Belated Mother's day gift

Several years ago my daughters and I went out for lunch for Mother's day......well they actually took me out...or so they said cuz I was the one that ended up paying the bill :) So last Thursday we went on our 3rd annual Mother's day luncheon...and I didn't pay :) My son actually picked up the tab for it.....how is that for special?......
When I got there the girls were already seated and in the booth with them was a stranger :) Actually it was my Mother's day gift........you see several years ago I got a chicken....and since then the yard art has been growing and multiplying in my yard.........I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!
One of my favorite lines from the movie "UP" is...... "squirrel?" I tend to say that whenever anyone is distracted or...well whenever it fits actually....so this year to add to the collection I got a squirrel :) I love the guy who does these..... :) What talent...so without further ado...here is the collection to date
The squirrel...the newest to the collection

a close up...he needs his eyes darkened in cuz they are kinda spooky in person :)

this is the piece that actually started it all...a friend gave this to me for doing something for her...can't remember what but I got this cute butterfly pick

a doggie pick

flowers...that have seen better days

the original chicken that started this craze

a piggy

a rabbit poke

another doggie

a flying pig

this has got to be my funniest pick

a friend bought this over one day :)

not sure what this is but it was cute

doggie pick


another doggie pick

another rooster

and the newest pic...another rooster

so the count is:
chicken/rooster-3
piggies-2
bunny-1
squirrel-1
funny bird-1
doggies-6 (guess they win!)

another giveaway

I am passionate about what I do....and sometimes sharing that passion with others is very good....so I am telling you there is another giveaway..........OK...so by blogging about it I put my name in another drawing and giving myself another chance to WIN!!!!!!!!!!! After all I am a winner! :) At least I like to view myself as a winner even tho I don't get a chance often to win something......
So to up my chances of winning...........Shawna at 1 Choice 4 Quilting is having a spectacular giveaway...not only her but several others have joined with her and are being generous to some lucky winners.....here is the blog address to go and see the lovely things people have donated to this super duper giveaway
Thanks again Shawna for being so generous.

ps...when you order from her look for extra goodies...not only that but the care with which she packages your order makes you feel really special!!!! I *heart* Shawna and 1 Choice 4 Quilting

the day before the end...........

One of the joys of living in the great Northwest is to have days in between the yuck that are absolutely gorgeous..........wanted to enjoy the day so we headed out for the Olympic peninsula and ultimately Hurricane Ridge.........didn't realize how much snow we would encounter but the weather wasn't cold even tho there were huge piles all around us...but wait...I get ahead of myself

walking the dogs after the long ride to the ferry and before the long ride after the ferry

here we are on the ferry waiting for it to get to our final destination

izzy...need I say more?

we temporarily take a break from all the doggie pics to show the beauty of where we ended up

another shot of being on top of Hurricane Ridge


following the leader :)

izzy loved the snow...she kept rolling and digging and running up and down this cliff
here she is at the top of it

here you can see how really high she is

reese contemplating the meaning of this white stuff

both girls paying attention to the one who is holding the camera

the snow-man and dogs

home again home again ziggity zig

reese was wanting this 'fun' ride to be over ;)

so now we are back to the grey skies and the liquid sun...but we had a fun day in the sun so will wait till the next one :)

Rainy days and Sundays

Rainy days and Sundays....ah...it has been raining all day today...really coming down quite a lot...not hard just lots of it ....so what do you do when it rains???? You quilt and take pictures of puppies :) What else????
Here is a bit of chocolate to make your day :)







On to finishing another quilt top...you guys are always amazed that I get so many done...but it is cuz they are only about 30" square....easy to do tops and quilt..........

Ok....so when I saw this fabric I kinda had an idea of what I wanted to do with it....instead of normal piecing I used strips and then quilted the strips...not exactly what I envisioned but it worked...and then when the top was done I thot a cute little applique ducky would fit :) So while at another class I had the teacher help me figure out how to do a simple applique :)

I got the applique done yesterday before my machine decided to take a hiatus and see the repair guy :) You can see the bubbles that I used to quilt the sides too :) Totally fit this fabric

Love it when a plan comes together

YEAH!!!! Blogger is finally back....tried to post this for a bit and with no luck...today they came back online so could post these pictures...
this first one is a friendship braid done with Moda marbles........kinda faked the top by cutting off the top and sewing it to the bottom....cuz I didn't want to waste any of that fabric :)
I am such a cheapsake!

here is the back quilted...I played a bit with free motion after I put the embroidered feathers on...not too bad :)

And here is my next pile of schtuff :) all cut and ready to sew


here the process :)

this shows the color the best...it is called peony and is a really cute dark pink

all bound and ready for some lucky little one

the 3D pinwheel

Finishes for today

Today I finished some quilts...had one quilted but needed to finish with the binding and the other one needed to quilt it and then finish it ;)
This is the one that I quilted and bound today....you would think with a pattern so simple it would be easy to quilt...not so...the hooping seemed to take forever with this one even tho it is simple....digitized the hearts that went on two sides of the sashing cuz I was just a bit short on pattern :)
these are the materials I got from 1 Choice 4 Quilting :) Ok...so that was a shameless plug for Shawna and her quilt company :)

here is the back...you can see how simple the pattern was but darn it took forever :)

Here is the other one...actually finished this yesterday but who is counting??? You can't see but there are little stars and moons on the material

So I found a moon and digitized it :) Pretty proud of myself!

then took the stars off the moon man and made more for the other blocks..and the border

here is the back...a bit disappointed as the thread was really sloppy on the back....but this is a learning curve, right????

this is what I really wanted to work on between hoopings but it was too quick so this is tomorrow project...can't wait to see if the picture in my head is the same as this turns out :)

Oh...and the other thing I did that took a bit was give one of the babies a haircut.......she looks like a grownup now instead of the baby that she still is :(
kept taking pictures but she doesn't like to stay still...and if you say her name she comes running to you..........ah..the joys of motherhood :)
Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there!

Been busy :)

Hope this isn't fuzzy cuz it looks like that to me :) Trying out new contacts to see if I can go without my readers stuck on the top of my head all the time....and last night I didn't quite get one of them in the little case or maybe it crawled out after I stuck it in there...I checked with my glasses and finger to make sure they were in the case but it must have stuck to my finger and popped off...............sigh...........
Anyway...have had this done for a few days but didn't get a pic of it till today.......I love this one...if I hadn't cut the binding I would have put a ruffle on it...it was just screaming for a ruffle but had already cut the binding so went with plan a
Love love love this fabric and how fun it went together

One of the fun things I did was to digitize the inchworm and the caterpillar and put them in the border......

here maybe you can see it better........ :) and tried different colors on the top too :)

this one I kinda did more things to today....I had embroidered a fan design on the colored part and in the middle sashing....couldn't figure out what to do with the borders so went with a diamond shape in lines...but there were spaces in the colored part...so...........

I decided to play with some free motion....not very good but the unpracticed eye couldn't see the poorness of it too well.......unless you really look...well you don't even have to look that hard :) but it is practice :)
Need to pick a binding color to finish the quilt

have two more of these done but not with sashing yet.......wonder how they will turn out