Pumpkin Patch

Today we took the kids to the local pumpkin patch at Latin's Cider Mill.  They have tons of pumpkins as well as lots of other types of squash.  The kids love the fresh apple cider and pumpkin spice donuts and I love the warm gooey apple fritters (seriously the best apple fritters I've had in my life).  There's also goats to feed, a petting zoo, a few carnival rides and a super BBQ stand with insanely good pulled pork sandwiches (my personal favorite part of the trip).

checking out the turkeys

this goat really liked him! it followed him around along the fence.

Odin was too scared to get that close to the goats, but he gave Aiden his goat feed and watched him  do it from a safe distance.

it started raining while we were there so i was glad i thought to bring the boys extra clothes and rain coats.  i, on the other hand, got soaked.  i should really get a rain coat.  i do live in a pretty rainy state after all!

 the search for the perfect imperfect pumpkins.  we love to get the ones that are "different" and often over-looked.

they found two long ones which they wanted.  i realize now that i didn't get pictures of the whole wheelbarrow  full of pumpkins.  i'll have to post some pictures after we get them all finished.  we'll start painting them next week.

I'll be back next week with some pictures of painted and decorated pumpkins.  How many of you still carve/decorate pumpkins? Do you do it with your favorite little people or is it something you enjoy doing even without little ones? I'm sure Jake will still be carving pumpkins and decorating our entire house long after our kids are gone! :)

A Quiet Morning

Not much to say today.  I started knitting a new sweater this morning while I was sitting outside with the boys.  They ran around the yard and played for awhile and I got to knit and drink hot tea.  It was a wonderfully relaxing way to start the morning and much needed.  The last few days have felt busy and full.  I needed some time to recharge my batteries and find some quiet for my soul.  The boys apparently needed it to.  After a nice peaceful morning we all ventured inside together and they had some hot tea with me and ran off to build some wooden block towers.

I hope you've managed to find some peace and quiet lately.  Wishing you a peaceful morning today.

I'm Back!

Yes, it's been awhile.  A long while.  But I'm back feeling refreshed and I have so much to share with you! So... since there's a lot of photos to share and I'm sure you'd rather see the pics than listen to me drone on about them, here you go! (Just be aware that the pic quality may not be the best on all of them as I could not get the lighting right.  I figured it's better to share what I have then keep waiting for "perfect" pictures.

And since they are all for sale in my etsy shop now, I'll just share the link to my store home here instead of giving a listing after each quilt as I usually do.

This one is a favorite of mine.  It was my first attempt at doing an improv style block and I love it!  It's a mix of some modern Log Cabin blocks and a few truly improv pieced blocks.

The quilting is all in slightly wavy straight lines.  I haven't done a quilt with this style quilting pattern before and decided to try it out.  Boy do I love it! Not only is it pretty easy, but it just looks so great with certain quilts.  You'll be seeing a lot of this quilting in the future I'm sure.

I love the fabrics.  This quilt could easily go for a boy or girl.  It would also make a very nice wall hanging I think.

Here's the pieced back.  I thought for sure I would use up all this fabric I have, but nope, several quilt tops and mug rugs later and I've still got some left.  It's a Denyse Schmidt fabric collection, can't recall the name right now though.  

And this one... this guy was fun.  I used long strips left from cutting out pieces to another quilt and then pieced in a few  small stragglers I couldn't bare to part with.

This one is small.  It would be a great size for a stroller or car seat.  

Nicey Jane fabric collection.  I used up almost all my fabric from this line putting together the patchwork squares and then...

I pretty much finished off these two pieces for the back.  I'm sad to see this fabric all gone.  I really like it.

I have some better pics of this quilt, which I'll try to find soon.  Jungle Bungle it's called.  
 

This quilt... oh, this quilt.  I adore this quilt.  I am so, so sorry I didn't make it bigger.  I so very much want to keep it for myself but it's just enough too small for me to snuggle in that I don't know if I can keep it.  I like it so much I even contemplated hanging it on my wall somewhere, or saving it for the new house when I get my own studio.  It'd look great on the wall in there.  I figure if I still can't get enough of it by Christmas, then I'll keep it.

Don't you love all the color? I used nothing but my scraps for this quilt.  It felt so amazing to use up all these small pieces of fabric left from other projects.  I only wish I had been able to tell I'd used my scraps afterwards, but it somehow looks like my scraps grew after I finished this quilt.  I know, it sounds crazy to me too.

See? Even the back is pieced together with leftover fabrics.  And the color is really off in this picture.  In reality, the large piece of fabric on the left is mostly purple and the bottom left is a soft buttery yellow.  

More scrap basket quilts.  I've been having fun making these quilts.  

Here's a better view of the whole quilt.  

