It's Beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

And the stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

Hope you and your family are enjoying this special time of year!

A Doll Quilt for Ava

It's Ava's 6th birthday this Friday.  I knew I wanted to make something special for her.  I settled on a doll quilt.  I love dots and incorporated them into many of the aspects of this little quilt.  I started with the fabric.  The background fabric is little dots.  Most of the yo yos are made with different polka dot fabrics.  I sewed them to fabric in a grid pattern.  Then I sewed the grids with perle cotton.  I used a different color thread for each one.  I ended with a colorful striped binding.  I love the way it turned out.  I hope Ava likes it.  I think I need to get a new baby doll to go with it!

Our Family

This post isn't about anything crafty.  I just wanted to share some family pictures we had made at the local nature preservative.  It's not easy getting this many people together in one place.  And trying to get everyone to look at the camera at the same time is really tricky.  Just forget about getting everyone to smile.  Considering how windy the day was and that there were four little ones five or younger, I think they turned out pretty good.

Amy's Quilt Bloggers' Festival

Once again Amy at http://amyscreativeside.com/ is having her quilters blog fest.  She does this in the spring and fall every year and it is sew much fun to see all the beautiful quilts and meet new blogging friends.

The quilt I'm showing this year is my first attempt with perle cotton.  I love the look of it, but am not quite sure I have the hang of it.  It is kind of difficult to pull through the layers.  The pattern I used was adapted from one I saw using layer cakes.  This one was made using charm squares I got at a steal from Connecting Threads and some Kona cotton.  It turned out fresh and springy and although I am in love with it, I decided my sister should have it for her new house.  The great thing is, she loves it, too!

Cheese!!!

Allie is so cute.   As soon as I pick up the camera she says, "cheese!"  Love this sweet baby girl!  Grandkids are the best.

A Little Tip to Share

You know when you are laying your blocks out and you finally get the layout that really clicks for you.  You pin the blocks together one block at a time, gather them up, head to the sewing machine and sew them all together.  Now to sew the rows together.  I lay them out again and for some reason the rows don't want to line up the way they did when you first layed them out.  Some of the blocks line up with the same blocks and they just don't look right.  I came up with a solution that works for me.  I hope it works for you, too.

While you have your blocks layed out, as you are pinning them together, pin a strip of paper with the number of the row to the first block of each row.  I sew the paper into the seam allowance so I don't lose the number.  After I have all the blocks sewn together and have pressed them, it is easy to line up the rows.

It really keeps the frustration level to a minimum.  Anything to makes things easier!

It's Been a Busy Summer

It seems as though this summer has raced by.  And I'm grateful for that because this summer's heat has been out of this world.  I have been miserable.  And you know I work outside.  With the change in weather the last couple of days, I have been in heaven.  This summer's heat has drained me physically, when I get home I am spent and can't seem to get motivated.  But with this cool down, I am ready to get busy!

Thought I would share a few of my entries from the state fair this year.

There are a couple of blue ribbons in there.  I'm pretty psyched about them.  Thanks for looking!