Hope's 21st Birthday

This is a card I made for our friend Hope's 21st birthday.

 Yesterday we participated in a photo scavenger hunt with her & her family & friends. Driving all over town following clues written by my friend/her mom Mindy, & sister Christie.

We had Hope & her brother-in-law Kyle in our car. Below they are posing with the produce guy at Carr's, holding Tofu. Hope is vegetarian.

She also like to use the buses, so here we are at the bus stop by the Dimond Mall.

This is playing Lava tag at a playground.

We also stopped at the Bear Tooth Grill for a photo with some of her friends.

There were a lot of other stops & photos along the way, & afterwards we celebrated at her parents house, with friends & dinner. It was also our friend Nikki's birthday, so her are the 2 birthday girls together, & the card I made for Nikki. I modeled it after one of my quilts that she always comments on when she comes to our house.

Hope's big sister Lindsey made this beautiful, tasty flourless chocolate cake with marzipan decorations. 

The meal was vegetarian potluck.

It was a fun day.

Welcoming back the Sun

I've been in a bit of a funk this winter. These past couple of years actually, but I think I'm getting better. The quilt top in this first shot is the LAST customer quilt that I intend to do. At least for a couple of years. It was on the frame for a long time, & I finally finished it a couple of weeks ago, & delivered back to Shirley Fraser. 

Here a a few close views after quilting. It was so big & heavy I didn't attempt to hang it up for fuller shots.

After that I got busy on the baby quilts I needed to get made. The 2 tops were whipped up in one weekend, then I got quilting. This first on is for Jocelyn, who is due to be born around May 19th. She will be our first Great-grandchild.

Here are a couple of shots of the back side. It's Minkie...ooooh soooo SOFT!

I made 3D flowers by just doing free motion shapes on 2 layers of fabric, with the right sides together. Next I cut them out, slit the back, stuffed them with a little wool batting, & hand appliqued them with the slit against the top. I made the centers out of ruff cut strips gathered & stitched to the flowers.

The second quilt is made for my son Brandon, & wife Laura's 3rd baby girl due Aug. 28.  Name hasn't been revealed yet. I decided to try & be more modern with this one, & just had fun!

I quilted flowers in the pink plaid areas, & hand appliqued little dots in the center of each flower, with the same fabric I used for binding.

The light has come back. It has been sunny & beautiful out the past few days, but here is a view from out back door a week ago after a fresh snowfall. The path to the cars had been filled in over night with about 24 inches of snow. It took Warren 6 hours of snow-blowing to dig us all out. He played in the snow while I pieced baby quilts. It was a glorious weekend!

This weekend I made some cards. This for my friend Pam who has retired from nursing. I used a photo transfer on to fabric of  my quilt which is appropriately named "Retirement" from our "Burning Desire Challenge". I added real sand & shells for embellishment around the edges.

The next is a sympathy card for my friend Judy who just lost her mom. It's a miniature quit top made from bits of antique fabrics sewn on to card stock.

This sunny one is made for my baby boy who turned  37 on the 21st.

I am so glad the calendar says it's spring, & the sky is sunny & blue!

January Ice Sculptures & Burning Desire Quilt (Fire & Ice)

We took a walk downtown Anchorage last week. I had dropped & smashed my iPad, so we took it  to a place downtown to be fixed. We did some shopping, used one of our gift cards for lunch & then took a stroll through town square. I'm glad we did it then, because yesterday a pineapple express blew into town & we hit 50 degrees! Everything in melting & turning to MUSH! Who would've guessed we would have spring breakup in January!

There were some NY themed sculptures.

Chess piece, & a church.

A fantastical dragon, & wind boat thingy.

The spiked balls fascinated me.

This was just a beautiful design, something like I would do on a quilt!

& some sea life.

Segue here to my calendar quilt for 2014. The theme was our Burning Desire, & this was mine. I finished way back in May, but didn't want to post it until after I'd given all of my calendars out for this year.

My Burning Desire- is "Retirement".

I printed a photo of my own feet in flip-flops & used "Printed Treasure" fabric to print it out.I cut away the bottoms of the flip-flops & used some "special" fabric I bought several years ago for them. It was printed & sold to raise money & awareness about prostate cancer, which my husband had about a year before I had found this. I hid it underneath the feet, for a subliminal message to stamp out prostate cancer, but used bigger pieces for the back side, where only the people I wanted to see it could see it. (It may be offensive to some folks). I pictured the back last, so if you are offended don't leave a comment, please!  Or don't look at the last photo on this post!

The "water" is several layers of sheers & some silk & wool rovings needle felted into the piece. Quilting , appique, & fellting were all done together. Beads were added to make "bubbles ". Edges were left raw, then covered with the seaweed yarn. Next I added shells, driftwood & moss, coral & other bits for a border.

Last I painted Aleen's "It's OK To Wash It" fabric glue all over the tan fabric, & poured on the real beach sand.

Here's the R rated back side

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my burning desire to stamp out prostate cancer fabric!

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Close yours eyes if you can't take it!!!!

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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mid December

Here it is mid December already. I've been in a bit of a funk. We have lost 2 dear friends since October 30th, & the dark days has just made it a little harder.

We had about 20 inches of snowfall yesterday. I do have my house all decorated for Christmas. I've been going through the motions, hoping that my actions will help to make me feel more in the mood. 

This is a quilt I finished the quilting on for my friend Jackie Carley. She left me a lot of spaces to quilt in. It really was a fun one to quilt.

Below is another of Shirley Fraser's beautifully pieced quilts, that is so big I can't get a full photo of the top. I have to do some doodles & see what I come up with for designs for it. The colors alone should make me feel brighter & happier!

The last quilt below belongs to my friend Carol who is sick right now. I've been working on this design for it, but will do Shirley's quilt first so I can concentrate on getting Carol's done as perfectly as possible, without feeling like I need to rush. They will both take some time.

Here's hoping you all have a very Merry Holiday season!