A Fall Giveaway

note:  Well, it turns out my tutorial for Glace Forever Quilt was too similar to an already published pattern so it has been pulled.  I understand,  there are so many quilt patterns out there,  it is bound to happen. I just don't want anyone to think I would ever copy a quilt.  I would never do that.  I know (to a small degree) how much work goes into designing a pattern.

First off, be sure and go visit the Moda Bake Shop today! It took me two years but I finally finished a tutorial over there.   Thanks to everyone who is over here visiting from the bake shop, hope you will like my little giveaway.  Be sure and come visit again, I  have some big projects in the works!

Included in the giveaway are 4 fat quarters of this pretty fall fabric by Sandy Gervais, for Moda.  Also I made these two flowers.  One is a barrette and one is a pin you can attach to a jacket or bag or whatever works for you.

To Enter -

For one entry, become a follower on my blog.

For another entry -  Become a follower and tell me what you'd make with this fabric.

For Five entries - Do everything above and post about this little giveaway on you blog.

Make sure you leave me some way to notify you if you are the winner!

I will pick the winner by random generator first thing Wednesday morning.  Thanks Again for everyone who entered!

Our New Cozy Nest

 Most of you already know that we sold this little house of ours about a year ago.  We just out grew it.  Six people in 1400 sq feet was a little cramped.   It's weird but there are days that I really miss it.  There were just so many good memories there. 

I was on a walk one day and saw a house being built about 4 blocks north of where we  lived.  I checked into it and found out  there was a new subdivision going in.   To me it seemed perfect - our kids could go to the same school and it wouldn't  be too much of a change (I don't handle change well - at all).  The park that I love is literally in our back yard (which is good because we hardly have a back yard).    To make a long story short, our home sold 3 weeks after we put up a sign and we started the building process.

So, here is our new (a little bigger) home.  This is the dining room.  

Now we can fit our dining room table, leaf and all.

Here is our kitchen!  I love it, it's not

too big or too small, for us it's perfect.

Then entrance way.  I love the wood work,

but wow is it a pain to keep clean with 4 kids. The 

banister was supposed to be the same color as our 

kitchen cabinets, it's not..

I'm still trying to get them to fix it.

The living room.

Here is my absolute favorite thing about our house.
I love having this pantry.   Sometimes after I go grocery
shopping and  get it nice and organized,
I just stand and look at it. (weird I know).
It's just nice to know that one area in my house
is organized.

So there is my house.  I will take pictures of the front when the front yard is in (hopefully in a couple weeks.)  The backyard will have to wait for next year and another tax return :)   I haven't decorated much, especially in the bedrooms, once I do I will post some pictures.   The basement is unfinished so your not missing much there.  Once it's finished there will be 2 or three bedrooms and a nice big family room.  Oh and there is a cold storage room, I'm excited about that.

Now for some really exciting news...........at least to me.  I'm  posting a tutorial for this quilt over at Moda this Saturday.  I'll also be doing a little giveaway so celebrate the Moda post that took me two years to write so be sure to come visit!

A furniture Refurbishment!

So when we sold our other home and moved into a tiny little apartment while we built, we had to sell our piano.  There was no way it would fit in our apartment, and with Utah weather we knew we couldn't store it in a storage shed.   Well about the time we moved into our home we found a piano on KSL but it was missing the piano bench.

My daughters piano teacher found this one at the DI for 15 dollars.   I guess it was an old sewing bench.  I loved it, I love how it's a little smaller than a normal bench.

This isn't the best picture.  But here it is after a lot of sanding and staining and varnishing, and my first attempt at reupholstering.  I don't even know if I could call it reupholstering, it was so easy. 

And here it is in it's new home.  It was a lot of fun, and to go buy a new piano bench would have been close to $100.00.  My cost, bench - $15,  stain and varnish - already had, fabric from hobby lobby with coupon - around $10.  Total cost - $25.  Too bad when we tell our husbands how much we just saved them, we don't get the difference back to buy fabric or something. 

I promise to post pictures this week of my house, well parts of it anyways.  Hopefully you wont be disappointed with my lack of decorating.  Too bad, everything has to cost money.

An Alfresco Dinner

Last week on our door was an invitation for an Alfresco Dinner at a neighbors house.  I was super excited.  One because she is a caterer so I knew the fool would be super good (and it was).  And their house is one of those houses that I've been admiring forever and really wanted to see more of it.

Isn't it the cutest house.  I will go by in the daytime one of these days and get a better picture for you.  

I knew she would have it decorated so cute, and she did.  I love the bunting (I hear it's no longer a pennant garland it's bunting).

For dinner she served the most delicious homemade breads and everyone who came brought a salad.  I wish the guests would have brought there recipes too, because there were some really good ones.  For dessert she served the best fruit cobbler I've ever had, and all this time I thought mine was good.

Here is the cute deck that is just off the side of their house.  They just had a daughter get married and her husband told me this is where the band played.

For dinner they just laid out a bunch of blankets, it was so cute.

I love their pretty garden, it almost makes me want one.

At the end of the party I saw people inside their home, so of course I went right in.  Her Father was the artist for the LDS church magazines for 30 years so her home is filled with beautiful art.

