Easter Is Past & Spring Has Finally Sprung

Well this is long overdue....as you can see.  I shot these a long time ago and between my health issues and some family health issues.....blogs and extra stuff get set aside.

Even though Easter 2013 is past, I thought I would go ahead and post my pics any way.  We are finally seeing spring-like weather here in Ioway!  It has been a loooong time coming.  

I am wanting to do a give-away some time soon.  When this blog reaches 50 google followers, I will do a drawing.  So if you just follow with your email, please consider signing in as a google follower, it is easy to do and makes writing a comment very easy.  I might even let you pick your gift, how would that be for fun!!!

 Chicks, bunnies, & eggs, oh my!

The ceramic bunnies, eggs, and chicks were made by both my grandma's.  Can you find the one with my name on it?

I have several dozen ceramic eggs from the grandmas, they are all so cute!  You can also see several cross stitch ones that I did many years ago.

I have been filling my grandpa's toolbox with more eggs, chicks, & bunnies.  The tins have easter puzzles in them for the grandkids to do.

Even more ceramic eggs on a deviled egg plate....lots of spring quilts on my ladder and Easter postcards.

I love vintage postcards, I bought this postcard collection book at an auction years ago....love to display them in this book!  We had all of our local family here for Easter and the grands had a great time hunting their eggs.  We had a great day just being together.

One of the three table-fulls we had set up for the day....I think the big kid fits right in!

This is my cutie patootie.....she is my girlfriend!  I miss her!

What a sweetheart and oh that beautiful hair!!!!

Then these two nuts....playing with the old glasses that are in the dress-up box....gotta love those faces!

Then we had entertainment.....

I love that boy.....he played the guitar for us too.....what a hoot!

This would make a cute little cupcake poke, if you printed out on cardstock half facing right and the other half facing left, cut them out and glue a toothpick between.  Very sweet!!!  Or a larger one stuck in a Easter basket....or a bunch of them on a garland or glued to the top of a place card on your Easter table or.........

Long Arm Quilting with Circle Templates

I made a video awhile back to put on my blog and of course, I know nothing about doing this.....let me repeat, I know NOTHING about doing this.....so throwing caution to the wind or however that saying goes.  I wrangled the Silver Fox to run the camera and away we went.  After about 45 minutes and several clips later, we still had no sound on the camera.....so that took awhile to figure out.  Then finally got it done only to download on my computer and the files are HUGE.  So I finally am getting around to putting the clips together, which I must say was a cinch and adding credits.

I have it saved and it is compressed to go online......so here goes nothing.  Really!!!  I will be stunned if this works the first time.  Long Arm Quilting with Circle Templates
I started to put the video right in my blog, but changed my mind and loaded it to Youtube instead.....let me know if this is working for you all and don't have high expectations either.....would love some feedback, if your fingers are not broken!!!!  :)

Valentine Love

Remember the banner from my mother's birthday party, well the banner has morphed from my mom's birthday party, to Christmas and on to Valentine's Day!  I haven't gotten tired of it yet and whether I am having a party or not....it makes me smile when I walk past the doorway!

Here are some of the valentine hankies I found in my "hoard" of hankies.

This is a pale pink dotted Swiss hankie....very cute.  Not too practical for a hankie I  would say.

My mom taught school for several years and hankies were one of the teacher gifts of choice at that time.  Then I have bought a box or two at auctions and all my grandma's had nice collections as well.  So let's just say I might have a vintage suitcase full of hankies....not saying I do....but it could be possible.

As I was pulling ones for the Christmas banner, I notice all the Valentine ones....so cute!  So I must do a Valentine's banner too!

I love the edges on many of them....so fun!

Sweet designs....

Look at those corners....this might be one of my favorites!

Fun little border print with tiny scallop edges.

This one is embroidered with my Great-grandma's name....with a lovely crocheted edge, which I think she would have done.  It is not in good condition....so I am sure it was well used.

Little hearts all around and tiny scallop heart border.

