Pajaro Valley Quilt Show

Saturday my sweet husband offered to hang with the kiddos so I could attend the Pajaro Valley Quilt Show at the Santa Cruz County Fair Grounds in Watsonville.  Yay!

Hello!  There I am!  There were some beautiful quilts on display.  Most were of the traditional sort with a few art quilts thrown in.  Not too many of the modern quilt variety.

Here are some of my faves...

This double wedding ring was beautiful and this picture hardly does it justice.  It was actually the one I ended up voting for in the viewers choice category.  Mostly because I loved all the old feedsack fabrics in it and the story that went along with it.  It was pieced by a grandmother years and years before and then found by the granddaughter a year before her wedding. The mother (of the bride, daughter of the piecer, follow me?) took it and together with some friends repaired and finished the top and hand quilted it in time to present to the grand daughter for her wedding.  

Don't you love that?

They even embroidered the bride and groom's names and their wedding date.

If you're noticing a trend already as evidence of my love for vintage prints, its true.  This Dresden plate design was all hand quilted.  Sigh... so, so beautiful.

They also had this lovely hexagon quilt.  You KNOW I had to take a picture of that one.  This was also hand quilted.

They had some great scrappy quilts that reminded me of my commitment to stashpact11 and how I have totally fallen off the wagon there.  These lovelies helped me renew my commitment. 

(I should clarify that I jumped back on the stashpack11 bandwagon AFTER I already went through all the vendors which I don't feel bad about because everything purchased was for a SPECIFIC project I have in mind and they were all such screaming deals.  But more about that later.....)

One more scrapper..

Okay ONE more shot of the scrappers.  I really love this triangl-ish quilt on the left.  What is the name of those blocks? 

 I feel like there is an ad that is always in American Patchwork and Quilting that has this pattern?  Anyway I really like it.  Its like a triangle's answer to the postcard quilt 

(which I've been really wanting to do by the way.  One more on the to do list...)

They had a bed turning which was a lot of fun too. 

One of the things I love so much about quilts in general is just all the history linked to each one.  This was a fun way to hear the stories that went along with these beautiful quilts.  

Most were vintage, 20's and 30's era quilts. 

I did a quick sweep through the vendors and bought a few fat quarters and half yarders that were really good deals.  I had to really restrain myself since everything was priced so great.  My favorite vendor was actually this lady who finds vintage fabrics and notions and sells them.  She had AMAZING and beautiful fabrics.  I bought two.  My favorite is the one of the right.  Both are just shy of a yard and I got them both together for $5.  How about that?

She also had a bunch of old orphan blocks and cutter quilts.  I loved this pile because all of them had embroidered onto them 

who had made them.  

This one on the top was made by "mother."  Love that.

Since I knew Josh was sacrificing important study time to tend the boys all morning

(he's taking his qualifying exam for his boards this May, EEK!)

when I looked at my watch and realized I'd been there for about two and a half hours, I figured I ought to hurry home.

But then as I was walking out I thought, I'll just do a quick cruise through this last building.

Uh.  It turned out it was the "Bargain Garden" and it was piles and mountains of scraps and old fabric that they were selling for $3 a pound.  

Since no one loves a good deal more than my Joshua, I figured he wouldn't begrudge me a turn through the bargain garden and in I went.

I mean look at that!

I came out spending $4.50 and got ALL OF THIS!!!

Most are at least quarter or half yarders and some even a yard plus.

I could have spent hours there but unfortunately, felt the need to get home so the husband could get to studying.

It was a ton of fun and has me thinking I'd like to join the guild that puts it on.  They meet in Santa Cruz once a month and I think it would be a lot of fun.  

<

Some Single Girl Progress and a few Friday Favorites

I've gotten sort of distracted from my Single Girl quilt-along-ing lately but yesterday, 

while two sweet little boys took two 

FANTASTICALLY

  L  O  N  G

naps

I got some work done

Then they woke up and we played around the house, watched a Wonder Pet episode (or two)

ate leftover spaghetti squash and zucchini spaghetti 

and 

headed back upstairs.

And did a little more sewing.

And two little boys did a little more playing and general mayhem making on their side of the room.

I also dusted off woodworking skills with this....

(is that how you say it?  "jimmy rigged?")

We've got a little dilemma around here.  

The baby has a serious kamakazi-like need to 

hurl himself down these stairs.  