Their dining room, so cozy!

Her kitchen was very Art Deco (I hope that is the right term).  She had beautiful cabinets made out of gum wood. 

So as you can see I was in heaven.  I took as many pictures as I could with 4 kids.   Remember a while back when I talked about all the beautiful houses in my neighborhood.   Well I am super lucky because now I live even closer to these beautiful historic homes.    And I go to church with a lot of the home owners every Sunday.  Sooooo..........you can bet I will do my best to get inside of them and snatch a bunch of pictures.

I almost forgot,  I'm so excited about this.  I FINALLY finished a post for Moda.  It's my favorite quilt ever.  I made this quilt over two years ago, and have just put off writing up a tutorial for it.  

First Day of School and Other Things!

Yesterday was the first day of school for my two oldest.  While I have to admit it's definitely easier to get things done around here, it's also a little quieter than I'm used too.  Today I was even a little bored without them.  They on the other hand are loving school.  Both really like their teachers and I think it's going to be a good year. 

I'm not sure when she grew up so quickly.  I swear I was just dropping her off at Kindergarten the other day.  Not sure where where that pretty face came from either.

Hmmm........I think he was more concerned about getting to class on time than an embarrassing picture from mom.

By the way these cute first day of school signs came from HERE and they were free.  It's a super cute blog if you haven't already discovered it.

Even one of the neighborhood dad's wanted in on the fun!  (Sorry Jason, I couldn't resist)

Some other good news is my twin sister is here with her family visiting us from Canada.  She used to live just up the road until she turned on us and moved to another country :)  It's so fun having them here.  I'm loving spending time with her sweet kids who have grown up so much.  We both have 4 year olds who are pretty spunky (that might be putting it mildly).  We took bets on how long it would take them to get into a fight (is that bad?).  It only took about 24 hours.  They love each other though, they will both cry when it's time to say goodbye (so will I).  

My husband also started a new job a couple of months ago.  He now works in the middle of nowhere (I'm not kidding).   The commute is about 1hr 45 min.  Luckily he has found a van pool to ride in.  He leaves around 5 in the morning and gets home a little after 7.   It's good to have him in  a STABLE job that he enjoys but hard having him get home so late every night.  

So there ya have it.............what we've been up to.  My friends keep saying I need to post pictures of my house.  I guess I'm waiting until it's more decorated, but lets face it - that could be a while.  I will try and get some pictures posted.    

By the way, I'm not sure if many people read this anymore - seeing that I took like a year long brake.  Leave me a comment, let me know if your still around!!!

Two post in one week - I'm on a roll!

First off - yes I'm feeling fine.  I guess I'm just in a sewing mood lately and my house is paying the price.  My neighbor just had a baby, so what a perfect excuse to make another quilt.  Can you tell I really like this strip quilt.    I just love this fabric by Moda, it's so sweet and perfect for a new baby.

I  used some ric rac (of course)  and used a few of the decorative stitches on my sewing machine to add a  little more to it at the seams.  Sometimes I sure miss my old fence, it was perfect for taking pictures.

I had some of this satin fabric that is flannel on the other side.  I was a little nervous about using it but it worked well and washed up even better.  And yes I was a sweaty mess yesterday because I got brave and decided to quilt this one also.  This stitch went a little better than the stippling but still needs A LOT of practice.

It's all wrapped up and ready to go.  Maybe I'll even get to hold a sweet new baby boy!

I Know, it's a Miracle!

I know, it's taken a really looooong time, but I've

finally did something crafty.    Remember this little

guy that I blogged about in my last post, well I read 

about a fundraiser that they are doing for him and

really wanted to contribute something.

I've had this fabric forever.  I bought it to make a 

scripture bag for a girl that  babysits for me.  Well, I

waited too long and now I think this fabric is a little too

juvenile for her. But it worked perfectly for this quilt.

I love how people put a little strip from the 

front onto the back so of course I copied it. You 

can't see it very well, but there is some rows with

ric rac also (I love ric rac).

Have you ever really wanted to be good

at something, but no matter what you 

just were not.  Well, that is how I feel when

it comes to stippling.  I took a class on free hand

quilting on the sewing machine, but I just can seem

to get stippling down.    It probably doesn't help

that I'm a nervous wreck the whole entire time.

I got it off in the mail yesterday so hopefully

it will raise a little money for this sweet little boy.

Reading their story has made me want to better

mother. It's hard to complain about your kids being 

little stinkers when this mother would do anything

just to see her baby be healthy enough to play.

I'm not gonna lie though.  I am looking forward

to school starting next week.  I know I will be sad

when next Monday comes, but my kids are so 

excited and I'm ready to have more of a schedule

again.

By the way this quilt was super simple.

 I had 8 or 9 coordinating pieces of fabric and 

I just cut a bunch of different size strips I'd say 

between 2 and 4 1/2 inches wide.   The finished quilt

is about 40 x 40 and the strip on the back is

about 4 inches wide.   It was so fun to 

make I even bought some more fabric so make

another one.

Oh and if any of you quilters out there have 

some advice for stippling I would gladly take it.