Pure Joy

My friend Kerrianne took this fabulous picture of Andrew throwing Jamie in the pool this week. This photo is the very definition of this summer for us and I am thrilled to have it preserved in such a great way. Jamie met his Kindergarten teacher today and gets on the big yellow school bus for the first day of school on MONDAY, yes Monday! While it's not the end of summer here in Georgia, it is the end of summer vacation in our county.

With Andrew off of work, he has spent many hours throwing our kids and all kinds of neighbor kids in the pool. My kids don't even realize how lucky they are to have dad around so much. I hope the boys are both old enough to remember the summer of Six Flags, Whitewater, Edisto Beach with my family, Hilton Head Beach with Andrew's family, tons of fun at the pool, and lots of time with their dad.

I secretly look forward to a return to the school schedule, structure, progress, and time all to myself to sew...

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Scrap Nine Patch Completed!

I finally finished the Scrap Nine Patch for my sister Carrie (I am in pink shirt, Carrie is in blue). It wasn't really made from scraps. I used April Cornell's Poetry fabrics for the 9-patches and a light green fabric for the sashing. The backing fabric is another selection of the Poetry line and the binding is the cream polka dot from the same family. I really don't love the green sashing but I'm still in love with the backing and binding!

This is the first quilt that I have completed with free-motion quilting. I used a stipple pattern and it turned out much better than I expected! My hands still want to do a loop-de-loop pattern instead of the stipple so I might try that on my next one.

I wanted to share with you an easy way of managing your binding during the process of making it and attaching it. While I ironed it in half, I began rolling it around one of my small rulers:

Then when it was time to pin it to the quilt before sewing, I just unrolled it along the sides of my quilt. It kept it very well organized and pressed. In the past my binding has been in a pile at my feet as I'm working with it and it ends up getting creased and wrinkled, not to mention rolled over by my chair! This solution was simple, free, and quick.

I'd like to give a cyberThanks to Amanda Jean of Crazy Mom Quilts for putting together the quilt-along that finally spurred me into completing this quilt. I am very happy with it and can't wait to complete one for myself!

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Home again!

I have been gone two long weeks and am happy to finally be back home and back online! I was at the beach, first with my family at Edisto Beach in South Carolina and then with Andrew's family at Hilton Head. Both were good visits with everyone and filled with lots of salt, sand and shrimp!

While I was gone our main computer gave up the ghost after six years of dedicated service. I am a little out of sorts without my photo files, bookmarks, etc.; so please be patient while I regroup and get back on the blog wagon.

In exciting news, I finished and gifted my Scrap 9 Patch quilt for my sister Carrie. It turned out so well that I was inspired to pick up the quilting pace now that I'm home! I promise to complete my post about this quilt as soon as I can get the last picture uploaded. Thanks for your patience!

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