My first Tutorial

I have been wanting to write a tutorial for a long time. I read my first tutorial online a little over a year ago and I was hooked. I have made so many neat things because of others willingness to share their talents. It took a magazine deadline to get ME kicked into high gear. My mom works for the Old Schoolhouse Magazine. I have worked for them off and on when extra help was needed. We were asked if we would like to come up with a craft for their Christmas supplement. I have made scrunchies for years. I even have a friends who will request them whenever I go home for a visit. So I wrote out instructions. My first Tutorial!! I am so excited. 
Please go to the link below to see my article. 
http://www.thehomeschoolmagazine-digital.com/thehomeschoolmagazine/holiday2010#pg80
The Old Schoolhouse has out a lot of time into this holiday magazine supplement so if you would like to see a lot of other great ideas feel free to browse the pages and enjoy. 
I hope this tutorial will be the first of many. I want to celebrate my first tutorial so I am giving away the scrunchie pictured above as well as a red snowflake one. I will choose one winner from the comments below on Monday November 15th at 9:00pm MST.

Special story bible

I received a great book from Tyndale recently to review that is my personal favorite of all the books I have reviewed. This one has made for some great bedtime reading with my youngest daughter. 

I have owned and read many story bibles but this one makes the stories very personal for my daughter. Each story focus on a character trait and then has you use your daughters name in a sentence with that trait. This was a great way to reinforce the point of the story as well as edify my little girl. Each story also ended with a fill in the blank of ____ is God's special princess. What a great book to help train up daughters and granddaughters to know that they are special in God's eyes. Another great part of the book is that there is some women of the bible mentioned that don't always get a lot of press. Which lead to my little one being interested to know more about these women. I would recommend this book as a gift to any young little girl. It is a great read along, to be shared for years to come. 

Two special quilts

 I guess all my quilts are special but when I make a quilt for a family member for the first time it has a special quality to me. Before we made our move across the US. I worked real hard to get some tops done. I did this for two reasons.
1. I wanted to give some quilts as gifts along the way.
2. I wanted to practice and try out the many great features of our new machine.
The first one I completed was for my Dad.

I made this for his semi truck bed. It is an extra long twin. It has a cowboy theme because whenever I think of my dad I think about him wearing his Wrangler jeans and cowboy boots. I have never saw my dad on a horse. He is just the typical American truck driver. He works hard and loves what he does. I love the smell of diesel fuel. It makes me always think of my dad. Whenever we are on road trips I love to stop at truck stops just so I can smell the diesel fumes. Kind of crazy right!! Some of my best memories as a kid were of times I was with my dad either on the road or working on his truck. That is why I thought there was not better quilt to make for him then one for his truck.

This cowboy was the one that looked the most like my dad. My dad's hair is mostly gray now but I still think of him this way. Every time I see this block it makes me smile.

Here is a glimpse of some of the other cowboys on this quilt. I have worked on this quilt for 10 years. I started it when we lived in El Paso, TX. It has been across the ocean and back inside a tin lunch box. I would pull it out and work on it every so often. Finally my family pushed me to finish it so I could give it to him. Unfortunately I was not able to give it to him while I was in our home town during the move. He was not able to make his schedule work to meet up with me. So is the life of the trucker. Hopefully he will make it thru CO sometime or I will catch up with him next time I am back home. Either way I could not wait to post pictures of it since this quilt is so special to me. 

Another quilt that I made before we left was one for my half sister. I wanted to make her a quilt since I have not been able to get to know her much since I have moved all over the country since she was born. I thought I could share with her a special gift made from my talents. 

I asked her mom what some her interests were and she said that her favorite color was lime green. I found a batik with pears on it and made that my focus. I used a pattern from Quiltmaker magazine. It is a favorite of mine. I have made it many times over the years. I always enjoy the end result. The pattern is called Warm Wishes. The pattern on the site is bigger but like I said I have made this many times in multiple sizes. This one I made is a twin size. 

My sister also has a passion for music so I choose music notes for the quilting. I also put Minky on the back to make it extra snuggly. I wasn't able to give this to her since I never made the connection with my Dad but hopefully soon it can make it's way to her. 

I have quite a few more quilts to post but first I must get the binding sewn down. Back to work! 

