Another Quilt

I made another quilt.  The fabric is called Park Avenue, and involved a lot of free-motion quilting.

Patio furniture

We had a patio built in our backyard, with a pergola, and I have wanted furniture for that space ever since, but outside furniture is expensive! Especially if you are only using it a few months out of the year. Well, this year we decided to make some.  I found some plans and got Larry to start working on them. He built a sofa and two chairs. We bought cushions, and I made pillows to add. We went to the D.I. and looked for a table that would work out there, and we found one with a really ugly coat of green crackle paint.  It was cheap, so we brought it home, sanded off the ugly green, and I painted a beautiful sunset on it. So the pillows I made match the colors in the painting.

Then I planted a fairy garden in a pot and made a table for it to sit on out of the left-over lumber, I  repaired and hung the long wind chime that has been in the shop for a while, planted more flowers and found a small side table with a candle lantern to go out there as well. It is now a fun place to relax on the cool weekend mornings or in the evening shade.

Place mats

Seiko was having a bridal shower, and I thought about giving her some rice bowls, to honor her Japanese heritage, (even though she is marrying a Navajo boy!) so I made some placements to go with the rice bowls. I looked up the Kanji symbol for "Happiness" and appliqued that onto the placements. I like the way they turned out, and Seiko was happy with them, too.

Star Wars cookies

More cookies! This time for Star Wars Day (May the Fourth - be with you...)

So, the young women had a fundraiser, and they asked for donations for their dessert auction.  

I made cookies.

Easter Cookies

Another thing I did in the last year is play around with cookie decorating. It started at Valentine's Day when I wanted to take something to our home teaching ladies.

And then I played with other different cut outs, and ended up teaching it at Relief Society.

When Ally turned eight, I brought some cookies to her baptism celebration dinner.

I made some more for Halloween. We took them to Larry's grandkids instead of candy. 

I also made a lot for Christmas, but we gave them all away!

In the summer I painted some rocks.  I started out painting encouraging words on some rocks for an art exchange.

Then I just painted a lady bug, and one of the grandkids liked it so much they wanted to take it home, so I said yes. Then the rest of them wanted one, too.  So I painted some more.

And then I tried mandalas, but they are more time consuming than I thought they would be.

I've made a few quilts in the last year (since it's been almost a year since I posted anything - where did that time go?)  A red white and blue quilt in the summer.

And, when Rose was born we didn't know if it would be a girl or a boy, so I made two. A small red white and blue if it was a boy, and a pinwheel quilt if it was a girl.

The pinwheel fabric was left over from this project.

It was originally going to be a quilt, but the cathedral window is so time consuming, I got this much done and decided a table runner was quite enough.

Then Tesla was having a baby, so I made this quilt for her.

I love the colors.

Then I made a couple more.  My mother had some fabric that I brought home after she died.  I've saved it, hoping I would find a way to use it.  I bought some pastel pre-cuts and they were the perfect way to use the blue piece I got from her.

This one is Simple Squares, and it's a small one.

This one is called Spring Rain, and it's larger. I sent it into Missouri Star to be machine quilted.

I also had a light green piece. I used it for a couple of things. I made a rose quilt for Rose, and another simple squares quilt with leftovers from the quilt I made for Tesla.

Then I ordered a charm pack of pre-cut fabrics from Missouri Star.

It looked like a tablecloth to me, so that's what I made, a small tablecloth for our small table.

Then, near the end of the year I cleaned out the Relief Society closet and brought home some fabric pieces that someone, some time, had donated. Together with pieces from my own scrap bag I put together two quilt tops in one weekend. 

I love the blend of colors on the autumn quilt.

I made Valentine cards for the kids and grandkids.

I made Halloween cards for the kids and grandkids on a rare day when I had some extra time.

I cross-stitched this piece, and gave it to Tenill for their new home.  She wasn't really excited about it, though, I think she has no idea how much work went into it because she has never cross-stitched before. Oh well.

I joined an art exchange group, where we create something according to a given theme, then send it to a person assigned to us.  The theme for September is "Spectacularly Spooky" so I painted something:

D.U.P. song contest

The Daughters of Utah Pioneers had a song contest, and I thought it might be fun to see what I could do.  It had to be a song about Pioneer ancestors, and I wanted it to be a fun blue-grass type of rhythm.  So here it is on Noteflight.com

http://www.noteflight.com/scores/view/b05ba7109c9411d42fcb511a77e625012416b4ab

I got a letter from the DUP saying I am a winner!

Woo Hoo!

 

New Kitchen

Our kitchen is finally done!  Well, we still have to figure out a backsplash, but that can come later.  It looks so beautiful!

The thing that I am most proud of is that I did the drawings for the builder to use! I thought maybe he would take what I had drawn to someone who knew something about drafting or architecture, but he just used my drawings, they were good enough.

Tatting

While I waited for the mess to be over with the house, some of the ladies in Relief Society expressed an interest in learning to do tatting.  I called someone I knew who does that, but she was going to be out of town on the day we needed her skills.  So I began to wonder if I could remember how.  I used to.  I went on YouTube.  You can learn to do anything on YouTube!  Sure enough, I found video tutorials on tatting.  I remembered how, and then I even learned an easier way to do it!  Needle tatting!  It's wonderful!

I made 18 of these little babies for card club and attached them to a simple pink glittery card, and they looked fantastic. Then I made doilies and book marks and coasters. Tatting is fun and easy!  I can teach this!

Busy

I thought I was busy before. I served in the Stake Primary Presidency and had lots to keep track of.  Then the Bishop called me to be the Relief Society President. Now I know what busy means.

We added on to our house, and that has taken a lot of time, even though someone else was doing the work.

 

When the kitchen is redone you have to empty all the cupboards, find a place to put it all, then put it all back when it's done.  I spent months washing dishes in the bathtub because there was no sink in the kitchen. We had to relandscape the backyard because the construction really made a mess. Months of mess.