Category Archives: Family

The Busiest Time of the Year

Tis the season to be busy, right? This week has been packed with a variety of things. Much of my time has been centered around my Etsy shop. I have had a nice number of sales so that means packaging and shipping items. I greatly enjoy this, so it’s all good. I decided to start including a little freebie with my orders this year. I made a bundle of little book marks with cute buttons, large paperclips and a bit of hot glue. What do you think?

I get a kick out of getting the shipments ready. For one thing, check out the cute dispenser for the twine that I use to wrap orders. 🙂 I love it – I received it as a birthday gift from my father-in-law a couple of years ago. Secondly, I love helping my customers. This week I did a custom Chemex cozy for a customer who wanted rooster fabric. Love the colors in this piece of material.

Besides Etsy work, I have done about 75% of our Christmas shopping. I am feeling pretty good about my progress up to this point. I have a strong hatred for shopping malls and have thus far avoided stepping foot in one. It remains to be seen if I can finish without hitting the mall but so far, it’s looking good! I also found a dress to wear to my son’s wedding in January. The wedding is in Toronto, Ontario so we will be trekking to Toronto in a few weeks. As always, when they announced their engagement a year ago, it seemed like it would be such a long wait for the wedding. Then, suddenly, we are a few weeks out. Crazy the way time buzzes by.

Truly, I have spent very little time in the sewing room this week. I did make a little fabric bucket for a gift. I think I have mentioned that Julia joined 4-H this year. She wanted to learn about raising market hogs to show and sell at the county fair. It has been quite a project for her. She is committed though and has made time for the meetings and is learning all a girl needs to know about market swine! Ray is reinforcing an existing pen on our property and Julia is helping. They have been setting posts and running wire fence.

I have been very impressed by her 4-H leader for the swine group. Tracy puts in a lot of time with these kids and it will be even more once their piglets are born. (Julia should bring her piglets home in late March or very early April.) I wanted to give her a little gift for the holidays. I searched for Christmasy pig fabric and wouldn’t you know… there is such a thing! I wasn’t terribly surprised. I think there is fabric out there for everyone and every possible theme!

Aren’t these guys the silliest thing ever? It cracks me up. I lined it with a vintage holiday print I had in my stash.

I made the bucket with two 11″ squares of fabric for both lining and outer fabric. I fused a thick fusible interfacing to the outer fabric before sewing this up. Once I fused the interfacing, I sewed the perimeter of the two outer fabric squares, leaving one long side open. Next I boxed the corners. Then I repeated the process with the lining. However with the lining, I left an opening of three inches on the bottom seam so I could turn it right side out when I sewed it together. Nest the outer box inside the lining box, with fabric right sides together and stitch around the top. Turn right sides out and press. Hand or machine sew the opening in the lining. Fold the top over to the outside and you’re done! If you want pictures or more detail, this tutorial from Dear Handmade Life is quite good. The size of the bucket in the tutorial is much bigger though. Mine finished at 5 1/2″ square – so basically at 5 1/2″ wide, tall and deep. Perfect size to fill with a few treats. Perfect gift for any pig lover. 🙂

I have also been making blocks for the Sew Fresh Quilt Bee, hosted by Lorna of Sew Fresh Quilts. I have two finished but haven’t taken any photos yet. I’ll show them to you soon. They are very cute, improv log cabin blocks.

Ok, that is it for now. I have to pick up Julia soon. She is in the midst of finals and has been studying like crazy. She has a few more next week so she will likely have her nose in her Chemistry book all weekend. Ray and I will drag her away to pick out a Christmas tree but other than that, I doubt very much that she will be doing much besides studying. Have a wonderful weekend everyone. Remember that my giveaway for Sew Mama Sew’s Giveaway day is open through Sunday evening, December 12th. Pop over and enter. Be sure and head over to Sew Mama Sew as well. There are so many fun bloggers participating in this and tons of great giveaways!

Finally, C&T Publishing is having another $5.00 blowout sale this weekend. Of note, they are offering adult coloring books for $5.00 – buy one get one free. So, two gifts for $5.00 plus shipping???

My favorite of the books is one by Valori Wells. She designed the amazing elephant fabric that I made a whole cloth quilt from recently. If you were as smitten with that fabric as I was, this might be fun for you! There are several nice books listed on sale this weekend.

(Note: I am an affilliate of C&T publishing and will receive a stipend if you click through my site and order from them.)