 Don't you just love these little pieces of sweetness!

 Cute border prints!

Love the edging on this one too....way too cute!

Happy Valentine's......sorry for the glare....too many windows in my dining room!  I always struggle taking pictures in there.

 Be My Valentine banner .....isn't that cute!  I sewed the paper letters on a piece of rick rack and finished the loops on each end with red buttons.

We had a couple visitors last weekend for Sam's 8th birthday.  He invited his sister, Cora, to share his sleepover.  The kids love to make designs with Perler beads.  You can get them at the local craft store, I even scored a bunch of them at Goodwill one time.  :)

We played Valentine Bingo and I know two kids that won some prizes....what's not to like about that?

Happy 8th Birthday, Samuel!

Isn't this just a hoot....I took this picture last year of some of the tribe and I got some free $$ from Shutterfly....so I dressed this pic up in Photoshop Elements and had it made into a puzzle.  To say it is stinkin' cute....... is an understatement.  The grands will love doing it!

Happy Valentine's Day to my Sweetie Pie.....we're off to do something fun today!

Right click and you can save it!

Dear Jane & Miracle Worker Status

In case you want some mood music happening!

My sewing area has looked like this for months now.  I have been somewhat quiet on my blog for a couple reasons.  My migraines continue to be a constant source of interruption to my life.  Do you know that commercial....Do you have a migraine life?  YES.....ick!   And the other reason is I have had my head down and nose to the sewing machine working on my Dear Jane quilt.  So when I feel good, I haven't wanted to spend extra time on the computer, even though I do enjoy blogging.  It is like a vacuum cleaning on your time.  

I am going to share a couple ways that I came up in cutting my fabric as I sewed each block.  This would work well if you are doing a sampler type quilt or any piece where you are doing many different blocks and not a quilt where all the blocks are the same.  For starters, I cut my background fabric which happened to be muslin into strips all different widths....like 1", 1.25", 1.5", 1.75", 2", etc.  When I got to the bigger sizes 3"+ I cut every .5" at that point.  These became my working strips.

You can see them at the top left in a pile.  In front of them you can see a pile of small pieces and strips.  These are the scraps as I trim off the excess while foundation piecing.  I go to that fabric first when I need to cover a small patch and if I don't have something big enough, then I measure my patch as they are printed on vellum....shown in the center.  Whatever that measurement is....... is the strip I pull from my strip pile.  Then I personally use the Carol Doak method of foundation piecing using a postcard and an add 1/4" ruler or on this project I used an add a 1/8" ruler a lot.  Doing it this way, eliminates waste of fabric.....the pieces I threw away were literally crumbs and on a project this big.....it makes a difference on yardage.

So yesterday was a huge day in Dear Jane world around here, I finished my last triangle in the morning, in the afternoon I added the adjustment strips that needed to be added before adding the triangle border.  I spent the evening after the Silver Fox left for work, & added the triangle borders.  I must say...... I sat in my chair and just stared at it for quite awhile before going to bed last night.  

 I started this baby in 1998.  Now don't think I have worked on this continuously....there have been many times it has been in it's drawer waiting for my return!

I need to embroider my signature and I am going to include some names of our relatives that have fought in the Civil War as well.  It will also have a scalloped edge all the way around.  I added the strips around the outside for that today.  I won't work on that part until I have the center quilted.

 My plan is to complete it during the years of the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War that is happening right now.

So I do have until 2015......hopefully it will be done before then!

Dear Jane Love!

40th Anniversary Day

Forgot I had these dolls tucked away....they were always in my Great-grandma W.'s house....I have 3 bridesmaid dolls too.  Very cute!

 Today the Silver Fox and I are celebrating 40 years of marriage together...I am so thankful to be married to my best friend and I can't see my life without him!

 We had this book made during our 35th year.....I love the pics our photographer did for us!

A shelf in my kitchen....memories of climbing Camelback last year!

Why do I love the Silver Fox?

Because when he loads the dishwasher he puts his dishes in each of the 4 corners.

