Visit From Gramma

How nice is it to have my mom visiting for along weekend?

Um...how handy do you think it is to have an extra pair of hands to juggle the 3 yr old, 6 month old, and entourage of plumbers traipsing through here giving us quote on our currently leaking kitchen sink.

Talk about pulling fat out of fire...perfect timing, Mom!

As if her hands are busy enough bouncing babies and making tents w/ 3 yr olds...she is working on the above cathedral windows quilt in her spare moments. I love the indigo fabrics she's using.

In other news, "Goodness", a Japan-based online fabric shop, is closing their doors and leaving Japan. I say "Badness" to that, since it's one less beautiful source of fabric for us....(boo hoo), but "Awesomeness" to the fact they are currently hosting a liquidation sale of 40% off everything.

Japanese Quilting in Southern California

Last weekend we drove down to LA for the wedding of an old and dear friend.

Correction, I should say that my husband drove us down and back. The truth is that I usually help out with the 7 hr drive, but this time he did the entire thing by himself. Gee, thanks honey!

Anyhow, on the way there, I read this totally cute new Japanese quilting book that I got. It included a little project with yo-yo's, and a bit of sashiko too. It was a little placemat thingy.

I decided to make a mini version of it, probably to make into a pin cushion or something small like that.

This book has some cathedral windows quilts in it too, that are using linen for the background fabrics. Really pretty.

On the way to the wedding, we stopped at BookOff, a used Japanese book shop, and looked for used quilting books. I found a few. Nothing super special, but prices were right, so I adopted a couple of thick books with block patterns. Worth it to stop in if you're in that neck of the woods.

Garden Windows

As my garden grows...so does my cathedral windows quilt.

If you feel like making your own King Sized version....please feel free, just be sure to purchase 25 - 30 yards of white fabric first! Wow!

Between my wealth of house guests (and yes, I do love them!) I managed to get another block of the quilt done. Completed it will only be 4 blocks, so I'm almost half way done.

My last house guest cleaned my dirty stove (I'm blushing) and the most recent set took us out to a very fancy dinner! This summer we have TONS of visitors coming and going. Personally I like the coming part, as the going is always sad. I wish I could keep the whole lot of them all here on bunk beds with us to BBQ and party every night.

Happy Father's Day!

Here's to all you father's out there...thank you for all you do. I'm lucky enough to be able to thank my own Dad as well as my husband!

Thank you for -

Kissing our skinned knees

Photographing us

Changing our clothes and diapers

Soothing us when we cry

Always being there

Support our wild ideas

Driving us places

Feeding us breakfast

Being worried for us when we are sick

and most of all for

Loving us no matter what


My small cathedral windows quilt continues on...There's a little wanna be quilt teacher inside me. I think teaching with my sister would be really REALLY fun. Maybe someday I'll get that far.

Open the windows

From this giant pile of fabric, I'll be cutting the rest of my windows for the other cathedral windows blocks. I just can't wait to open up some more quilted windows. A breath of fresh quilted air!

I'm thinking that a bunch of red and green will be adorable together since they are opposites, and I'm sort of a freak for those two colors together (ala baltimore albums).

Some may say they look too Christmas-y, but they're a year round thing for my taste.

Today I picked up my latest copy of Quilter's Home Magazine, and it's looking pretty cool so far. Not sure I'm willing to take Mark's (editor) advice and take a month off of quilting for the summer. I feel like I want to quilt every day!

Windows to the soul

They say that are eyes are the windows of our souls. I think in a way it's true. It's really hard to tell what people are thinking unless you can actually see their eyes. (or so I believe at least!)

This weekend we had some alone time as adults because my generous sister babysat and I left the house with just my husband.

We did spend some time together with Auntie Co Co on Saturday night, however, and my sister got me addicted to a new quilt pattern - cathedral windows.

There's a lot of hand work going on here, but it's a cool way to showcase many different fabrics in a small space. I'm hooked!