Stacks of stars

Hello!  It's WIP Wednesday once again!!  Wow, how the summer has flown by!

This week finds me moving college boy into his dorm, helping helping high school boy adjust to his first full week as a freshman in high school, and I'm also working on turning these stacks of stars into a quilt top!

Wish me luck!

These are for my Summer Sparkle Quilt designed by Faith Jones of Fresh Lemons Quilts.

I'm linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced on this WIP Wednesday!

What are you up to this week?

W, X, Y and Z

It was kind of a mad dash at the end, but I was able to put the finishing touches on my alphabet quilt this week.

Just in time too!

The baby arrived a little early, and school began this week, so I was putting the pedal to the metal to get it finished!

If you remember from my last post, the baby's parents are both English teachers, so an ABC quilt was very appropriate.  

And I was successful in getting the blocks in the right order, although I did have my helpers make absolutely sure.

It was kind of a relief not to have to figure out where I was going to put each block just before I sewed the quilt top together.

The block placement was definitely set by that time!  There was no changing my mind, unless I wanted to remake blocks.

And I didn't want to do that.

These were half the size as the original Moda Spell It With Fabric pattern.

I'm pleased with the results!

And I have some pictures of our monarch caterpillar friends that have found their way to our milkweed.

Every year we watch them get bigger and then change into butterflies, and this year is no exception.

This year we have had a more difficult time tracking them down right before they make their chrysalis.

I guess these guys are good at staying hidden!

Thanks for sticking with me during my slow blogging summer.

I'm going to get the pictures of the ABC quilt with it quilted and bound off the camera soon, then I'll be back to share them.

Maybe now that we're back to our school routine, I'll find more time to blog and comment!

I hope so!  I miss staying in touch. 

The ABC's

What would kind of quilt do you make for a baby whose parents are both English teachers?

Well, an alphabet quilt of course!

I set my Summer Sparkle Star quilt aside for awhile to get going on this one.

Hopefully, I'll have it completed before school starts in a few weeks.

My blocks are made with Dilly Dally fabric from Me and My Sister Designs and Bella Bleached White Solid fabric too.

The pattern is basically from the Moda Spell It With Fabric Blog Hop that happened back in February.  My blocks are sized a bit smaller to make the quilt baby sized.

I wanted to make some letters during the blog hop.......those quilts were amazing........but I didn't really know what I'd do with an ABC quilt.

When this opportunity came up, I thought it was the perfect excuse to go make some letters! 

Originally, I wasn't planning to make the letters white.  I was going to use some of the same fabrics that I'm now using in the background.

It just wasn't going well for me when I tried to lay out my color combinations.

Then, I was lucky enough to be reading the blog Happy Quilting and I saw Melissa's post about her recently finished ABC quilt.  

She had used a white solid for her letters and the background fabrics we were both using were bright fabric lines from Me and My Sisters Designs, so that that gave me a general picture of what my quilt might look like.

I loved it.

Problem solved!

Thanks so much Melissa!

I'm off to get a few more letters done before I make dinner and then drive a boy over to cross country practice.

If I get a chance to take a few more pictures of the next letters tonight, I will.  

Maybe I won't get the letters out of order this time, like I did in the first few pictures I took. Ha!Ha!

  Glad I caught that mistake!  I guess as long as I don't do that in the actual quilt, I'm good.

Wouldn't that be embarrassing? LOL!!

Jersey Girl is finished

I'm glad to be able to post a finish this week!

The summer is just flying by and I hope you're enjoying it.

I know we are!

This one has been done for a few weeks and it's now hanging in the hallway, not in the backyard.

  That's a good thing, because we've gotten so much rain.

Not that rain is a bad thing, you just don't want your quilt hanging outside when its raining.  Inside is definitely better.

Here are the stats on this one-

It's Jersey Girl designed by the amazing Carrie Nelson.

I made it for a Schnibbles parade back in January, I think, and I used fabrics from both the Reunion and the Road 15 fabric lines by Sweetwater.

You can read a few of my posts about piecing it, and about quilting it too, if you click here, here, and here. 

For the quilting, I did some flowerlike swirls with my Bernina 820 on my quilt frame.

I'm pleased with how it turned out, even though I haven't been practicing as much as I probably should be, to have nice quilting stitches.

I have good intensions, but as I'm sure you know, there just aren't enough hours in the day!

Oh, I love the backing on this one too!

