If Sew:

mini cheesecakes

I attended a gathering earlier this week and was asked to bring a dessert for 10 people. I have been waiting for an excuse to buy a mini cheesecake pan and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity.

I obsessed over which recipe to make, there are so many great ideas about making these adorable cheesecakes.

I ended up making one with a little lemon zest and a graham cracker crust, and the other a vanilla bean with chocolate cookie crust. They were both delicious and I don't need to eat any more cheesecake for a while!

robot quilt

I made this little baby quilt for my dear friend, who just had a sweet baby boy.

I'm going up to Washington state next month to visit her and will bring this along with some other baby goodies I hope to finish before July!

I love this fabric, it's from Free Spirit fabrics and is called 'Robots' by David Walker.

I used flannel scraps for the back. Hopefully, this is a good start to a very productive month of June.

Sunday sewing

--sweet gifts--

--beautiful bouquet from the hubby--

--a sneak peek of a quilt top nearly finished--

--coin quilt coming together--

--uninterrupted time to work on sewing projects today, the best Mother's Day gift--

Butter and Eggs Day Parade

We look forward to our town's Butter and Eggs Day parade every year. It's always crazy trying to find a seat to watch from so this year I decided to go early and stake out a spot like everyone else does. A neighbor told me to go at 6am but I thought that was waaaaay too early. I went at 8am and this is what the streets looked like.

 

 

By pure luck I found the last spot available and put my blanket down, went home and relaxed before going back with Johnnie to enjoy the parade. Next year my alarm will be set for 5:45am.

Fabric Bowl

I took a class last weekend with some friends to learn to make fabric bowls or baskets using fabric scraps and clothesline. The class was taught with the techniques used in the book It's A Wrap by Susan Breier.

This class was so much fun and I came home with this orange bowl about half way completed and finished it up this weekend. Unfortunately, I think I wasn't paying too much attention on the instructions on how to end the last coil of clothesline and mine came out with a pretty big bump. You can see the bump in the photo here. But I do love the look of the scrappy fabric and the fact that this craft is super forgiving, nothing precise here and what better way to use scraps!

There is also a really good tutorial here and I used it today to make another smaller round bowl. I haven't had a chance to take a photo yet but the end has less of a bump then this oval bowl did.

Happy (birth) earth day

In addition to it being Earth Day today is my birthday. My sweet husband sent me these beautiful ranunculus in my favorite color! I love them, they brighten the kitchen and my whole day.

Yosemite in winter

 

We went to Yosemite weekend before last. Johnnie had never seen the snow and I had never seen Yosemite covered in snow. It was a really memorable weekend, we had so much fun.

The weather was amazing, look at that blue sky!

 

Tomorrow is the first day of Spring. Goodbye Winter...see you next year!

belated Valentines post

Valentine's Day gift from my very sweet husband who went shopping at Britex Fabrics on his lunch break! I love those hippos!

Johnnie spent three days working hard on these Valentines for his classmates and friends. He put so much attention in to each detail. On the day of the school Valentine party when I picked him up he showed me that he still had all his Valentines in his bag. He had been too shy to raise his hand and tell his teacher that he hadn't got a turn to pass his out. It just about broke my heart, but we quickly ran around to all his friends before they left to go home and I think most everyone got one.

I'm busy making pillowcases for birthday party gifts this weekend. I'm starting on a fun quilt project too.

After

Well I really should have took a "before" photo but I never did. And now, I don't even want to remember what it looked like before. Just take a look at it now.

I am so thrilled to have this dedicated space. The cabinets were purchased from Ikea and we (my husband actually) installed lighting underneath. The cutting table is just a 6 foot foldable table from Costco but the great thing about it is that it has an adjustable height. We have set the table up to the tallest height and it is perfect for standing at and cutting.

Here is my fabric stash all folded up nice and neat using that ruler shown in the photo there. This fabric takes up a lot less space all folded so neatly (maybe I need to buy some more fabric?). I still have my old suitcase and a couple of drawers filled with smaller pieces of fabric and scraps. My next project is to organize them by color. But first I have got two new quilts I am working on, more info on that soon.

Here I am!

My goodness, where has the time gone. I didn't mean to be away from here for so long. I have reorganized my sewing space and begun work on a new quilt. More posts this weekend. Happy Valentines Day!