This Moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by Soule Mama.

Star Quilt

Sometimes things are just as good, if not better the second time around...and 15 years later.

When I was just starting out as a quilter, I made this pretty green star quilt for hubby's buddy from the Marine Corps as a wedding gift.  After putting it together, I realized it was just too plain and needed borders so I removed the outside rows of star blocks and added borders.  Well, you certainly can't throw away completed blocks.  Surely there will come an occasion to use those blocks in another project

15 years later, there they sat.  In my sewing closet.  Never have been used in another project. 
Enter a reason to give them new life.

I have been wanting to do something special for a friend of mine for a while, but every time I think about it.  Every tax day.  I already have so many sewing projects going on I just can't take on another project.  This year was different.  See, my girlfriend in Texas is a lovely woman with two adorable children who I actually met thru her ex-husband, but I won't go into that story.  Every year she graciously does our taxes and wont accept a dime for her work.  When you have lovely people like this in your lives, you want to give something back.  A token of thanks.  Not only for the help with our taxes...I would rather eat dirt than attempt to do taxes...but for the years of friendship.
Of course I have several projects going on right now, but none with a deadline.  So all the other projects were put aside and I started digging thru my sewing closet for ideas.  That's when I heard it.  The star blocks called to me under the piles of fabric saying Hey lady!  What about us?  When are you going to turn us into something fabulous?

The next quilt day I pulled these blocks out, laid them on the floor and my bestie and I stared, and stared, tried different arangements, and stared.  Finally we came up with the layout and I went to work.

My hope is my friend will love, use and abuse this quilt.  I hope she feels the friendship and gratitude put into every stitch.  I hope.

Another Quilt Day

Every time I see Quilt Day on my calendar I get a little excited.  A day dedicated to quilting, conversations with my bestie and no kids.  Days like this don't always work out as you picture them in your mind.  In an effort to let hubby work in the garden building me those beautiful planter boxes, we did quilting day at my house again.  We were able to get a bit of quilting done but the conversations aren't the same with little ears listening in.  Then there's always the inturruptions.  Someone needs a drink, or a snack, or asking where their favorite toy is, or a diaper, or wants to play outside.  It's the challenge of a parent to balance the daily requests and squeezing a little time in for yourself in the cracks.

My bestie finished up this stunning baby quilt for a friend of hers that is expecting their first child.  As most quilters can appreciate, she finished it a day before the baby shower.  Just in the nick of time.

I just love the little bunnies in the open spaces, don't you?

I managed to finish the quilting on this star lap quilt I'm working on for a special friend of mine.  Hopefully I'll be able to squeeze some time in the cracks of motherhood this weekend to get the binding on. 

New Garden Boxes

Our little yard is quite a challenge.  It has been since day one when we bought this house 16 years ago.  Back then, the yard was very sloped and had huge trees covering everything.  Thru the years we have removed the trees, built retaining walls, a large deck, re-leveled the yard and built more retaining walls. 

Last spring hubby built a few raised beds for me to try my hand at vegetables but they weren't in a spot that received enough sun.  Needless to say, not much grew last year.

This past weekend hubby moved the boxes, made them deeper and added a little spot for my potato planters along the back fence.  It's the only place in the back yard that gets good sun. Now if the rain would let up enough I could get outside and get these beds planted!

Yes, that's a bulldozer next to my potato sacks.  Didn't I mention I have three boys?

Here's hoping the weatherman is right and I'll be able to finish my job of putting rocks around the beds to cut down on the weeds this weekend.

This Moment

Captured by Thing 3.

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by Soule Mama.

Dry Run

Thing 1 is growing up too fast for me.  Way to fast for me.  In a few short weeks he will officially be a teenager which makes this Mama's heart race and hair turn even more grey than it already is!  The thought of raising a teenager is not something I have been looking forward to in my career as a parent.  I can handle the baby, toddler, child, tween ages, but a teenager?  I'm having my doubts as a parent in this arena.

This coming weekend he is camping with his Boy Scout troop without one of us going with him.  Camping with his troop without a parent is not something new.  He has been on many camping trips without us but has always slept in cabins. 

This is the first time tent camping without a parent so we did a dry run in the yard last night. 

He put the tent up completely on his own...

Set up the cot on his own...

Then tore it all down on his own. 

I think he's ready.  I hope!

Swinging Again

Living in the Pacific Northwest has it's advantages and dis-advantages.  The rain happens to land on both of these lists.  It was finally dry enough to be outside in the yard again this past weekend.  The first project on the list was to repair the swing set.  The boys haven't been able to swing since last summer.  A back hoe and the support beam had a run in.  Want to guess who won?

Hubby broke out the tools and the boys have never been happier!

That's my bestie in the back pushing Thing 3 getting her "kid" fix.