Or maybe just a fervent curiosity to see what it would be like to fly down stairs.

In fact on Tuesday...

he succeed and rolled down all the way to the bottom landing.

He was fine but I'm totally paranoid now and  unfortunately the set up of the spot makes it almost impossible to put a baby gate there

(without drilling into the banister anyway and I don't think our landlords would appreciate that very much)

So I found some random 1x4s in the garage and nailed them to make this little dealie.

Its not perfect but at least (for now) Asher can't pull it down and it stays in place to keep him from the death roll down the stairs.

Has anyone else out there come across this problem?  What else can I do?  I found a special baby gate for banisters but unfortunately you have to have a square sided banister and as you can see from the picture, 

we do not.

All ideas are welcome.

Until we figure out something better, this is working.

Oh and its supposed to snow tomorrow morning.

Which is a bummer because I wanted to go here, here, and here 

but since these Californians I'd be sharing the road with last experienced snow driving sometime in the

early 70's,

 it looks like I'll be hanging out around here.

Probably doing more of this.

just a few Friday Favorites:

Lily at Lily's Quilts celebrated her one year "quilt-aversary"  I can't believe she's only been quilting for a year.  She makes beautiful quilts.

Christine at Fabric Junkie announces a SA-WEET giveaway.  Head on over and enter if you haven't already. Its a good 'un.

Sarah at Sew Sarah confessed to her hexie addiction the same day I did.  There must have been something in the air that day?

What day is it?

You would think that since I'm a stay at home mama, without a work week to mark my days by I wouldn't be so thrown off by a silly thing like Presidents day.  Well when I sat down to type this post I was all ready to blast out a WIP Wednesday Post about my Single Girl piecing but what do you know?  

Its turns out its Thursday.  

So what shall we do?

Things That Are Done Thursday?  

We'll just go with it and pretend it was all planned out anyway.  Who knows, maybe it will stick?

The other day I showed off a little of my work in progress, the hexie snuggler. 

 And last night I finished her up and today she's all packaged up and ready to head off to 

Mississippi to baby Claire.  

(am I the only one who still has to do the M-i-s-s-I-s-s-I-pp-I chanty thing when I spell Mississippi? 

 Or I spell it wrong?)

Claire's mama was one of my dear college roomies and her favorite color was red.  Maybe it still is?  Whenever I think of her mom I always think of bright colors.  Like those pretty painted earthenware plates you buy in Mexico.  And parrots.  

Anyway, the long and the short is that I felt compelled, no driven to have Claire's snuggler red.  And since its creation coincided with my intruduction to my new love of hexigons, we ended up with this little bumble bee motif.

I carried it around all day in my bag yesterday and kept catching glimpses of it and all its bright colors would give my heart a happy little jump.  I guess that's one (of the many) things her mama and I have had in common.  

We love bright colors.

So there you go baby Claire!  Its on its way!  I wish I could deliver it in person!

Heads up on an AWESOME giveaway

American Jane is hands down my favorite Moda designer.

Heather at the Fabric Junkie is having a giveaway for an American Jane Punctuation charm pack and a this cute gift bag

Head over to her blog to enter:)

Crazy for Hexigons

I have always loved hexagon quilts but the paper piecing seemed so intimidating.  

I ordered a book from the library about English paper piecing about two months ago and got all excited and printed and then cut out a bunch of hexagon templates. 

But I still felt a little overwhelmed by the process and worried that it would be sort of tedious.  

Lately though, I feel like I've seen so many hexagons around the blogosphere and on Flickr, I've started wondering if maybe, they're not so hard.

So Saturday night I searched for a tutorial on You Tube.
I found this, this and this which got me even more curious to try these little hexies out. 

(don't you love how easy technology makes thing now?)

I set to turning this...

Into this...

Which followed me around the rest of the weekend and turned into this..

and then this...

I pressed it and took out the papers and appliquéd it onto some soft, red, snuggly minkey fabric.  I've got a little bit more to do in the way of some machine embroidery and binding but I think this is going to be a SWEET and snuggly baby quilt for baby Claire.  Two down, one more to go!

This hexigon thing has really become addicting.  Its such a meditative thing to do.  For family home evening tonight we had our toddler lesson and then the mister and I snuggled up on the couch and listened to this while the chillins romped around on the floor and I basted some more hexies.