I forgot to get a picture of it this time, but you can get a look at it in the picture below that I swiped from my own previous post about quilting it.

See it on the back roller?

It's from the fabric collection Just My Type by Patti Young.

Next time I take some pictures, I'll try to take some of the back for you.

  

Here is one last picture of it before I'm off to enjoy the pool weather while we can!

The aisles at Target are full of school supplies already and a few super-bright lime green folders even found their way into my cart yesterday.

I might not be doing much sewing, blogging or commenting recently, but I've been keeping up with your posts and I've been enjoying relaxing with my family this summer.

It won't be long before school will be back in session here, and then I plan to sew up a storm!

"Those s'more cookies are awesome, Mom!"

That's what my son just told me as I sat down to write a quick post about these cookies, so I'm using that as my title today!

I found this amazing recipe for Gooey S'mores Cookies by Amanda on her blog Kevin and Amanda earlier this week.  

We made them yesterday and they were truly so tasty that I had to share them with you! 

The cookie part is just wonderful and the Mini Hershey Kisses and the melty marshmallows put them over the top!!   

I did use the Mini Hershey Kisses and the cinnamon graham crackers that Amanda recommends, but I used the regular small marshmallows, not the really, really tiny size that she used in her recipe.

 I didn't need to go to Target yesterday, which is where it seems that you can find the really, really, extra tiny marshmallows, and I wanted to make these as soon as I could, so the regular small marshmallows would have to do.

You know the size I'm talking about, right?

Anyway, they worked well in the recipe, but the next time I make them, and that will be soon, I'll be sure to check that the marshmallows are near the top of the cookies or all the way underneath the cookies when I put them on the baking sheet.

You see, they tend to melt out the side if they are directly on the baking sheet at the side of the cookie. 

 No big deal, they still taste absolutely amazing, but I'm planning to bring them to a Fourth Of July gathering and watching the placement of the marshmallows would make all of them "take to a friend's house quality", if you know what I mean.

Or, I could just not worry about the marshmallows, keep the odd looking ones here, and eat them myself.

Hmmmm. I'll have to think about that option.

This recipe is definitely worth a try if you are looking for a sweet summer treat.

Oh, and not nearly as messy as traditional s'mores!

Summer sewing

We're enjoying summer here!

School's been out for awhile and we've been doing plenty of biking, camping, eating fun foods, watching movies and all that other great summer stuff!

  

 As far as summer sewing goes, right now I'm catching up on blocks for the Summer Sparkle Quilt Along by Faith Jones from Fresh Lemons at the Bernina blog We All Sew. 

 My house is covered in stars right now!

The ombre fabric by V and Co. has always interested me, but I never quite found a project for it until now.

These clean simple blocks and fabrics called out to me and I was quick to get started once I saw this fresh summer quilt.

Will I have it done in time to actually use it this summer?

Well, maybe not, but I'm sure giving it a try!

I did have a recent finish, quilted, bound and everything and I'll be back to share it with you soon.

eXactly what I was going for

I chose to make a big one this time!

This month's Schnibbles pattern could be found in Carrie Nelson's book Schnibbles Times Two. 

 Each quilt in the book has a pattern for both a small version, made with charm squares, and a larger version made with layer cakes.  

Since it's been awhile since I made a large quilt, I chose to make it big!

eXtra large in fact!

Well, not yet......I'm debating about whether or not I should still add the borders to it.

It's pretty big without the borders, but I do have plenty of leftover strips and layer cake squares that I could use.

I think I'll leave it alone for awhile and see what I think about the border later.   

The Layer Cakes I used were from the Circa 1934 fabric line by Cosmo Cricket.

I love the numbers and letters in these fabrics.

Oh, and the dots too!

The background fabric I found is cream with subtle swirling lines and dots that I thought went well with the dots in the Circa 1934 fabric.

I love it when things work out that way!

Sometimes I agonize over my fabric choices.  This is one just came together easily. 

You'll find plenty of amazing quilts in the Schnibbles parade on Sherri's blog and on Sinta's too in the beginning of June, just a few days away.

This will be the only Schnibbles Parade for a few months, so be sure to stop by and visit!

We'll be taking a break from the parades to work on unfinished Schnibbles projects over the summer.

Carrie has so many new, amazing patterns coming up! 

If you've been thinking about joining us, I hope to see you when we start sewing Schnibbles again.

Enjoy your weekend!