Progress in the flower garden

It's so exciting to share this project as it's very near and dear to my heart.  My Granny was a special woman.  Truly a one of a kind.  She was a quilter, among many other things, and the one that brought quilting into my life and into my heart.  At age 18 I decided I wanted to make a quilt to take with me to college for my dorm bed so Granny offered to teach me how to quilt.  I'll save that story for another post at another time, so back to the flower garden. 

Granny passed away a few years ago now and I think of her every single time I quilt.  About a year after she passed, my mom showed up at my house with an envelope for me from the last sifting thru Granny's house.  To my surprise, inside the envelope were Granny's quilt templates, her pattern books, and a handful of precious fabric scraps from the last few quilts she made.  The quilting templates were cut out of old magazines, sand paper, you name it.  There were a few tried and true patterns that she stuck with when she was quilting.  Lone Star, Double Wedding Ring, Rail Fence were among her favorites.  As I carefully flipped thru her templates and patterns as to not damage a one, I found random notes written in her handwriting.  It brought such joy to see her messy handwriting again and to feel the love she put into every one of her quilts thru these pieces of paper. 

The stack of scraps was truly tiny.  Just a handful of pieces, but I remembered each of the quilts they came from.  My double wedding ring she made for hubby and I when we married.  A scrap double wedding ring she made for my cousin Katy.  A lone star made for another cousin.  They were absolutely precious to me but such a small amount was left, what would I ever be able to do with these pieces?  Every few days I would pull the fabric out, look at it, think about it, then put it away.  I would lay templates on the pieces to see what I could get out of them, then put it away.  After months of this, I decided the only thing that made sense was a Grandmother's Flower Garden.  This is one of the patterns from her stash that she never made but it just felt right.  Several of the scraps were just big enough to get 6 hexagons from them.  Of course, there wasn't enough to make much so out came my scrap bins.

Slowly I have been cutting hexagons and piecing them on the bus, in the car, wherever I have just a few minutes to do something.  I keep a small ziplock bag in my purse with a few flowers ready to piece so they are always handy.

As I watch the pile of completed flowers grow, I think of her and all the beauty she brought to this world and especially to our family.  I think about all the quilts I've made since that first Rail Fence I took to college.  Each scrap holding a special memory of the person, birthday, birth, wedding in which it was made.  This quilt is truly a work of love, holding special memories I will cherish for my lifetime, and hope it will continue to hold special memories for my boys long after I'm gone.

Dee Dee

In the eyes of a three year old, a 12 year old cousin is someone that is looked up to, emulated, even idolized.  Cousin Dee Dee is all that to Thing 3 and more.  Dee Dee is talked about all the time, "Go Dee Dee's house?"  "Dee Dee come my house?"  When it was announced we would be spending Easter with the family, you would have thought he was getting a second Christmas!  As soon as we pulled up to my sister-in-law's house and he saw Dee Dee playing in the yard he started screaming!  I thought he was going to jump out of the truck still strapped to his car seat!
Dee Dee seems to have a soft spot for Thing 3 as well.  No matter what the "big boys" are playing, Thing 3 is always invited to play.  Then these special moments happen, where the two of them head to the beach to throw rocks and sticks, and just hang with each other.

Seeing these two together absolutely melts my heart!  What a special thing to have such a strong bond with your cousin.  To have someone to look up to and idolize.  Very special indeed.

This Moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by Soule Mama.

So much work

 

Living in the Pacific Northwest has it's advantages, and it's disadvantages.  Two weekends ago it was finally decent enough to get out in the garden and what I mess I found!  The number of unfinished projects is overwhelming at times and it's really not that big of a yard.  There are wall caps to be cut and stuck in place, raised garden beds to move in anticipation of starting seeds, ground to be prepped for new grass, a playstructure in need of repair, and weeds.  Oh the weeds!  Big ones, little ones, ones that climb on rocks!  Grass growing in the strawberries!  It's absolutely endless!  Sometimes I just want to take a back hoe to the yard and start over.  Oh wait!  We already did that!

New Project

There is a fresh pile of fabric sitting on my work table, calling to me.  I have two new projects to work on and I'm giddy with excitement!  No, I certainly don't "need" any new projects since my to do list is as long as it is, but this has nothing to do with "need".  It's all about want people.  This fabric is not 100% quilting cotton however.  What could I possibly be making?  Stay tuned to find out.



This Moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by Soule Mama.

Right Now, Today

"Right now, today" has become a favorite phrase for Thing 3 these past few weeks.  He has been a bit slow on the language development similar to Thing 2 at this age, but he's making up for it now.  Every day there seems to be new words and phrases that come from this little being.  My favorite is "right now, today".  This phrase seems to follow just about every statement.  

"juice please, right now, today"
"play with two bubbas, right now, today" (bubba means brother in our house)

As I watch this little one grow and become a little boy, I cherish these phrases as a moment in time I don't want to forget.  I know all too well that I will blink and he will be a teenager and these moments will be just a memory.
 

For now little one, stop growing for just a minute so I can freeze time, right now, today.