Christmas in July Ornament Swap

I have been so impatient waiting for this day to come. I participated in my first swap ever and today was "opening" day. Sarah hosted a "Christmas in July Ornament Swap" that was loads of fun. My parcel arrived from Australia about 2-weeks ago and it has taken all of my will power not to cheat and open it early. But BOY! was it worth the wait. The Ornaments I recieved from Christine are wonderful and coordinate perfectly with my Christmas decoraions. THANK YOU Christine....I love all of the wonderful goodies you sent. I love that she thought to wrap evrything in Christmas paper. I did not think to do that for Cathy and now I wish that I had as it makes for a fun touch. I hope that Cathy is as pleased with what I sent as I am with what I recieved. Marry Christmas in July everyone.

$5 Quilt Club Blocks Finally Complete

One of our local quilt shops has been doing a $5 Quilt Club for the last 7-years. I have participated in most of those seven years, however on the years that my two daughters were born I fell a bit behind in actually completing the blocks. So this week I pulled out the blocks from August 2004-July 2005, when daughter number one was born, and finally put the last 5 blocks together. Now I need to pull out those from Aug. 2005-July 2006 and get those completed. Since I had started a pile up of unfinished blocks I opted not to participate this last year, but a ready to get back to it with this new year of the $5 Quilt Club. Here is a look at those from 2004-2005. The last 5 are the ones I completed today. Now it is on to deciding how I want to put them together into a quilt top and what colors to use. I think that I am leaning towards a green though for sashing.

A few of my favorite things

When I am not tending to the needs of my DH and 4 kiddos, or sewing I am most often found in my flower beds. I love the feel of the dirt in my hands as I weed the beds and the fregrance of the beautiful flowers as I work. Once I get started I have such a hard time pulling myself away. "I really should start dinner, but I'll just work another five minutes and I will....thirty minutes later, oh just five more minuts". At this point in summer the beds are full of gorgeuos color and they beckon to me to come and enjoy all that they have to offer. Here are just a couple of my favorites that are currently in bloom:

Jupiter's Beard

Shasta Daisy

Lupine

Astilbe

Black & White Double X

I can't tell you how excited I am to have completed the top of this quilt today. It has been a time intensive project but with gorgeous results. My husband keeps coming up with silly ways inwhich we could keep this quilt for our own bed instead of giving it to my sister. She will love it when she returns home from sea duty and is able to see it in person. Until that time arrives however, there is still much to do to have it ready for her bed. First, will be taking it to be quilted and then the binding. I like to find a good movie to watch while I hem binding but with this king size one I may be watching 2 or 3 movies to complete that task. Think I will save that until fall when the weather starts to cool off. For now, I will sew up the coordinating pillow shams, decrotive pillows and valance. And any other fun projects I can find to distract me.

Slow and Steady

Well progress on the Double X quilt in black and white has been slow but steady. Life has been a bit crazy here of late and will continue as such through the week coming up. So I have not has as much time to dedicate to this project as I would like. I have enjoyed watching it come together though and each of the double X blocks are fun. Of the 90 squares there will not be a repeat of anyone fabric combination. As I have completed each it has been fun to see them come together and say, "Oh I really like that one, or, that one is not quite my favorite". I just have 13 more of the blocks to construct but I could not resist starting to put them into rows and putting the rows together on Thursday. When starting this project I was not too keen on the idea of the black and white color combo but I am quite taken with it and wonder if I will be able to part with it once it come time to give it to my sister, but of course I will.

Sewing Lessons and Sock Friends

We finally had a quiet afternoon on Monday and the boys and I took advantage of it. Mum gave me two super fun sewing books for my birthday and one is all about making fun animals from socks and gloves. The boys and I have been dying to give it a try and boy has it been worth the wait. We have not completed our animals as of yet due to a busy/crazy week, but it has been fun spending the time with my boys. We will be sure to post photos of our completed animals.