Giveaway Winner and a Smile

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Good morning! First order of business – I used our friend, Random Number Generator, to pick a winner for the 2017 Quilter’s Planner. The winner is………. Patricia! Her tip on organization was:

I try to group items by use. I have one drawer for hand sewing notions,one for sewing machine items. The cutting table top drawer has rotary cutters and blades etc. I have a travel bag with duplicate tools for workshops that stays packed.

I like the idea of having a separate bag of tools for traveling to workshops. That would be really handy rather than packing up each time you take a class. Congratulations Patricia. I have sent an email to you. If you have a minute, take a look at some of the comments on the Giveaway post. There were many great tips submitted for staying on top of things in the sewing room (as well as life in general.)

Next up for today is something to make you smile. My niece, Lil, teaches preschool at a Catholic preschool in the Bay Area. You might remember Lil from my post about a tshirt quilt I made for her a couple of years ago. Every now and then, Lil will send her mom (my sister) texts or pictures of things that happen while she is working. My sister then sends them out to the rest of us (my sisters & my parents) and we just love it.

Yesterday, Lil sent a great one so I want to share it with you. Being Christmas time, she is working on a basic unit about the Christmas story. Below is the sample project that she had the children making.

As it should be, Lill’s students make their own artwork. Each one is working to his or her current ability. Here are the resulting projects.

I think this bulletin board is filled with all kinds of adorable!! Poor baby Jesus – it would appear he is having a bit of trouble with his manger. I looked at this a number of times yesterday and smiled over and over. I thought you might enjoy it as well. The project in the bottom, lower right corner is so cute. Baby Jesus appears to be underneath the manger. 🙂 I love the preschool ages, when children are so uninhibited and sweet. I have more than one box of projects from my four children. It is so hard to toss them. I think it would be great to scan them and save them digitally so I could get rid of the boxes. Maybe someday…

Ok, that is it for today. I am off to finish binding my Fleet & Flourish project!! Have a great day.

Tiny Baby Projects

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A few posts back, I mentioned that our family will grow by three great-grandchildren in the first part of 2017? Guess what? One of those babies will be my first grandbaby. Does that make sense?? It sounds weird. Probably because I have been patiently waiting for this for a long time. No, not really all that patiently. Sometimes Ray has to give me the stink-eye, reminding me to quit asking my kids about grandbabies. Finally, it’s going to happen– yahoo!! I get to be a Grandma, or Grammy. Probably Grammy, I like that better. My oldest and his wife are expecting their first baby, a sweet little girl, the first week of March!! Awesome news, this is.

I have sent a few little things to them for the baby. (They live in Vermont – Clearly, it’s not going to be all that convenient to play with my granddaughter.) Last weekend I really wanted to make something for her. It was raining like crazy though, making a trip to the store somewhat unappealing. (Seriously, it was raining that hard.) I dug around in my closet of more-fabric-than-anyone-could-need and pulled some flannel scraps. These were scraps in every sense of the word. They didn’t really go with anything and were not very big. Certainly I could turn them into something. Babies start out small – these were small scraps, I didn’t need to make anything huge, right?

I also found a reasonably sized piece of white flannel and a tiny piece of white terrycloth. After an afternoon of playing around, this is where I ended up.

I squeaked one bib out of terrycloth and flannel and the other bib is backed with white flannel and trimmed with white rick-rack. I used velcro closures because I was out of the little gripper snaps and it was raining….. remember?

Joy (baby girl’s other Grammy), if you are reading this, the “I Love Grandma” bib is for both of us. This girl is going to have two really cool grandmas.

I also made three burp cloths. These are definitely scrappy. The elephant fabric was just a few bits so I mixed it with white flannel strips to get a large enough rectangle. The lime green stripe was a narrow rectangle so I sewed it to a larger rectangle of white flannel, causing the white to wrap around to the front and create a large enough rectangle. That pink polka dot is adorable and I even had coordinating ribbon to embellish with. Fancy schmancy burp cloths for my special girl. I sent them off to the kids with a note telling them that three burp cloths was not nearly sufficient but this would at least get them started. 😉

When I first started blogging, I posted a tutorial for burp clothes that wrap the backing to the front, like the green one. If you want to check it out, click here.

