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My friend Emily had a birthday this week, she loves cats and cooking so I made her this apron with a kitty on the pocket and gave her some other kitchen goodies. I have also been wanting to participate in Tie One On, and this apron fit the criteria for the May/June theme of The Pocket.
Happy Birthday Emily!
This morning I made Raspberry Jam with my two sisters and my Mom. Growing up, we had a ton of raspberry bushes in our backyard and all summer we would pick and my Mom would make jam. The raspberry bushes at my Mom's place are gone now and these days a small basket costs a lot! Safeway has been running a special for the last few days of raspberry baskets for $1. each! What! How can that be right?? And, to make the deal even sweeter, they are big, ripe, bursting with flavor, sweet raspberries.
While making these we were talking about how great it will be to have these in the cupboard and be able to give them away to friends as gifts. But when we each went home with just four jars I thought I can't part with any of them. Call me selfish but I NEED all of these to get me through the year. If I space them just right they could last for a while!
I saw the pattern for this large tote bag made out of a vinyl tablecloth in last months issue of ReadyMade magazine (It looks like the instructions are on the website if you sign in, the project is called "Oversized Tote").
So, when I spotted this darling tablecloth at Kmart a few weeks ago and it was only $3! I knew I had to make one of these bags. The instructions were clear and it was pretty easy to put together, it's not lined but the back of the tablecloth is flannel so its nice and soft inside. It came out much bigger than I originally thought it would be but hey, I've got a lot of stuff to carry around and this bag is so big I can even put my two year old in it!
We returned home on Saturday and I have been busy with cleaning up and settling back in. We had a great time! The weather was perfect and we spent every day at the pool, or on the lake, fishing, swimming and boating. Oh, and a lot of eating and sleeping too!
I am working on a table runner for my kitchen table, I have those great Moda Urban Chicks fabrics that I bought a while back and I just love them so I thought "Why not make something for me?". I am writing about this in part just so that I will finish it, I have such a hard time making anything for myself, everything is always a gift for someone else. So, I have been working just a little bit every night and hopefully will have something to show here in a few days.
We are off to Lake Shasta for our annual family trip to stay at Tsadi Resort. See you soon!
I wanted to show off the fun stuff that I got from Valerie, my partner in the Cupcake Swap. Valerie sent me a big box of cupcake goodies.
I love everything! Thank you so much Valerie! This cupcake cookbook has some really cute ideas for decorating, and she included a cupcake decorating set and sprinkles! The Martha Stewart cupcake liners are so cute. And I love the cupcake rubberstamp, I looked for one to send out with my swap package but never found one. I know this is not the best photo but I took it quickly because I wanted to post this before we leave on our trip tomorrow.
Here is a shot of some of the goodies I sent to Valerie. I went with a 4th of July cupcake kit theme and made my own cupcake picks. These came out so cute that I made an extra set for myself. 
Here are two lined zipper pouches made with some cute cupcake fabric I found on ebay and a striped fabric I had in my stash.
Not a minute too soon. I finished stitching the binding on this baby quilt late last night and my husband snapped photos of it this morning. The baby shower is today for a friend of mine having a baby boy due at the end of this month.
My friend mentioned that she liked the yellow polka dot fabric so I bought a yard and went from there. I wanted to keep it simple without too many prints. The solid yellows and ivory were easy to find but solid grey was another matter! I finally found some in the Kona Cotton line at Purl Soho.
I ventured out from my usual "stitch in the ditch" and did some fun machine quilting using my walking foot with quilt guide attachment which helps with spacing the lines and keeping them (somewhat) even and straight.
Keeping it simple and clean I just used a piece of a flannel sheet I bought on a clearance rack. It was slightly thicker than the flannel I would usually buy at the fabric store.
I love how this came out. The yellow and gray shades are not colors that I would usually choose to work with so it was interesting to see how it evolved. I was inspired by this quilt and by the DSQ book. My machine quilting was partly inspired by this table runner I came across over at Kathy's blog. Kathy was kind enough to answer some questions I had about machine quilting. I love her style. I am excited to work on some more small projects in which I can practice more machine quilting techniques.