And this quilt actually started out to be the backing to another scrap quilt, but I loved it so much I couldn't hide it on the back of another quilt so I added a few more fabrics to make it a bit larger and then pieced something else together for the back.  It's not my favorite quilt ever, but it's growing on me.  

This quilt top has actually been finished for longer than I care to admit but I finally pulled it out and quilted and bound it.  I had fun finishing this one.  Compared to everything else I've been doing lately the colors were so soft and muted.  It was a nice change.

and the pieced back.

I made a toddler size and adult size quilt with these fabrics and still have way too much of it leftover.  

Even after using large pieces of it for both the backs and not saving the small scraps (I still can't believe I threw out scraps!).

I also made up a little collection of mug rugs with the smaller pieces I did have on hand already.  These guys are so cute! I love the nice spring feel to them.

Halloween mug rugs!!! Now these were fun.  All of them are log cabin style blocks.  I used up way less Halloween fabric than I was hoping to, but oh well.  There's probably close to 20 of these I made.  

And they all have the same black cat fabric on the backs of them.  Now that piece of fabric, I think I may have finished off.  There was a lot of it.

Spooky Eyes mug rug

This is my favorite Spooky Eyes mug rug.  I think if it doesn't sell, I'll end up keeping it for myself.  I made about 4 of the Spooky Eyes mug rugs.

So, there you have it! This is (most of) what I've been working on over the last few months in between vacations, helping my brother move to Portland, OR and homeschooling.  I do still have a few things that are in the works currently and will be showing those to you soon.  I'll try to spread them out over a few weeks and not assault you with them all as I just did here.  :)

I should thank my wonderful husband for holding all these quilts up so I could actually get them photoed.  I asked him if he would mind holding up a few quilts for me so I could photo them.  He said sure even though he was getting ready to leave for a motorcycle ride.  And when I asked him to help me carry all the quilts out he said, "Just how many quilts do you have?"  I assured him it was just a few and stacked about 15 quilts into his arms with my best I love you soooo much face.  He was a great sport.  Holding them all and waiting while I got everything just right.  Then holding them again when I changed my mind.  Even when his dad was pacing the yard with motorcycle gear on he still didn't say anything and even helped me fold them all back up and put them away for me.  He's a great guy.  I think I'm gonna keep him.

Happy Birthday Aiden

So, today is my oldest boys sixth birthday.  I'm not sure how I feel about this.  He's growing so fast! Really, I can't understand where the time has gone to.  It seems like yesterday we brought him home from the hospital.  I looked at him this morning with his first bottom front tooth already fallen out and new ones growing in and just could not believe how quickly the time has gone with him.  I hope the rest of it stays longer.  Although he did look at me and say, "Mom, I'm gonna live with you forever. I love you too much to leave.  Besides, you'll get lonely when dad's at work if I'm gone.  And don't we have fun together?"

He's the sweetest little boy.  Very literal and so exact with his own work.  Yet he's also so gentle and thoughtful with the biggest heart I've ever known.  I am so proud to be his mama!  I can't wait to see what the years ahead with him will bring.

Happy Birthday Aiden! I hope you have a truly wonderful day bud! I love you so much!

Been awhile... be awhile still

So yes, it's been quite some time since I've logged in here and blogged about anything.  Just wanted to let everyone know I have not forgotten about you (actually I feel quite guilty for just deserting you all). I will be back soon.  We have had a lot going on this summer and frankly I've just been so tired.  I finally got back to my sewing machine about a week ago though and have been super, super busy with quilt making.  I'll post photos as I finish projects up.  Right now my iPhoto program isn't working for uploading photos.  Something to do with the update my OS did and I have to fix it.  Hopefully that will be taken care of soon because I do have lots to share!

Sticks & Stones

Well, I'm finally back at my sewing machine after getting home and recovering from our road trip to CA.  It was such a fun trip.  It was absolutely wonderful to see my brother and sister-in-law.  I wish we could have stayed longer.  The trip home was amazing! We camped in Yosemite and then in the Redwood Forest before heading home on Hwy 101, which travels along the coast all the way up to the tip of WA.  We didn't take it all the way up since that would have been hours out of our way, but we did follow it as long as we possible could before we had to get off 101 and go home.  I will have some pictures posted by later this week hopefully.

Two weeks from now, we are actually leaving for another vacation.  Jake's family reunion, held every other year, at his Aunt and Uncle's absolutely beautiful lake home in New Hampshire.  It's really fun to have the whole family together for a week or so.  It's the only time this happens since most of us are scattered around the country.

Then, a few days after being back from this trip in July, I'm having house-guests for a week or so.

