Feather Quilt

This is my sister Cristin. Isn't she beautiful? I adore her & miss her so much. She lives in Boston & some days that feels farther away than others. She called me a few weeks back & asked if I could make her a quilt. What an honor! I asked her what she wanted & she said whatever I decided. So I told her a few ideas I had & decided to go with a feather quilt.

I thought about what my sister might like & I kept thinking of her tattoo. I wanted the quilt to fit her personality. I think it does & I hope she likes it.

 I am sure you have seen a few feather quilts popping up here & there. Susannah made one & when I saw it I knew I had to make one for my sister. Zana had seen the beautiful feather quilt that Anna Maria Horner had made & then came up with her own pattern. Susannah was so helpful when it came to making the actual feathers. I asked her quite a few questions. We did things a little different. She paper pieced hers & I didn't. I learned a lot from making these & I feel like I could possibly even try my hand at making some of the more complicated picture blocks that I have seen on the Internet. I used some scrap fabric from my stash for the feathers & a blue tiny pin dot fabric for the stem of the feather. Maybe I'm silly for loving muslin so much but I love using it for quilts as a filler fabric. I think for this quilt it really allowed the feather blocks to stand out.

Since I wasn't using an actual pattern I put all the feather blocks on the floor where I wanted them & then cut & pieced the muslin fabric together. It was a little tricky but I was so happy with the outcome.

I decided to keep the quilting pretty simple. Straight lines with a little squiggle every 6 inches or so all the way across.

For the back of the quilt I used some awesome vintage fabric that a friend of mine had given me. The apple fabric & blue pin dot fabric (used in the stem of the feathers) are both from Hancock.

The cute poppy fabric that I used as the binding is also from Hancock.

Here's the front finished!

& The Back

This quilt measures 57"x65"

::UPDATE::
Today Anna Maria Horner released her PDF of her Feather Bed Quilt pattern! It's a free pattern & you can find it ::here::

Water Babies

Thanks for the pool Bumma!

We've been spending a good portion of each day splashing around in the pool. This has been one of the hottest summers we've had out here that I remember. Each day after Oblio gets up from his nap & I've picked up Mozers from school the kids put on their swimsuits. Then we jump in & swim until it's time for dinner. Sometimes they swim all morning too. Sometimes I get to join them if I'm not working on projects. No matter what I have made a promise to myself to join them at least once a day in the pool. Not always because I want to but I know it's the right thing to do. I know this is the last summer they will be "this age"  &I don't want to miss a minute of it.

Every once in a while Dean gets home early enough to join us. It's so much more fun when daddy is in the pool. He can throw the girls higher & does bigger cannonballs.

Sloan & Zoe are swimming around like little mermaids! This year Aris has taught herself to swim too! She loves being able to keep up with her sisters. Even Oblio is getting better at swimming. I know by next year he will be swimming around with the girls. 

When it's time for me to get out of the pool to fix dinner, the girls stay in until their fingers look like raisins. When bedtime rolls around they are asleep before their heads hit the pillow. I'm loving these last few weeks of summer. The next few weeks will be filled with as many fun water adventures as we can have.

I know this is silly but I couldn't help myself! Lol! What have you been doing to stay cool this summer?

Garden Goodness

Our garden is blowing up! The tomatoes are coming in so nicely. Our zucchini plant is producing enough for me to make at least a few loaves of bread each week (I'll have to post my favorite recipe soon). The squash are getting bigger & I look forward to eating acorn squash with butter & brown sugar when the nights start cooling down a little. I know fall is just around the corner. I can feel it in the evening air. I'll keep soaking up these hot summer days while I can. Has anyone else noticed what an amazing year it has been for fruit? Even our baby fruit trees have a few things that will need to be picked. Our neighbors apple tree is filled & drooping over our fence. The cherry tree in the back field of our house, plums, apricots, & peaches are growing like crazy around the neighborhood. I don't ever remember a year quite like this. Maybe, it's always been like this & I just haven't noticed. I'd like to think I'm more in tune with nature than I used to be. However there is always room for improvement. Dean & I still want to get bees & chickens. We'd love to own a little more land so we could have a few farm animals. Who knows, it may just happen one day. For now I'll just enjoy the fruits (& veggies) of our labor.

First Day of School & A Winner!

 Guess who had her first day of kindergarten? 

Merris!

She was so excited to go to school. I had to listen to her ask me for a whole week, "Do I start school tomorrow?" or "Is tomorrow my first day of school?". I finally had to tell her the day after Sunday would be her first day (telling her "next Monday" wasn't cutting it). Then she started telling people she was going to school after church. I had to remind her it would be the day AFTER church. So funny. I only hope she keeps her enthusiasm for education the older she gets.

 

Mozers started 1st grade this year! I forgot to bring my camera on her first day of school (who does that!!!) but I did snap this photo of her in one of her new school shirts. Are your kids into superhero's as much as mine are? Up until now we've been buying her shirts in the boys section. So happy I found these cute superhero shirts in the girls section at Old Navy. So far she has three different ones. I have to encourage her to wear other things in her closet because if she had her way she'd wear the same three shirts over & over again! Zoe has a male teacher this year & I think she is going to thrive. She really looks up to male role models so they are a perfect fit. It's going to be a great school year for both of them, I can feel it!

Thanks to everyone who left comments on the giveaway. I used random number generator to pick the winners. Congratulations to::

Lori of Mystery History Mom

& Jamie of The Mrs.!!!!

Lori I'll be contacting you for your addy & Jamie I'll bring yours to church, lol!

Thanks for telling me a little about what you guys are up to. It's fun to read comments from my readers! Hope you all have a great week & hope to hear from you again soon.

Tooth Fairy Pillow Giveaway!!!

It's been a while since I've put anything into my poor little forgotten Etsy shop. When I saw the newest Crafty Chloe fabric from Heather Ross I knew it was time to make some more tooth fairy pillows.

The front 

The backs in two different fabric choices

These little pillows measure approximately 8"x 6"

 I played with the pattern a little & added the pocket to the back. I think I'm happier with the overall look of it now. However when I was working out all the bugs of this pattern I made a few pillows that would still work great but weren't perfect. The pockets were in the wrong spot or too big, lol! I thought it would be fun to do a giveaway with those "oops" pillows.

All you have to do to enter this giveaway is leave me a comment telling me what fun summer project you are working on. I'd love to get to know my readers a little better. If you want a second chance at winning just follow my blog (make sure you leave that in a 2nd comment). I'll use random # generator to pick 2 winners on Monday July 30th. Happy weekend!

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