Is spring here yet?

There was a snow day on Friday.  Yep, the first day of Spring.  *sigh*  After the long and arduous winter of missed school days, colds, and boots everywhere, I for one could use a little uplifting.  So for National Quilting Day, I did some bright and cheery sewing:

These are all Anna Maria Horner prints that I am sewing together for a mini-quilt swap on Instagram and it is making my day...just going to go stare at it for a little longer.  Hope I can stand to give this one up!!

Quilt Con 2015

Two years ago, I attended the first Quilt Con as a volunteer---I met amazing people, got to know the quilting community better and found great inspiration.  This year, I was in attendance as an employee of Windham Fabrics.  We had a fabulous time and enjoyed meeting so many passionate quilters in our booth. I am especially grateful to the modern quilt guild members that made so many beautiful blocks for our booth!

I can't say enough positive things about my Quilt Con experience---the staff really went above and beyond to create a thoughtful, inspiring and seamless experience.  Since I was literally pushing a skirt project through my machine as my husband was loading my bags in the car and telling me it was time to go,  of course I forgot the list of lectures I had signed up for.  Well, lo and behold, when I arrived and got my badge listed on the back were all the lectures I had signed up for! 

I love this Succulent border pattern by Heather Givans of Crimson Tate, don't you?

I didn't take any classes, but was able to sneak away a little bit for a lecture here and there.  One that really resonated with me was Alexia Abegg's lecture on cultivating your creativity.  She gave some great tips and pointers on shaking up your process and getting into a habit of DOING, instead of thinking about doing.

I, for one, often find myself in the self-defeating habit of thinking I have to have the project perfectly planned before I begin.  But, just messing around and making a small item has its own benefits to your creative process.

We all have piles of scraps from a project that we insist we will go back to someday, right?  But, then we move on to shiny new fabric and those scraps just sit.  So, I decided to use some of Alexia's suggestions to use up these scraps from a recent quilt project and make a quick small quilt.

Boom. Done.  Now I have a small project on which to practice my FMQ skills!!  ;)

A winter finish

For Amanda and Kelley

"In the midst of winter I discovered that there was in me an invincible summer."  - Albert Camus

"We are real friends now because we have been able to share some painful experiences in our private lives." -May Sarton

Emmett Liam Thunderstorm

Emmett Liam Thunderstorm,

8 lbs 9 oz 

born July 17th, 2009, 6 p.m.

Emmett is 1

Emmett is 2

Emmett is 3

Emmett is 4

Emmett is 5

Swim Team Blog Hop

I am so excited to be participating in this blog hop with:

Wednesday, May 21st  Windham Fabrics

Thursday, May 22nd Dinara Mirtalipova

Friday, May 23rd, Erin Schlosser

Saturday, May 24th, Melissa's Missouri Mel

Sunday, May 25th, Terri Quilted Fox

Be sure to click over to their blogs and see what they made!

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Ever since I first saw the beginnings of this fabric several months ago, I have been dreaming about the fun summer cover-up I would make with these fabulous bathing beauties!  Designed by Dinara Mirtalipova for Windham Fabrics, you can read more about Dinara's design inspiration by clicking over to her blog above.

Though I generally don't make "Mommy and Me" outfits, these two  main patterns were different enough in scale that I felt like it was OK (as in not super-super-dorky even if we wore them on the same day).  Plus, my little swimmer girl who paddled around for hours in the lake yesterday despite chattering teeth, definitely "needed" this swimming-ladies pattern in something.

I ended up making a Washi dress by Rae Hoekstra, for me (which I have been meaning to do...forever...) and a quick pillow-case dress for her. There is a great pillow-case dress tutorial here. I just threw this together in a half-hour---I don't put a lot of time and effort into making things for her lately because she is 3 and FULL of opinions about her clothes.  See below.

So...she did not LOVE her dress.  In fact, she had a complete screaming temper tantrum about wearing it.  This is dad, bribing her with a promise of ice cream to get her to cooperate with photos---let's be honest about the other side of pretty blog pics.  

Looks bucolic, right??  Little do you know...

This Washi dress was a great one for me to make now...7 mos pregnant, because it has shirring on the back that gives it a little stretch and some small pleats in the front, so I can wear it now and in August after the baby comes. 

This is the face that we mostly saw.

These beautiful lupines finally provided some distraction.

I can't wait to make more of these dresses and tops---it was an easy one-day project and in this fabric makes a great swim day cover-up! 

What would you make?  Leave a comment here, I will be giving away two fat quarters bundles of this fantastic summery fabric to two lucky winners!

Thanks to everyone who left such nice comments!  I enjoyed reading what you would do with this fabric!  Sounds like the beach will be full of sun-bathing ladies this summer! ;)  The winners of the giveaway are Gill and Carla!  I sent you an email, ladies, so send me your address and I will send out your fabric.