A weekend and a wedding.

Hello April, springtime, and blog friends!

So long Easter bunny, cool temps, and the weekend...

♥

Our weekend was busy, happy, sunshiney, busy, fun-filled, busy. Happy.

Saturday evening found Carrie and I at the wedding of some good friends of ours. Kristin and Kandice were originally "married" in 2011 before Arizona had officially recognized same-sex marriages. And now that Arizona has stepped it up, K & K hosted "Wedding 2.0" where they officially tied the knot, signed the papers, and celebrated with friends. We had so much fun at their official wedding!

I made red velvet cupcakes for the occasion...

So yeah, Saturday was all about baking and frosting and getting dressed up for a wedding. ♥ I chose Sunday as a day to take care of a few things around our house and that ended up involving several hours of friendship quilt sewing. :o)

It almost felt surreal to finally be joining all the blocks together to form a quilt top. I loved revisiting every square and thinking about the amazing connection I've made with so many women from around the world. The whole thing really blows my mind sometimes!

I made great progress on joining squares but had to move on to other things so I will revisit this project in a couple of weeks. You know I'll share more about it as I go.

And now it's Monday morning and time to take on another work week. I wonder what kinds of wild and wacky things are in store for us in the next few days...

Here's hoping for lots of awesome in the week ahead.

{It's out there, you just have to look for it sometimes!}

♥

A Quilt Square for Denise

Oh how bittersweet it is to post the final month's installment of Fiona's Friendship Quilt exchange. For the month of October, we each made a quilt square for Denise.

♥

With every quilt square I've made for this project, I knew right away what design I wanted to use for that month's recipient. And when I found out that Denise was joining the exchange, my mind instantly went in one direction: Donny Osmond. You see, Denise and I share a fascination with Donny Osmond - a common ground we realized early in our sweet blog friendship.

(Here's the part where you can click on this link and it will open a separate page. Then you can listen to Donny's "Puppy Love" and come back and read the rest of this post while it plays in the background. I'll wait...)

But how would I make a quilt square with our beloved Donny Osmond on it? I tried my best to come up with another idea and kept coming back to Donny. Denise has sons close to Carrie's age...she loves Himself...and her dogs...puppies... PUPPY LOVE. Done.

I used my Cricut to cut letters to use as templates, then traced around them on the back of fabric after I'd ironed on some fusible webbing. The solid background fabric is from my mom's fabric scraps, and so is that little pink heart in the middle of LOVE. :o) ♥

And they called it...

~dreamy sigh~

I loved stitching this Donny Osmond inspired quilt square for Denise. :o)
♥

And I have loved participating in Fiona's Friendship Quilt Block Exchange. I have plans to join all my blocks into a fun quilt top after the first of the year, and you can bet I'll be sharing my progress here on my blog when that happens. Many thanks to Fiona for organizing such a sweet and meaningful project!

You can see the other squares I've created for this project by clicking here.

A Quilt Square for Sian

Hello, dear friends!

♥

It's time for this month's installment of Fiona's Friendship Quilt exchange. For the month of September, we each made a quilt square for Sian. If you know Sian you'll understand the choice of design for this square - Sian blogs at From High in the Sky and her blog emblem is a house.

Sian's color choice was whites/creams/linens so I went digging through my scraps. I also pulled some scraps from my mom's stash and was happy to find a few that worked well together.

I designed a simple house shape and constructed the quilt square using a paper piecing technique. The door, window, and flowerbox were all adhered with a fusible iron-on product then zigzag stitched around the edges. And the flowers and other stitching were done by hand with embroidery floss.

The woven fabric I used for the roof is from my mom's collection and it kind of makes me smile when I see it. When I first inherited my mom's scraps, I saw that fabric and was so excited to make something from it. It's a long narrow piece, and I wondered what my mom intended to use it for originally. Almost two years later, I still haven't come up with something in particular to make, but I did love using a small piece of it on Sian's square.

Sian was such a sweet member of Team Teal. Knowing that, and using my mom's fabrics, I'll admit to thinking about my mom the entire time I was constructing this house block. I just couldn't resist adding a small touch of teal to Sian's square in honor of my mom.

Eleven blocks down and one to go as October will be the final month of Fiona's Friendship Quilt exchange. The end of this project will be bittersweet, indeed.

I loved stitching this house square for Sian. :o)
♥

You can see the other squares I've created for this project by clicking here.

A Quilt Square for Jo C.

It's time for another installment of Fiona's Friendship Quilt Square Exchange.

This month, we all made squares to send to Jo C.

♥

I wanted to make Jo's quilt square with a traditional pieced design and I have always wanted to try my hand at stitching hexagons. These hexagons were the perfect stitching project for a road trip we took back in July.

I'm making two of every square so I can have one to keep for myself, and the photo of the square in progress is the one I actually kept for myself. I made that one first so I could practice, and by the time I got to stitching Jo's (on the road trip back home) I forgot to take photos.

A while back my friend, Becky, shared this scrapbook page she'd made with hexagons and I was instantly inspired when she mentioned that she had cut the shapes with her Cricut. I emailed her right away to ask what cartridge she'd used and kept my fingers crossed that it was one I already owned. I knew that stitching hexagons required precision, so having the shapes all cut from the same source would be to my benefit.

