My favorite age

My daughter is 17 now, learning to drive, teaching Irish dance, touring colleges, thinking about careers. She has a great sense of humor, a level head and in my opinion is pretty darn great!

My son is now 14, wearing a suit in and out of the pool! Dancing with girls, making great friends and developing into a really wonderfully fun and clever person.

 

Life is flying by so fast with these two it takes my breath away!

When the kids were young, the moms in our first homeschooling group would gather and often we'd talk about what our favorite parts about being a mom and things like that. I remember also discussing what your favorite age was-- meaning what was the most fun age for your kids to be, for you as a mom. Hopefully you know what I mean here. I could never answer other than I liked all the ages, while all the other moms had very specific ages like 3 or 7! All the ages were fun, seeing how they learned new things, became more capable and responsible etc...I had no strong pull towards one age UNTIL, the teen years. I have to say I NOW know what they meant, I really love having teenagers. They are sooo much fun! This is definitely my favorite age.

So lucky! So happy! Trying to keep up with them!

Dallas Quilt Show-Inspiration!

This weekend my daughter had an Irish dance competition in Dallas and I got wind of a quilt show happening there as well so we made that part of our trip. Lots of inspiring pictures to follow none of which are quilts I had anything to do with but enjoyed looking at! Hope you will too!

 Quilting detail:

 Simple "lasagna" quilt but with rock star quilting!

 This is a Judy Niemeyer quilt pattern done with solids and Kafe Fassat fabrics! They are almost ALWAYS done with batiks so this was really a standout to me! And it looked great!

 Chevrons: well established trend right now! 

This horse quilt used a solid black background quilted with metallic thread to make those navajo designs with. I would have loved to see a before and after of the quilting on this quilt!

Close up of the quilting:

 The metallic on black quilting:

Use of value in this blue quilt was really neat!

This was a 5 person project where together they make a complete scene- on my bucket list, always wanted to try one of these!

 The horse in this one was made with a shiny sheer fabric overlayed and stitched down on the red base. Very cool idea.

The undulating quilting lines with variegated thread really give this quilt movement:

 Use of solid fabrics in quilts:

Solids with some crazy pieces pattern:

And Hexies were everywhere! It was great!:

 I recognized this as Julie Herman's pattern Science Fair- another on my bucket list!

This was a real eye catcher- it was a shame they couldn't show it full length:

 This quilt's name was VOLDEMORT because they owner said she could NOT think of a name that fit so it was the Quilt that shall not be names. Harry Potter fans will get the reference! She made it with all 3/4" pieces! It was pretty neat!

This quilt had some amazing ruler work quilting on it:

 All the curved cross hatching was so amazing!

 Needle turn applique on the birds and all the custom quilting- labor of love doesn't begin to cover it!

Nancy's Quilt

Thought I would start the New Year off right by getting back to my blog! I was able to finish this little beauty today. 

It is comprised of all Stonehenge fabrics from Northcott and belongs to my friend Nancy from Quilters Crossing!

Since it is a simple block layout my idea was to disguise the blocks with an interesting quilting design in the negative space.  

Here is the before shot:

 Here is the after shot:

I think the quilting design makes your eye move over the quilt and enhances it. Making it look more intricate than a the straight grid setting that it is.  The straight grid setting is very clean and simple allowing for a lot of interesting combinations and quilt spaces. 

I played with several designs on paper before settling on this one.

 Close up details:

 Backside:

 backside details:

 Angled to see the texture created:

 Border designs on corners:

 Border design on front:

 Patchwork block details:

I used a layer of 80/20 underneath a layer of wool batting throughout the quilt. I thought the overall effect made it look like a fancy tiled floor. The stone design on the fabric enhances this too!

Thanks to Nancy for allowing me to quilt this for her!

 I really enjoyed it!

Graduation Quilt

This quilt was made for one of my daughter's best friends, Kathleen, as a high school graduation gift.

Of course, I didn't have it done for her graduation party.....

but I promised it before she left for college.

 And I did complete it in time to keep my promise!

 She gave me several color palates that she liked and several quilt designs she liked and I got to pick and choose what I wanted to work with.

 So the end result would be a surprise for her

 And she seems to like it!

I was so glad she was pleased! 

She is one of the *sweetest* teenagers I have ever met! 

I hope she has an amazing first year of college!