christmas pecans and quilt

I just love Amy Smart and her blog. She is always so inspirational and has so many darling quilts to share. I just finished a quilt that she collected the fabrics for - lots of retro Christmas fabrics that made up into a cozy old fashioned snuggly quilt.

Thankfully my kids were willing quilt hangers for these photos. Un-thankfully the lighting was terrible, and the next few days we had rain and snow, so I finally decided just to post anyway.

Here's the front: And the back (with Dr. Seuss fabric and some cute stuff from JoAnns):

And just a side note: This year for Christmas goodie sharing, I ordered some cute little jars online and filled them with candied pecans to take to neighbors and friends. We put a little sticker label on the front, saying Merry Christmas from our family, and took them around this weekend.

That was a super fun project, and a big hit as well. I love giving out cute little goodies.

alien quilt

Okay, I just submitted my first ever quilt to a quilt challenge/contest. Not really in my comfort zone, but the challenge of creating a "modern" quilt, from my own design, intrigued me. I am a stay-at-home mom, however loosely that may be interpreted. I often feel that I live out of my car, playing taxi lady to and from activities. I really don't stay at home. I also work - all day, every day. But not for pay. At least not the monetary, instant gratification kind. My work is more of the long-term pay-off type. I hope our kids turn out good and happy. I also do a lot of laundry.

Thinking about this quilt challenge, I snapped this picture. Alien invasion/endless black hole of laundry? Could be an inspiration ... ... Found a couple of fabrics in my stash that I just love ...

... and voila! A quilt with endless black holes and aliens all over it. Much cuter than a load of dirty clothes, but it sure was fun to make. And I even got it finished 3 days before the deadline - good for me!

But I can't forget to show this part. When here for a visit, my dad fell in love with the design of this quilt, loving the 3-D aspect. I have to give full credit to him for the idea of using glow in the dark thread to quilt it - I didn't even know they made such a thing! I will also give full credit to my kids for taking it into the dark laundry room and yelling and screaming about how cool the thread really was. Quite entertaining.

Oh, just a little FYI, so you can learn the easy way: Don't use glow in the dark thread for the top stitch and the bobbin. It's slippery and the tension won't work well. A regular thread on the bottom works much better. Do I really need to mention that I learned this the hard way?

wave quilt

For church, we have had an ongoing service project to make and collect quilts for various shelters in need. One lady, unable to quilt herself, donated fabric to those of us who can quilt. This is the quilt that I made from her fabric donations.

Front: Back:

Moda fabric - came from this fabulous tutorial.

it's done!

I completed my quilt top, and not a moment too soon. My goal was to finish it up before we had company this weekend. They come in today, and I finished it yesterday. Kind of pushing it to the limit ...

I think I may actually like this quilt top, after the pain of making it wears off. I followed this quilt along, knowing that she always makes darling things. I think it was worth it in the end - but I must say that if I hadn't already cut everything out, I definitely would have quit in the middle. I think this will go in my closet for a while. If this little baby on the way turns out to be a girl, maybe it can go on her bed when she gets old enough. I can tell her it was my huge challenge to finish up so I could get to work quilting all those darling little baby quilts.

Twin size, Moda 30's reproduction fabrics, 2 1/2 inch squares everywhere, rotating out from the center.

sticky yumminess

It's that time of year again ... carmel and apples. But, I really don't like the regular "dip the whole apple in carmel and then try to eat it before the entire carmel layer slides off in your lap, or even worse, your hair" type of carmel apples. When we were kids, Mom always sliced our apples, and then gave us our own little cup of carmel, where we dipped away to our hearts content. More carmel for your apple that way, and less mess. That's my type of carmel apples.

This morning, I made little jars of carmel to take to some of my friends. I figure they need to experience the lucious experience of dipping their apple slices in carmel. It gives a whole new meaning to carmel apples. (Of course, there's some carmel left over in the pan, which we really can't let go to waste. Maybe we'll need to have some for brunch today.) ... and in case you need some carmel for your apple slices ...

Mom's Halloween Carmel Sauce

Cook slowly to 220 degrees on a candy thermometer:
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup corn syrup
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1/8 teaspoon salt

Add:
1/4 cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla

... enjoy!

quilt tops only

I really need to stop piecing and start quilting. (Wouldn't that be such a great excuse to just bag that quilt that's driving me crazy right now - all cut out, and only halfway pieced together, but driving me loony.) This little baby on the way is sure going to have some fun quilts. I'm sure more will be in the works when we find out the gender. For now though ...Starting at the top left: a wonky log cabin quilt made of Denyse Schmidt Hope Valley fabrics, then the martian quilt made mostly of Michael Miller fabrics, then a funky Dr. Seuss quilt, and on the bottom, a Moda Bliss quilt made with the Apple Core die from the AccuQuilt Go! Cutter that I won.

So anyway, I haven't been stale in all of my non-blogging - I've only just had the energy to put quilt tops together, not blog after that. Now, on to the backs (well, maybe after I put together just one or two more tops ...).

a lot of quilting going on

Does your quilting table ever look like this? I think the only problem with this is that this sewing table is also our dining room and home school table. Combine that with the iron on the counter and the giant ironing board sticking out in the middle of the kitchen ... take out tonight?