Becky's reply made me happy, as the cartridge she'd used was one I had in my collection (Accent Essentials) and she also told me about this this website she uses for searching for shapes. It's cool - you type in the shape/item in the search field and it brings up a list of cartridges that contain that shape. Very handy!

I cut 2" hexagons from some scrap cardstock I had and they worked perfectly for my templates, and I used this tutorial for stitching my pieces. I have to say that I really loved sewing these hexagon squares. A bit time consuming, it gave me a real appreciation for quilters who have the dedication to stitch enough hexagons together to make a full quilt top!

I loved stitching this hexagon quilt square for Jo. :o)
♥

You can see the other squares I've created for this project by clicking here.

 

A Sunflower Quilt Block for Jacky

Hello, dear friends!

♥

It's time for this month's installment of Fiona's Friendship Quilt exchange. For the month of July, we each made a quilt square for Jacky. Now, there's one person I know on this planet who loves sunflowers as much as me, and it's Jacky. So when I read that her chosen quilt colors were rust/terracotta and green, I knew right away those would work well with a sunflower design.

Before I started cutting fabric I made a mock-up of my design with paper. The petals were cut randomly by hand and I placed them here and there until I liked what I saw.

 

Then I cut the pieces from fabric and used an iron-on fusible webbing to adhere the fabric to my base square. A zigzag stitch finished the edges.

The original center circle I'd cut just didn't look right when it came down to using that piece, so I cut a larger circle out of a lighter colored fabric and used that instead. I also put a piece of thin batting under that center piece to give it a little more dimension.

 

Oh, and the solid background fabric came from my mom's fabric stash. :o) ♥

It is bittersweet that this project is going to end in two months. I'm excited to show you my last two creations, but need to wait until the recipients have them first. :o)

You can see the other squares I've created for this project by clicking here.

♥

A Quilt Square for Fiona

Hooray! I've completed another square for Fiona's Friendship Quilt project, and this month's square actually went to Fiona herself. I loved creating this one for Fiona! I wanted her square to not only represent her love of sewing, but also to represent the way she has inspired so many of our blog friends to come back to fabric.

I had played around with paper piecing when I made the cat block for Beverly in March, and I knew from past experience that if I wanted pieces this small in my final block (finished size is 6.5" square) that it would have to be done by paper piecing. {You can watch this video for an idea of how paper piecing is done.}

I started by drawing a 3.5" shape and mapping out where I wanted the spool to land inside that square. Then I made copies of my drawing, cut it apart and started sewing. {Don't you just love my fluffy pink pencil? Carrie gave that to me years ago and I use it only in my craft room. Love it!}

Of course. Whiskers Jay is always on the scene while I'm sewing. Always.

I'll admit that this block took a bit of trial and error, but once I got the hang of using my own pattern (ha!) it all came together. The duplicate square that I made to keep for myself was my first try and...well...let's just say that these spools got better with practice.

The tan fabric on the spools of thread came from my mom's scraps. ♥

Ah ~ I love this friendship quilt project so much! I have very mixed feelings about the fact that the months are ticking by and this project is drawing to an end - only four months left. But you can bet I already have other ideas to keep me busy when this project is done.

You can see the rest of the squares I've made so far by clicking here.

♥

A Quilt Square for my friend Deb

It's time for another Friendship Quilt update.

:o) ♥

I'm participating in Fiona's Friendship Quilt Project, and each month we create a quilt square to send to that month's designated recipient. May belongs to Deb{s14}.

I knew I wanted to create a strawberry quilt square at some point during this exchange, and when I saw that my friend Deb had requested the colors pink and green I knew she'd be the one to receive it.

My mom loved strawberries {her kitchen was decorated with them}, and Deb was a sweet member of Team Teal, so it felt even more right that she would receive this square. And! The best part? All of these fabrics came out of my mom's scraps!

I created strawberry and leaf shapes and traced around them on the back of fabric after I'd ironed on some fusible webbing. Here's a little tip if you use this fusible stuff - it's tough to peel from the edges without fraying your fabric a little, so I take a straight pin and scratch the surface in the center. That makes a nice little cut that you can work your fingers into and peel off from the center of the shape.

And speaking of fraying, I also use this handy stuff called Fray Check on the edges of my squares that I will be handling more than normal. I knew I wanted to do a little hand stitching on this piece, and I didn't want the edges to look frayed and tattered, so I added a little Fray Check to the sides to keep them neat and tidy. This stuff is also great for the ends of ribbons that tend to unravel.

I loved making this quilt square for Deb, and I know my mom would be so very pleased that I was able to use her fabrics to make it.

♥
{You can see other quilt squares I've made for this exchange by clicking here.}

This friendship quilt...

When I signed up to participate in Fiona's Friendship Quilt Project I knew that I would need to create some extra blocks in order to make my final quilt a larger size. So every month when I make a square to send to that month's designated recipient, I make a duplicate square to keep for myself.

