This Saturday I spent a good amount of time in my yard. It was so beautiful outside. I pulled weeds and got my vegetable garden area ready to plant. I took a few photos and thought I would share. These first few photos you will see a photo taken today and one taken in the Fall of 2006. Our yard sure has changed a lot in these few years. It's a jungle out there!!! LOL Some of you are entering Fall right now as we enter late Spring. I hope you are all having a wonderful Mother's Day today!!!

One Flower Wednesday......

Actually, it was a six flower week. :) I have six more to add to my flower garden. I 'think' I have decided to add another ring around these to make them larger. My camera does not take color accurate photos. I am so dissapointed that you cannot see just how colorful these really are. That green polka dot flower is really green and the one just to the lower left of it is actually purple! You would never know that by the photo. I think next time I will use a different camera to see the difference. Until next Wednesday.......

One Flower Wednesday......

First of all I would like to say a big THANK YOU to all of you who gave me advice on how to do my flowers. I am still not completely settled on how I will do it but I have some ideas. I have had so much fun this past week sewing these flowers and I have to say, I am not sure I can only sew them on Wednesdays. :) I have done 9 so far and just want to keep going. I do know I will use yellow for the centers and it will be scrappy so I will use different shades of yellow. I still am unsure if I will make them one row larger or just leave them as is. I have been playing around with the idea of using green around them rather than white. Inspired by Valentina's photo with the flowers on the bushes. :) I just love how the flowers pop out on the green. I am glad to see so many people joining in on this fun. Thanks Karen for starting One Flower Wednesday! I have wanted to make a GFG and this was the boost I needed to get started! I look forward to seeing all the gardens grow.......

In Need of Your Opinion.......

I am participating in 'One Flower Wednesday' and am about to start my garden! I have a stack of brights that I was planning on using for my flowers and a stack of a sort of 'washed out' solids that match. I was using my calendar as inspiration and was thinking I would follow it using the yellow for the centers and surround each flower with white. As I started cutting and thinking about this, and the more I thought about it, the more unsure I became. I thought I would lay out my pieces and see what you all think about it. I am now unsure if I should continue with how it is in the calendar or use the solids as centers with brights around and no white in between.....or, yellow for centers with brights and the flowers would be sewn together, maybe even making flowers with the solids so after being sewn together there would be a mixture of bright printed flowers and solid flowers. Ohhhh, I'm liking that idea!!! LOL I need some opinions here on what you think would look best!

Here is my calendar photo that I was planning on following.


Here are my brights with the solids on the inside and you can see what it would look like with the white around them. These would have yellow centers. The pictures really do not show just how bright these prints are.


Here they are, without the whites, just regular GFG's with the solids as centers.


And here they are with just brights with yellow as centers. Maybe I would use the solids to make flowers too, with yellow centers and mix them in with the brights.


Gosh, just making this post has helped me to work it out in my mind. LOL Funny how that works. I sat up there in my sewing room unsure of what to do, then I come to my computer and write about it and now I think I'm liking the idea of making them smaller, just brights around the center and also some solids around a center and mixing them. I suppose the larger flowers would also take longer to make. Please tell me what your opinion is on this, I would really appreciate it. Thanks xo

Another Barn Block.....

Today I completed one more barn block. Inserted is the March quilt block. I used the same prints as the first barn, just switched it up. All of my barns will have different sky prints. It went quicker the second time around. Still struggling with my seam. 'Seams':)my seam is ok, I think it's my fabric that gets stretched out of shape. I have a lot to learn!!! I noticed after posting the barn yesterday that my HST's are turned the wrong way so the print is going in the wrong direction. I am not sure if I will rip it out yet. I thought I would, but as Ann says, it gives it character. :)