Great Giveaway

Check out my moms Blog Kitty's Roar! She is having a giveaway for a great kids bible from Tyndale House.

The Big Move!

I am sorry I have been away from my blog for so long we have been in transition over the last month and a half. It all started on July 2nd when our household goods were picked up. We were leaving the South, headed to live in the mountains of Colorado. On our way we had a month long adventure of visiting family and friends.
We also had a very special member of our family along for the fun. Celine our exchange student from 08/09 came along for the fun. This was a great way for her to see a lot of the USA while on her summer break from school.

Our first stop was SC to see good friends!!

We made some important fabric related stops along the way.

We delivered a quilt to my oldest niece.

It is a quilt to commemorate her visit to Europe in 2007

Her is my lovely niece being so gracious by letting me take her picture with the quilt. She immediately snuggled up with it and made good use of it. That is why I make quilts to be cherished and used. 

The cousins in a heap after a long day of playing.

Our next stop was the St Louis Arch. This is the tiny pod to the top for the great views. 

Then we were finally in my home state KANSAS!! WooHoo!!

We spent three weeks here but I was so busy I took very few pictures. 

My oldest and I rode horses two days in a row.

KS is so pretty!

I love to ride horses almost as much as my oldest!

We went to Silver Dollar City one weekend. The second row has part of our crew.

Daddy rode rides with our youngest. 

We celebrated 3 birthdays while we were home in KS. This is our youngest turning 5! Daddy was Captain Hook and she was a warrior Tinker Bell!!

Finally a little over a month after leaving Georgia we found a new home to make memories in while we are in CO. The trip getting here was so much fun but I am excited to settle in and get some quilting done. 

My Gammill Statler Stitcher arrives on Monday. I am very excited. I already have some tops to load when it arrives. My Mum and I have visited two quilt guilds already and have a few more on our list. I am looking forward to getting involved in the local area and growing our business and hopefully our family. 

Another great Read!!

Being the mother of two girls, I was excited when Tyndale gave me a copy of this book to review. I had heard of the idea of blessing your children before but this book explains it well and goes into depth on the subject. We generally think of a princess as somewhat of a diva but being the loved daughter of the King, Almighty God, is a much more pleasing association.

The book talks about rights of passage in other cultures, i.e., the quinceanera in Latin countries, but words of affirmation and love are a more lasting blessing to give our girls. Being a living example of a child of God is a rich legacy to leave them. This book concentrates on moms AND dads and the legacy they can give their children by being active participants in their lives. In our family we say we don’t spoil our children, we cherish them. This book gives lots of ideas for cherishing your daughters without spoiling them.

Moms and dads of daughters – read this book and be blessed!

Busy Busy Busy!!

We recently purchased a new longarm quilt machine. This is a great upgrade for us. I was quilting on a Royal Kenquilt 12 but now I am quilting on a Gammill Statler Stitcher Optimum. I have been quilting a lot of my tops that have been waiting in line for me to have time. I always put my customers quilts first so this can really slow my own progress down. I have used my tops to get familiar with the machine and complete some gifts. I have started taking customer quilts and I am so pleased with the quality I am offering. Her is some pics of a few recent tops. 

This quilt was for a friend of ours newest little addition. She was so sweet to blog about it. You can see more great pics on her blog. I used a monkey pattern which I loved. I am sure I will use many more times in the future. Quilted on the Gammill

Here is some antique blocks I pieced together for a friend of mine. I just loved the look of this when it was quilted and washed. I love that slight wrinkle a quilt gets when you wash it. I quilted this one on my bernina with a walking foot. 

This is a kite quilt that has been waiting a long time to get quilted. This was finished while we still loved in Germany. It is from Quiltmaker Magazine March/April 1998. The quilting made it look like wind was blowing across the quilt. I put the new Love U line of fabric on the back from Moda. Quilted on the Gammill.

This quilt makes me smile every time I see it. I purchased the unfinished top at a quilt shop in Wichita, KS back in 2005. It was made with the Vienna nights collection of fabric. It is too small for my bed but so pretty.

This was the last quilt top I did on my old machine before I upgraded. I think it was a great end to a machine that has been such a benefit to our family. I can't wait to see all the great tops that I complete on the new machine.