Then the boys moved on to the activity portion of the evening while I busied myself with my basket and enjoyed the show.

I sense a new addiction coming on....

Friday Favorites of the Week

Just a little shot of the late night single girling I did last night. 

and now for some Friday Favorites!

Just a little readers digest of some of my favorite quilty blog posts of the week... 

Heather writes about true Valentine's day.  I cry a little when I read it.  Its so beautiful and so true.

Edeenut creates made this fantastic pillow for the pillow party pool at stichedincolor.  I love it.  I want to make it now.  I think I need to learn how to do invisible zippers.  Isn't there a foot for that.  Must consult the Bernina manual....

The Single Girl Quilt-a-long started up!  I'm a tad behind but what can you do?

Over at Film in the Fridge we got a look at a pile of beautiful baby quilts waiting for baby.  Its worth it to click on the links to swoon over each one!  


Enjoy!

We have a winner!!

Congratulations to our winner!

Telma said...

Szeretnék én is részt venni a játékban.

http://telmaweb.blogspot.com/

Telma Magyarországról.

Telma!  

You won!  

Shoot me an email at silverlilysews(at)gmail(dot)com with your address so I can send your book!  

Telma has a lovely blog at http://telmaweb.blogspot.com/ where she showcases her knitting.  Head over there to see her sweet shawls and gloves.  Really pretty stuff.  

In case you don't read Hungarian, open it in Google Chrome and it will offer to translate it for you;)

And thanks for playing everyone!

Just had to post this.

So when I said it was raining cats and dogs, its now raining sheep and horses.  Whoa!  Monsoon time has come to Santa Cruz!  I just had to hop back on and post these pictures.

Here is my son marveling at the "riber" (river) that was 

flowing to the side of our house.  

Some leftover birthday decorations get a bath.

And the flowers I planted yesterday next to our front door.  

Yes, they are drowning.

oh well:)

For baby Henry...

Its raining and blustering like crazy here today.  We're hunkered down in our pj's watching scooby doo and drinking tea. I think I might get a few more fabrics cut for my single girl quilt.  What could be better?

I thought I'd post today about a little project that's been on my mind for oh, the last six months or so.

In college I was lucky enough to land the five best roomates/friends/sisters-from-another-misters that a girl could hope for.  Since we've started our own new little families, I've made a special quilt for each of the sweet little babies.  In this last year we've added four more babies to our brood which now totals 14 (10 girls and 4 boys).  It seems that we all seem to be on the same baby timing schedule and this year since one of the babies was my own, I've been a little slow getting these new ones finished.  But here is Baby Henry's snuggle quilt!.  

I have usually done a crib or craft sized quilt for each of the kiddos but this time since Baby Henry is number three in the Wheadon home, I figured they probably have a lot of baby quilts.  So for this one, I made Henry his own little snuggly.

I busted out the ol' embroidery arm and labeled Henry's snuggler for his own.  I used some sort of minky fabric which was beyond soft.

Because minky has some height to it and is really stretchy, I used both dissolveable and tear away stabilizer.  It came out really nice.

I have seen so many of these little flag/bunting typed designs around and I just love them.  It was a great way to use some little scrappy leftovers.

Its raining cats and dogs here today so I think we may take a little field trip to the post office just to get out of the house and get this little guy off to his new home.

Really Henry is the newest of our new crop of kiddos with Claire and little Nel arriving last spring and summer.  Don't worry girls, yours are next.  I promise to have them to you before you turn one okay?

xoxo-

Auntie Ty

For anyone interested in their OWN little Henry Snuggler (with a name of their choices of course), head over to my shop and type SILVERLILYBLOG in the coupon code for 10% off!

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And remember today is the last day to enter the GIVEAWAY for your very own copy of Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson!  Remember extra entries for posting the giveaway on Facebook and/or your own personal blog:)  Make sure to make separate comments for EACH entery (following, facebook posting, blog posting, etc)

Click here to go to the giveaway and enter.  

Sew Serendipity Giveaway

For anyone interested in another giveaawy, here's one offered by All Free Sewing.  Get your own copy of this great book!  

Click here to go to the giveaway

Single Girl Quilt Quilt-a-long: Getting Started

Last night instead of my usual put the kiddos to bed/head to my crafting corner routine, I brought my baby up the mountain for an evening of love poetry with my sweet sisters of the Alma Branch Relief Society.  I must admit I didn't think I was much of a poetry buff but sitting there listening to the poems people chose to bring, I was sucked in and think I might have to investigate this thing called poetry.  It was delightful.

