Estée's quilt is coming along

Estée has been working hard on her quilt this week. 

She loves it when the blocks are ready to be arranged on the design wall! 

Then Auntie Jeni worked her magic and, voilà, here is the finished top!

This week we will go to Close to Home in Orange, CT, to quilt the quilt on the long arm machine!!!  Oooohhhh, super exciting!!! 

Colorful Colorado Quilt

My brother, Kevin, needed something to cover up an attic access panel above his stairs at his home, so I designed and made a quilt for him. The Colorful Colorado Quilt! (He lives in CO!)

Happy Birthday Kevin!

I designed the quilt in EQ6 and machine pieced and quilted it myself. The "water" around the fish was paper pieced. 

Estee starts her new quilt

For three years now I have been teaching my niece how to quilt. 

She made her first quilt when she was seven. The quilt is a tumbling blocks layout and she chose and laid out the fabrics herself. She also traced and cut out the pieces herself and sewed the initial pairs together. 

The next summer she made a large rail fence quilt. She picked all her fabrics and sewed all the pieces in the blocks together. We also hand quilted the quilt using large stitches and size 10 crochet thread. 

This year she is making a jelly roll quilt from "jelly roll inspirations" by Pam Lintott.  She chose the Tropicana batiks by Moda jelly roll and a cute contrast batik in lights with butterflies. 

She is doing some of the rotary cutting this year with a Klutz glove and doing all of the sewing and ironing. 

She loooooves to sew!! 

We'll be back with more later!

Blocking lace shawl

I have finished my lace shawl and have washed and blocked it. Now it just needs a day or so to dry and I can see how my blocking went. 

Knitting border on a lace shawl

I have been knitting my first lace shawl and am now on the border. It is much easier than it looks and quite fun!

Long arm quilting camp!

Having lots of fun playing with the long arm quilting machines at Close to Home in Orange, CT, yesterday and today!!

Hopefully I will get one next year!

Paper piecing Monday

Doing a little paper piecing of some inset triangles today. They will finish up about 2" tall and 3" wide.

Fan hand quilting

Today I am working on all-over fan hand quilting on an Americana-themed star scrap quilt. I made the quilt top about 3 years ago and am finally getting around to quilting it! I echo quilted inside the stars and did a simple design in the middle. I decided that a simple fan background would pull it all together nicely. I still have more than half way to go and then the binding!

A little stippling

Doing some stipple quilting on my Thimbleberries Love Me Tender heart wall hanging.

Puppy Update

 

I went to visit my puppy yesterday and she is soooo sweet!!! All of the puppies are!!

We haven’t picked a name yet, but we have a few that we are thinking about. We will just wait until we spend some time with her and see what fits and what she likes!  She will be coming home next Friday or Saturday!!

Here is a photo album with all the pics I took of her:

View Full Album

 

I have been getting her crates ready and buying toys and stuff. I bought her a booster seat for the car and as I was putting the support bar in under the lining, Teddy Bear fell in love with it! He climbed in before I was finished putting the liner back in!

   

As you can see, he is very satisfied!

I put the car seat next to the doggie and kitty toy baskets in the living room.  I hope Teddy doesn’t become too attached – this is for the car!  Uh oh! Mickey likes it too!!!!

One more week to go and then it will be puppy time!!! We can’t wait!!!!

We picked our puppy!

 

So, I spent some more time with the two puppies that I was choosing between, and I picked this little girl!!

  

We will be bringing her home either the last day of March or the next weekend, depending on the vet’s advice. We are soooo excited!!!!

Puppies!!!!

We went and looked at Morkie (Maltese + Yorkie) puppies tonight!!! They are soooooo cute! I am definitely getting one!!!

 
I am thinking about one of these two baby girls!! They are very sweet!!


 

They were all over me from the minute I walked in! I could barely move around to sit down!!

Puppy pile!!!!!  I wore them out!! :)

Getting lots of puppy scent on a little blankie so the kitties will get used to the smell.
The puppies won’t be ready to come home for another 2-3 weeks, but I’ll be over to visit them again soon!!