With the exception of Beverly's quilt block in March, all of my duplicate blocks have been made from the same fabric as the recipient's. I didn't have enough of Beverly's fabric to make two blocks, so I created one to keep for myself with a gray cat to represent my Whiskers Jay. {You can find the pattern for this kitty-cat block here.}

April was the month designated for me to receive squares from the other participants in the exchange. Imagine my surprise last week when, on my birthday, I received a package from Fiona in the mail. Not only did her package include a quilt square from her, but there were seven other squares from sweet blog friends who created them in honor of Team Teal! Oh my gosh - I was speechless when I opened that envelope! And I have also received surprise squares from two more Team Teal members since then.

My final quilt top is going to be the epitome of a friendship quilt, and I am absolutely blown away by the love and generosity of my blog friends! I will share more about all of the squares I received in the future. :o) ♥

This quilt block exchange runs through the month of October, so I'm planning on assembling my quilt top after the holiday season. It seems weird to have a sewing project already on my list of things to do in 2015, but oh how I look forward to that!

♥

PS: You can see all of the quilt blocks I've created so far by clicking here.

Beverly's Quilt Square

It's time for another Friendship Quilt update.

:o)

I'm participating in Fiona's Friendship Quilt Project, and each month we create a quilt square to send to that month's designated recipient. March belonged to Beverly.

♥

Now, Beverly and I have a few things in common. The basics are that we are both American girls, we have children close to the same age, and we both enjoy the beach and a cocktail now and then. But when it came to thinking up a design for her quilt block the answer was easy - it had to be a cat!

A beautiful white cat named Pearl lives with Beverly, and it's no secret that Beverly loves my own cat Whiskers Jay. She's always taking up for him when an Instagram indicates that he might be anything less than perfect. {Doug doesn't call him "Rotten" for nothin'...}

So I found this paper piecing pattern and created a little white cat to be part of Beverly's friendship quilt. The original pattern is a 10" square, but I reduced it down to 6-1/2" for our exchange. Don't you just love the little tail hanging off? My favorite!

And you know what's really cool? April is my month!!! I'm so excited to be on the receiving end of quilt-y happy mail this month! You can bet I'll be sharing more about that as I am able.

Are you participating in
Fiona's Friendship Quilt Project?

Do you love it as much as I do?

♥

Amy's Quilt Square

It's time for a monthly check in with Fiona's Friendship Quilt project.

During February, we created a quilt square to send to
Amy down under in Australia.

♥

When we signed up for the Friendship Quilt block exchange we each specified the colors and textures we'd like to receive when our month rolled around. The first three blocks I created were specific to the recipient. I made a tea cup quilt square for Abi, a sailboat for Alexa, and a margarita glass for Alison. I figured the obvious would be to create a pear shape for Amy because she likes pears, but I just wasn't coming up with anything that I thought would look right with the colors she requested.

Amy had requested "seaside colors / washed / worn / cream / kraft / pale blue / denim." When I saw that denim was on her list, my mind went straight to a log cabin design. That probably only makes sense to me because when I was in high school I carried a purse that I had made from denim strips and stitched in a log cabin pattern. Man, I loved that bag!

So I went with the log cabin design in Amy's requested colors, and then I added the heart shape because I felt like it needed a little extra something. Plus I wanted to include some hand stitching on her piece...just because.

This has been such a fun project and I have loved creating these squares each month for my dear blog friends. There are 12 participants in this quilt square exchange, and every month we make a square for the next friend in line. I've also been making an identical square to keep for myself in order to add to the size of the finished quilt.

So far I've been thinking of this project one month and one square at a time, but now that my own stack is growing I'm starting to dream of the end result. Oooh it's going to be such an awesome friendship quilt!

The wheels in my mind are turning, thinking of the next square for March's recipient...

♥

A Margarita in the Sun ~ Alison's Quilt Block

I have been so excited to share the quilt block I made

for Alison as part of Fiona's Friendship Quilt project.

Now that it's arrived in Spain I can let this post fly.

♥ 

When Carrie and I traveled to England last year, our blog friend Alison flew from Spain and met us there for the weekend. It was the first time we'd met in real life, but having known each other through our blogs for a few years made us feel like we'd already known each other for the longest time.

Alison and I had planned and looked forward to drinking margaritas together in London, and even though it was freeeeeezing cold at the time, we drank them anyway. Then we vowed to have more margaritas in the future, only under warmer circumstances, and we did that last month while she was here in Arizona.

The other little tidbit for this post is that my mom loved herself a good margarita! In fact, it was the only alcoholic beverage she ever drank {that I know of!}. And since Alison was a sweet member of Team Teal, I wanted the quilt block I made for her to be in the shape of a margarita glass, and I even used some fabric scraps I inherited from my mom's craft room! I loved being able to include a little piece of my mom in the mix with this quilt square.

I used an iron-on fusible product to adhere the margarita glass shape and the lime, then I stitched around it with a zig-zag stitch. This one turned out way better than my first attempt where my patch-work design resembled a chunky goblet rather than a margarita glass.

I'm so happy that I signed up to participate in Fiona's Friendship Quilt project!

It's been so much fun to come up with a different design every month, and I

have a few more ideas up my sleeve for future blocks.

♥