for her friends birthday gift. I encouraged her to make more and I would put it in her Etsy shop. She is just like her mother… she prefers to make things and give them away as gifts rather than sell them.

Dear hubby and I attended our friends Rotary Club fundraiser at the Country Club. Look what I won at the silent auction – a basket full of natural wool items! It even came with a bar of goats milk soap, hand knitted mohair scarf, and a gift certificate for a free lesson. I think I’m going to take the spinning class:

Filed Under: Crafting, Cutie Pie Misfits

March Garden 2014 And Update

March 29, 2014 1 Comment

I have been so neglecting my blog lately… But, I really want to keep up my monthly garden updates. So, spring is here (It seems like we missed winter altogether) and this photo best describes what’s going on in our garden. Our grove is filled with the wonderful scent of orange blossoms!

I also worked on our group row by row quilt projects. Ellie’s is the blue winter scene, and Kandi’s is the red/white/blue patriotic row. I found the ideas for both rows on Pinterest? and also in a book I own:

And, dear daughter home for spring break got a new Thinkpad. She asked me to make a cover for it. After rummaging through some fat quarters, she picked this pretty pink fabric:

Filed Under: Garden 2014, Quilting

February Garden 2014

February 28, 2014 5 Comments

Just getting in a quick post on my monthly garden. It’s finally raining here in Southern California! No photos of the rain, but I took a few during the month. After visiting a local nursery, guess who came home with me? I think our dog Hiro is not convinced. He eyed the newcomers with suspicion… but I have always wanted kitschy pink flamingos, and I am happy to say that I finally got them!

After multiple irrigation system repairs and our dear passion fruit vine being choked out, we finally had the banana trees removed. I replaced them with several varieties of lavender, a pygmy date palm, and a few other plants I forgot the names of. It looks sparse right now, but the yard seems to have opened up, and we can see the mountains in the distance again from our family room windows. Oh, and I was able to find another passion fruit vine – yay!

Filed Under: Garden 2014

Row By Row Quilt Exchange

February 22, 2014 2 Comments

Boy, time does fly. It seems ages since I last posted. Well, I have been keeping very busy with one thing or another.

One of the quilt groups I belong to is doing a row by row quilt exchange. We each picked a theme, created one row, and passed it on to the others to complete. It is a challenge since many of us have very differing tastes, and we have to create rows we would ordinarily not choose for ourselves. I chose the theme “houses, flowers, & blocks”. I made my rows from blocks found in the book Applique Quilt Revival. Can you tell I’m into ’30s vintage?

And here is a row I did for my friend Donna. Actually, I did two rows, since I wanted to incorporate the vintage Santa Panel I had. Donna chose the theme Vintage Christmas. I loved how the rows came out. I found another vintage Santa panel on Ebay, so I can make a similar quilt for myself one day – another quilt added to my long list of “want to make” quilts.

Filed Under: Quilting

January Garden And Update

January 30, 2014 3 Comments

It seems unimaginable that the rest of the country is having such severe weather. Here, it’s like spring/summer. For this months garden post, I took a few shots of my front yard and spliced them together. My gardener is helping with a lot of yard clean up. Today, I went to several nurseries to find some plants – more on that later.

I also went to my very first Quilt Show, Road To California, which took place in the city of Ontario, not too far from my house. It was an amazing experience! The crowd got to me a bit, but I found some really nice things. I took dear hubby on another day to see my latest ~~madness~~ passion. I also wanted him to see the long arm machines – planting the seed for possible future purchase… He actually found the machines, especially the computerized ones fascinating, the quilts, not so much.

I also met a very nice woman demonstrating one of the long arm machines who turned out to be an author of quilt books. Dear hubby bought me two of her books, and she even signed them for me!

And finally, I had to add this photo – only at a Quilting Convention, attended by mostly older women. All the men’s bathrooms converted temporarily into women’s bathrooms 🙂

Filed Under: Garden 2014, Quilting

Happy Birthday Nona!

January 18, 2014 3 Comments

Today is my dear mother-in-law’s 90th birthday. Happy Birthday mama! I hope you have a wonderful day! Thank you for raising such an amazing son, whom I am lucky to be married to 🙂