Yes, busy summer.  I don't think I've ever had this busy of a summer before.  All I can think is, when will I have time to sew? and what about canning? I have strawberries and zucchini and tomatoes all starting to grow now.  Very exciting for me! I've never been able to grow any of these things before and now they seem to be doing great.  I'm growing lots of other things too, but these three things have never prospered for me so I'm a little excited about that.

But anyway, to make up for all the time away this summer, I've been sewing like crazy these last few days.  I get really anxious and grouchy when I'm away from my home and sewing machine for too long.  I guess I feel like I'm trying to make up for being gone so much this summer.  Yeah, I know, I'm a little weird.  Most people would just go on vacation and relax but I'm not that type of gal.  I like to be doing something.  It's very hard for me to relax and enjoy doing nothing.  I'm working on it.

Anyway, here's what I've been working on lately.  I call it Sticks & Stones.

There was a free pattern available for this quilt, but after such frustration and seam ripping and recalculating the math, and still not being able to make this pattern work, I decided to just figure my own pattern out.  It was much less of a headache than I thought it would be and I'm very happy with the results.  This fabric line, It's a Hoot by Momo, is still one of my favorite fabric lines.  

At first I thought it was too busy, but now I really like it.  The colors are just so bold and bright and I think the busy-ness (is that a word?) of the pattern plays well with it.

I keep wanting to say this or that fabric is my favorite one, but in the end, I just really love them all.  Maybe those wonderful large dots.  I do love a really great dot fabric.  

And in keeping with what now seems to be a tradition for me, a pieced back using the leftover pieces from the quilt top.  I think it adds so much to a quilt to have a bit of interest on the back.  It makes it reversible really.  There's actually a few random pieces from my scrap pile on the front and back of the quilt that I had to pull in to make it the size I wanted.  That's how well I used up this jelly roll!  

It's for sale sold! here in my etsy shop

And next up is Soft & Sweet Patchwork.  As you can see, these two quilts are night and day from each other.

I love making patchwork quilts. It's amazing to see how different each one turns out based on the fabrics used or the layout they're pieced together in. This quilt is no different. I started with some patchwork blocks of Hunky Dory fabric from Moda fabrics and decided to change things up a bit and add a focal point to the center of this quilt. I think I got it right. :)

I really love how this quilt still feels traditional, yet has a bit of a modern twist to it. The colors are a perfect blend of bright and soft.

And surprise! Another pieced back.  I adore that landscape print.  It's very fun and whimsical looking.  I'd love to be laying right under that pink tree on the hill reading a book.

I do have a few more things in the works I want to share, but I have been waiting for a nice sunny day to get some photos.  It's been a bit cloudy and rainy here in WA lately.  Today looks promising though so maybe I'll have some pics to share with you by tomorrow.

This one is also for sale on etsy here.  

Enjoy the rest of your weekend! 

Back from Vacation and ready for a Nap

Well, we made it back safe and sound from our road trip to California.  The boys were so good on the long drive.  Really truly great.  Which made for a pretty wonderful adventure for us all.  We visited with my brother and his wife and got to see his graduation from Seminary.  I am so very proud of him.  He found his passion and stuck with it, even though I know it wasn't always very easy for him (or the rest of us)!

We had such a wonderful visit with them both, though it was much too short as the boys let me know when we made it home.  We took advantage of our road trip and Jake's time off from work and took our time coming home.  We had an overnite stay in Yosemite National Park.  It was so busy and late when we made it there we ended up sleeping in the car.  Not the most comfortable nite sleep for sure, but it was a memorable part of the trip.  When we woke up, I looked out my window and there were almost a dozen white tail deer in the woods next to us.  We all watched them very quietly for awhile until they bounded off into the forest.  We also saw a black bear, some elk, and lots more deer.  Then we camped in the Redwood National State Park the next nite.  The boys thoroughly enjoyed camping.  Though they did say they wished it came with a swimming pool like the hotels did.  :)

We started home the next afternoon and decided to stay one more nite in a hotel on the Oregon coast.  The boys were quite excited about one more nite of swimming pools and Jake and I were very excited about a nice warm and soft bed to sleep in.

I have to say though, as much fun as the whole trip was, and as great as the boys behaved, I am so glad to be home! It was wonderful snuggling up into my own bed last nite.  We all slept in late this morning.  The  boys slept until 8:30! They have never slept past 7:30 in their entire lives so this was a nice little treat for me and Jake this morning.

Oh, and speaking of my husband... He got quite a promotion at work! :)  I'm very proud of him.  He works so hard and does so much for us and he really deserves this.  He leaves soon to go up for training and then starts working in a new office and not outside in the cold Arctic anymore.

I think maybe next week I'll try to have some pictures posted of our trip.  We're all still readjusting to being home still.  And I'm going to go take a nap...