Spring Can Be Beautiful

We have three trees blooming in our yard. They were gorgeous over the weekend. One of the trees has fuchsia blossoms.

The tree on the corner of the house has pink flowers.

Next to the driveway, the tree has thousands of white blossoms.

It's always a fun challenge to catch a bee in a photo.

Jenny took this photo of one of the bunnies who calls our yard home. He likes to eat the corn and seeds the birds throw out of the bird feeder.

I got this picture of him or his sibling lounging in the sun earlier this spring. He was a little startled... just before I took the photo he had both back legs out flat, sunning the bottoms of his paws.

Farm Baby Quilt

My niece's baby shower was today. I made her a baby quilt.



The baby's room is painted green and going to be decorated in a farm theme.

The pieced flower on the quilt has a ric rac stem.

I found a panel for the back of the quilt. It is very similar to the bedding she picked on her baby registry.

The ultrasound says the baby is a girl.

Getting Ready for a Baby Shower :)

I'm helping with a baby shower for my niece. Very exciting...this will the first baby on my side of the family in 30 years. I made 10 pair of hot pads for prizes.



I tried a new pattern on these hot pads. They were easy to make but used 6 layers of fabric...a little costly considering fabric is near $10 a yard in a quilt store.



The rest of the hot pads were made using a top, back, layer of Warm & Natural and a layer of Insu Bright.

I decorated some Hersey Nuggets using address labels. A picture (ultra sound) of my future great niece is on the top of the label and happy flowers are on the sides.

On the bottom, there is a "thank you" from the baby to the shower guests.

April Millington Quilt Club Meeting

At our meeting on Wednesday, Faith showed us this purse she made.



Faith also shared a quilt made from her stash.



Nancy shared a purse made from the same pattern Faith used.



This is Connie modeling her Ami Simm's Michigan Mink Jacket.



Connie made this Mariner's Compass quilt for her granddaughter's 3rd birthday.



Mary made this bag from fabric she found in Alaska.



Sidney used recycled ties to make an Ipod holder.



Here Sidney is modeling her Easter apron.



Karen showed the club quilt she had quilted.



Jean made a purple purse.



Julie showed us a number of bags she had made.



Jan made 3 flannel rag quilts for charity.



Eileen is going to teach the members to make blocks for a "Walk in the Park' quilt. She has been working on making blocks and quilting them as she goes.



Cheryl made this black and white bag.



Carolyn pieced and quilted this brown and tan quilt.



Linda showed the group her daughter Theresa's first quilt. Theresa made the quilt for a friend who has just lost her mom. She used photos of the friend, her mom and her friend's child in the quilt.



Julie quilted Theresa's quilt. Julie also quilted this quilt. One of Linda's friends hand embroidered the blocks.



Julie made this beautiful cake for our lunch.



A big thanks to Linda for taking notes, while I took pictures.

Happy Easter!

We went to Tom's sister's home in Rochester to celebrate Easter with Tom's family today.
I tested a new recipe for stained glass jello. I think I need to tweak the recipe a little. I used sugar free and low fat ingredients and the flavors weren't quite as good as they could be.



Jeff brought the eggs for the family dinner. (Jeff is an electrical engineer.) He has an Egg-Bot, which he bought at a Maker Faire. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5JHRy1iud0 Jeff spent a lot of free time this past week decorating eggs for his coworkers. (A lot of those eggs had GM, Volt and Hybrid logos on them)




My sister-in-law, Chris, made everyone an Easter basket. A lot of scrapbooking...there were 13 of us at dinner. I haven't had an Easter basket since I was a child so this is a real treat :)



The ground was covered with snow earlier this week. Finally, we had a sunny warm day and I found some hardy flowers blooming.

Happy Easter & Happy Spring!!!

Mission Store Find

Yesterday, I worked at our church Mission Store. Another worker and I spent most of our time pricing donations. We went through numerous boxes of fabric. A real treat for both of us, we both belong to the Millington Quilt Club and have sewn for years. Most of the fabric was wool or silk, I think whoever originally owned the fabric may have been a seamstress. I found one fabric with a lot of gold metallic threads in it, hopefully it will become a vest one day. As I worked though the boxes of fabric, I kept moving a cigar style box out of the way.



Imagine my surprise when I opened the box! It was full of threads. Of course, I had my coworker price it and I purchased it.



I recognize the Mettler and Gutermann brands but have never heard of Ursus thread. Does anyone know if it is a good brand of thread? I have not been able to find any information online.

Thread Scarf

Today is my daughter Angela's birthday. She wears a lot of scarves, so I made her a thread scarf.



I got the idea from a Sewing With Nancy episode in which Nancy made a scarf with silk ribbon. After searching the internet for ideas, I ended up using silk ribbon, decorative yarns and threads and small squares of polyester.



The ingredients were layered between sheets of water soluble stabilizer. The layers were then sewn together using a variety of variegated threads. After the scarf was soaked in water and dried, there were spaces which were blank...giving the scarf a lacy appearance.



Because I love to embellish, I couldn't resist adding beads at the bottom edges.



Happy Birthday, Ang!