Fun with Barn Blocks

I made my first barn block today. Boy was it harder than I thought it was going to be. I have such a hard time with my quarter inch seam. No matter what I do it never turns out as it should. I measure from the needle out and I have even put tape on my machine to make sure I have something to follow. The little block gave me a hard time but over-all I think it turned out ok. These instructions could be made either by paper piecing or using templates. I made templates and cut my pieces out and sewed on the machine. I was regreting not sewing them by hand, they would have turned out perfect if I had. :) I really love this block and cannot wait to make the next one. I am not sure I will follow the pattern for the wall hanging, I may arrange them differently since I will be using all different sky prints. Here is the web site where I got the pattern. http://thegoldenthimble.com/clubhouse.html

Tulip Festival ~ Woodburn Oregon

This past weekend our family went to Woodburn Oregon to the Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival. I wanted to get a nice 'spring' photo of my kids together. This is our daughters senior year of high school and next year she is moving on to college and will be living in the dorms. I thought it would be nice to get a photo of the kids before she goes. We were here near the end of the seson for tulip flowers. A few days after we were there they 'topped' some of the flowers off. I would like to go back again next year, but sooner in the season and maybe even sooner in the day when there are less people there. :) It was a beautiful sunny day, perfect for taking photos. Hope you enjoy them. :)

I haven't posted pics of my Klosjes in a few weeks. Here is what I have so far. Still enjoying making each one. A few friends from Australia sent some Klosjes to me, I wonder if they can spot which ones are theirs. :)

Klosjes....

Well, I am having issues uploading photos to Blogger today but I did manage to get one to work. Here are all my Klosjes together. I think I did 13 this week. This is a photo of all the Klosjes I have done in the two weeks I've been sewing them. I am still enjoying it so will keep on stitching. :)

My thrifty find at Goodwill.....

Today my daughter and I set out to do some grocery shopping and a trip to Costco. We stopped off at the Goodwill to donate some items and decided to have a look around the Goodwill store. I haven't been in a Goodwill store in years! A fellow FB and blogger friend, Kim, from Threadheads Unite, always has a Thrifty Thursday post on her blog and it inspired me to stop in and have a look. We looked at the books and my daughter found one she liked, brand new for $2.99 I must remember to take my son to look for books there since he always must have a book to read at all times. :) We wandered on through the store and looked at the furniture, glasswear and various items. Wandering down one isle up on the top shelf I spotted......A QUILTING HOOP!!! It's one of those hoops that is made to sit on your lap so that as you quilt it can turn easily as you need it to. I have always wanted one of these hoops. My husband bought me a quilt hoop for my birthday last year and I was hoping he could make additions to it to turn it into one of these. I am not sure what it's called, but I love it and was so happy to spot it. I have seen them displayed at quilt shows but they are always so expensive. This one was sold at Craft Warehouse for $38.99 but I bought it from Goodwill for $12.99. I am so excited to try it out. I think I will start with this little table topper I made in reproduction prints.
What do you use when hand quilting in your lap?

A Klosjes Saturday as we welcome the first day of SPRING...

This is my first week making these cute little Klosjes'. I love them, but more important, it is my first time hand stitching and I LOVE HAND STITCHING! I wish I would have attempted this years ago. I am so excited about it, I keep thinking of all the different patterns I can do by hand. :) The hardest part is the tracing and cutting out of the pieces, all I want to do is get to the stitching. Hmmm, maybe I can pay the kids to do the tracing and cutting out!!!?? ;)
The two spools on the bottom right are gorgeous prints given to me by Ann. I love the warm tones. It's too bad this photo does not really show the colors as they really are. I can see myself purchasing warmer tones next time I'm out at the quilt shop. For now though, I have enough fabric to keep me stitching these for a long time.



Today started out a beautiful day for the first day of spring in Oregon! The sun was shinning and all you could hear was the humm of lawn mowers all throughout the neighborhood. I took full advantage of that warm sun and did some yard work of my own. I pulled weeds, pruned bushes and had my youngest son mow all the lawns. The yard looks great!!! Flowers are blooming, trees are budding and allergies in our house are in full force! :) In this photo you can see the white buds all over the trees. At first glance I think it's snow.
This afternoon after working in the yard I made Peanut Butter Blondies! Two things we love in our house, peanut butter and chocolate. :) These brownies are so good. I thought I would share a piece with you, hope you like it. ;)