Because he can fix almost everything!

Because he says he loves me best!  I say I love him MOST!

Because he still opens the car door for me.

Because he knows me like no one else.....the good, the bad, and the ugly!

Because he is an awesome father to our children and grandchildren and he is adored by them!

Because he is a man of God, faith and integrity.

Happy Anniversary, honey

Birthday Party Fun

I know it has been a long dry spell from me.  I have been quite busy, but not particularly inspired.  

 We have recently been working on a "significant" birthday party for my mom.  She is a special lady who is adored by her family and who really doesn't like to celebrate her birthday that much....she even told me a couple weeks ago......."don't going planning a party for me, I don't want you to do that."   I told her it was too late and it would be fun and nice..... afterwards she would look back and think it was pretty special, that was the last I heard about that!

 Cupcakes were the theme of the day.  We have a wonderful bakery in our area called Scratch Bakery, that makes all these flavored cupcakes to die for.  Oh, they are temptations of biblical proportions.  I picked 8 varieties, so we had lots to choose from.

We have been cleaning the out-buildings on the farm this fall and have hauled away piles of junk, and have cut up a lot of scrap wood for the fireplace.  In all of this we have found some very old boards that are very wide and weathered and wonderful.  So I picked one that was a good length for my dining room table, which is very large.....it seats 14 handily.  I wanted it raised up a little bit,  so the Silver Fox, cut 2 pieces of wood to make little legs and he attached them with some brass hinges we had around here, so it is a little easier to store.  It looks very rustic and primitive, but very "glammed" up with the vintage linens and crystal.

I added layers of linens from my Grandma's, some silver Christmas decorations of various shapes and sizes, some silk poinsettias blossoms and included a bunch of tea lights from the dollar store, that run on some sort of battery.  Love these things...3 for a buck.  They were still going when the party was over.  I will keep these around in my supply drawer.  I may watch for some more fancy, clear votive holders, when I am out and about junking.

Just look at those cupcakes.....

These are machine embroidered cupcake pockets.....been doing 25 of these over the past 2-3 weeks.  They have a pocket on the back to put your napkin and silverware in.  I had bought plastic silverware and paper plates, but decided to use my china & silver for the meal, and then we used the paper and plastic for the cake and ice cream.  They turned out so darn cute and now I have them to use for other birthdays.  I got several designs for different holidays and special occasions.....check them out at emblibrary 

 In any entertaining inspiration photos, you seeing banners and lots of them.  I would have liked to do a 3rd one...I like 3 of anything....but I didn't have a simple way of hanging a third one and I really had only 2 ideas....so there you go.  I had found this wonderful classic lettering and saved the entire set to my computer for future use..... hung them with mini clothespins and backed them with black, so that I could use these letters and add to them to say other messages for another time. You might want to take a look at them....

Whole alphabet-banner

The other banner is made with doilies and vintage hankies.  My mother taught school for several years and I have her collection of hankies.  She would get them from students as gifts.....makes for a nice look.

Here are some pictures of mom's parents, doll chair of my mom's....years ago I made counted cross stitch Christmas ornaments with family members names, so I included them by their pictures.

One of my favorite things to do for a special occasion of late, is to do a photo book from Shutterfly.  There are other places to get them, that is just the one I use.  Mom's book is on the far right in the stand.....I like the 8x8" size, but that is just my preference.....they are fun to do and look so professional.

I didn't have a plan to do a quilt for mom, but this little online class came into my email box a few weeks ago.  It was a perfect size project and I liked the idea of the wire frame to hang it in.  It has a lot of techniques and embellishments, which is just down my alley and I learned how to do a couple new things...it was a very fun project.  Fabric Fabrications is a free class, but you do need to make an account.  Check it out!

More pictures, under glass....another thing I like about my sideboard.  I change this stuff all the time and then you can place food or drink on there without ruining your things.  Sorry about the glare, I could not get a clear shot.

Mom and Dad looking everything over before everyone arrived.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

I love you always!