And while I was there our Relief Society president asked me about heading up two little quilty projects.

I'm excited and I'm sure I'll be sharing more about them in the weeks to come.  Should be fun.

Anyhoos, I got home at a late hour because I can't seem to tear myself away from good conversation with good women.  But I also can't seem to head to bed lately without doing something a little creative so I pulled out my single girl pattern and started tracing and cutting out some templates.  I chose to make my own templates out of craft plastic because I hate cutting up original patterns.  Plastic templates are easier to work with for me than paper ones.  So there.

This morning I asked Wonder Pets to come by and entertain Carver while I laid out my fabrics and templates and got things organized.

Carver was curious as to what mama was up to and came over to inspect my progress.

I divided all my pieces in individual ziplock baggies to keep things organized.  Don't you love my project organizer?  Quite the quality box.  But it gets the job done.

I think I've decided to go with a colored background instead of white.  Even though that sort of forces me to go buy more fabric which I wasn't going to do for awhile if I could absolutely help it.

But after cleaning out and organizing the last of my stash boxes from the garage, I've decided that my stash wasn't quite as wild and overgrown as originally thought and I might not have to be so stingy with my purchases.  I doubt the husband would agree but what can you do?

So everything is all set and ready for tonight when the kiddos hit the sack so I can get to tracing and cutting out pieces. Yesterday was free play day around here since I had to sit at the computer and pay bills all day (blah blah blah) and things were a little zooey because of it.

I think today I'll be playing with these rascals instead.

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And remember you've still got till Thursday night to enter our GIVEAWAY for your very own copy of Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson!  Remember extra entries for posting the giveaway on Facebook and/or your own personal blog:)

Click here to go to the giveaway and enter.  

Single Girl Quilt Quilt-a-long: Got my fabrics!

Last Thursda,y since I was already half way to San Jose after playgroup, I headed over to Jo-Anns to see if there were any sale prints to get to add to the pile of fabrics I had pulled from my stash.  I was quite pleased with what I found and here is my pile, waiting for me to start cutting out pieces.  With all the birthday-ing and Valentine-ing that was going on yesterday, I haven't gotten much farther than what we see here in my little pile, but the forecast this week calls for rain till Saturday (see, its not ALL sunny days here in California) so it looks like my crafting time just grew a little....

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And remember you've still got till Thursday night to enter our GIVEAWAY for your very own copy of Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson!  Remember extra entries for posting the giveaway on Facebook and/or 

your own personal blog:)

Click here to go to the giveaway and enter.  

We've been birthday-ing around here...

First of all I feel like we should do a shout out to all our new friends in Europe!  Hellooooo Hungry and Russia!  Wow!  Thanks to everyone who has entered our giveaway so far!  Its been so fun to check in all day  (really ALL day every day since Friday morning, its basically my new addiction) and see the little comment number go up and up and all your sweet faces filling up my little followers box.  FUN FUN!!  Hello to you all!

Today is my first baby's birthday and this weekend we had his party.  It was low key, just family, presents and cake.  I think I've mentioned before how Carver has recently become interested in drawing and so I wanted to add a little homemade mama gifting into all the other Dora, Thomas the Tank Engine and T-Ball presents that were happening.

I made him this colored pencil case from Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted gifts.  I used the pattern in the book as sort of a starter point and then sort of did it my own way.  Its a very simple project and quite easy to put together.  Even for people like myself who seem to have a hard time taking the time to read directions and follow patterns.

 How awesome is that sweet face seeing his present!  That is the kind of thing that makes a mama's heart go pitter pat.

Am I right or am I right.

I was a little worried that this quiet time gift would sort of get lost in the shuffle of ALL the presents he got (I mean his mormor and papa were here after all)  But he really liked it and toted it around for quite awhile.

Well before Papa and Daddy took him outside to fly his helicopter and play some T-ball. 

I'm most excited to see how long it keeps him engaged in church.

That really is the true test.

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And remember you've still got till Thursday night to enter our GIVEAWAY for your very own copy of Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson!  Remember extra entries for posting the giveaway on Facebook and/or your own personal blog:)

Click here to go to the giveaway and enter.