Saturday, October 18, 2008

Garden inspiration

I was looking on the internet one night for inspiration for a garden fountain. Instead of buying one we thought it would be fun to try to make one. I didn't find the perfect fountain project to make but I did find this really fun garden sculpture. I planted lobelia, impatients and some hearts and flowers, oh and a lemon thyme plant. This is going to look really cute when they start growing and start trailing down!



We finally got a new chair for our living room!
Mike finally has a LazyBOY.
He works really hard and he deserves to have a comfy chair!

I am trying out that quilt for the back wall. It is not quilted yet and I'm not completely sure it will find a home there, but it is auditioning for the part!



I've finished 2 quilts this last week, unfortunately the first one I forgot to take a picture of! So this sweet cat quilt is the second one I finished. I'm not a big fan of doing hand work (carpel tunnel surgery!) but I REALLY like this embroidered cat quilt! This would be a fun project to take along to just pull out and work on.
Here is a close-up of one of the kitties.
I quilted cats into the outside border of the quilt.
Well, I'm off to finish up some painting that I started yesterday.
I've got a really fun day planned tomorrow and I can't
hardly wait to take pictures and write about it!

Monday, October 13, 2008

Bridal Shower



Here I am with 3 of my favorite girls..........The little one on
my left is Brandy and the lovely girls on my right are BOTH
Jenny Baldi! Of course the BRIDE will soon be Jenny Hernandez
and the current Mrs. Jen Baldi will then be the ONLY Jen Baldi!

Jen was our lovely hostess and the organizer of the shower.
She (along with her mom and grandma) really know how to throw a party.




The two ladies at the end of this row are Lee and Darcy. They welcomed us in to thier home and helped Jen create alot of little special touches that really were wonderful.
This was the welcoming table where Jen had set up a place to put your address on a return envelope so that Jenny could write her thank-you notes with ease. There was also a basket for you to "help Jenny and Rafael write thier vows" by writing advice on a note card. (Using personalized "Jenny and Rafael" pencils of course!)
Ah, the dessert table! You can't really tell by this picture there there were dozens of tiny glass slippers with red candy in them for a favor. Lee found some disney characters on the computer and enlarged them and printed them out........Darcy made stands for them and they graced the table.
My next favorite table.......FOOD! We had homemade lasagne!

One of the activities that we did at the shower was to sign the quilt.

Here is Joanne and Kelly. Kelly and Jenny met at Walt Disney World, were roommates AND they both played the characters of Chip N Dale! Kelly drove up from Tucson to attend the shower!




Mary signs the quilt.



Cynthia seems to be checking the spelling and it looks like Jodie MAY be counting!


Tammy took over as my photographer at the shower. Thank goodness for her, because without her I might not have very many photos!






Doesn't this look like a fun group of friends?

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Troublemakers

I have these two friends (Carole and Christina) who are REAL troublemakers! I met them many years ago while teaching quilting classes at a Viking sewing store. Carole and Christina are machine embroiderers and I have finally turned them into QUILTERS! They have been after me for YEARS to buy a sewing machine that does embroidery and I have RESISTED! I resisted it because I knew I would LOVE it and it would take away from the time I have to quilt! Well, they finally broke me down and have been helping me learn some of the tricks of the trade.


AND needless to say............I love it and am becoming more and more addicted!





Here are some pictures of some of the recent embroidery projects that I have completed:

The completed bridal quilt top. As you can see I decided on Setting A,
mainly because I asked Rafael and this is the one he liked. The very day that I
finished sewing these blocks together Jenny told me that she liked Setting B!


Here is a close-up of the embroidery I did on the center of the quilt! I gotta tell ya! I was pretty excited with how it turned out!

This is one of the sets of Hand&Fingertip towels I embroidred as a gift for Jenny and Rafael. I love the way they turned out as well! I think I might like this embroidery stuff!

These two pictures are of Carole the trouble maker and Christina the troublemaker! They are posing beside the Egg Money quilt that they completed! They sure look like QUILTERS to me! Wouldn't you agree?




I've had a really busy week. We finally ordered some chairs for the living room. We have worked really hard on the secret garden and got some plants for that area. Jenny's bridal shower was today and a huge success. My daughter-in-law Jen was the party planner and she really did an excellent job. She included so many little touches that really made the day extra special. I'll post some pictures of the shower next time.