I can’t wait for this baby’s arrival. My son and DIL are so good about keeping all of us posted with ultrasound pictures and baby bump photos. She is clearly adorable already. For my birthday last week they sent me a lovely frame that says granddaughter on it and this TGIF mug. It is the perfect mug for me – holds a huge cup of coffee and reminds me I am soon to be a Grammy.

Linking to lots of fun places – check them out at the top of the page, under Link Ups.

Birthday Surpise

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It is still another week until my birthday but today I received a surprise in the mail. Who doesn’t love getting something in the mail besides junk mail and bills, right? It doesn’t happen very often anymore.

The surprise was from my sister Cathy. She made me a scarf with some gorgeous Nani Iro fabric. And guess what? She went all the way to Japan to buy the fabric. I know, she’s a little crazy. She could have ordered it online but she is the sort who usually goes the extra mile (or the extra 8,271 miles, as the crow flies) 🙂

This scarf is absolutely stunning. She also put this darling trim on both ends.

The fabric and backing are so soft. Yum. I haven’t ever used Nani Iro fabric but have certainly read about it and maybe even coveted it just a little bit. Designed by Naomi Ito, for Kokka fabrics, the prints are lovely. Naomi is a painter, mostly water colors, and she designs these prints by painting first. Miss Matatabi has a wonderful interview with Naomi Ito on her site. It gives the reader a peek into Naomi’s world and her process for creating and designing these fabrics as well as a bit about her personal life. Take a minute and hop over. I know you’ll enjoy it. If you want to see some of the gorgeous fabric she has designed, click here. (Not an affiliate link but definitely a fabric enabling link!!)

Do you want to hear the other reason why Cathy went over to Japan? I mean other than to pick up some Nani Iro to use for my birthday gift? She went to spend a month with her new grandson! This is such a great story.

Last summer in early June, Cathy texted all of us (we always have a family group text going) and told us to check our email. She had written to tell us that her younger son and his wife (who live and work in Japan – somewhere – I am terrible with geography but I am positive it is in Japan!) had just adopted a baby who had been born just that day. I was stunned. None of us knew they were pursuing adoption so it was a huge surprise. She was thrilled, we were thrilled and the texting went non-stop all day long. So many questions! My nephew and his wife had just received the news that they were able to adopt a baby boy. They brought him home from the hospital two days after his birth.

Cathy quickly scheduled a trip for the beginning of August and she was able to stay for four weeks.

This was taken when she arrived. I think he was about 8 weeks old. He is just adorable. We are really fortunate that his daddy is willing to indulge all of us and post pictures several times each week to a Google share account. I love watching this little guy change and grow.

Looking at just these three photos, it is amazing to see the change and growth in an infant over five months time; these were taken at 3 days, 8 weeks and 4-ish months. What I wouldn’t give to smooch this little guy. Hopefully they will be able to come out to California sometime so we can all get to know him. He has the honor of being the ninth great-grandchild for my parents. This family just keeps growing. With three more babies due in the first months of 2017, the count will be up to twelve great-grands and 21 grandchildren. Doesn’t get much better than that.

Reminder: The Autumn Abundance Bloghop begins here at Needle and Foot on Monday, October 24th. I have projects to share and giveaways to give. See you Monday!

241 Bag, Version 2

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Prologue:

This morning I was feeling highly productive. Before 9:00 am I had taken photos of this great 241 totebag (with the help of my totebag model) and written this post for you. In the middle of reviewing the post, checking for typos, etc, Julia walked up to me and said, “I stubbed my toe”. I looked down and saw this horrific baby toe that was bleeding far more than I was comfortable with. I got a (clean) kitchen dishrag and did some high-quality first aid.

Once we had the first aid under wraps (ha ha ha!), I scurried around collecting a ton of fruits and veggies that I was supposed to plate and serve to the senior class at 12:30 today, while they were taking turns presenting their senior projects. (I had a deep suspicion that I wouldn’t be there to serve them). Once the food was in a cooler and one shoe on Julia’s good foot, we got her in the car and headed to urgent care.

They were great. Got her right in (probably out of concern for the gross looking dishrag her foot was wrapped in. When the nurse took it off to clean her toe, he looks at me and says, “uhh, do you want this back??” I declined it.) A couple of hours and three stitches later, we are back home and she is on the couch (where she spent Saturday, Sunday and Monday for illness) doing homework. Poor thing is spending quite a bit of time on the couch and missing a whole lot of school this week. It really hasn’t been a great couple of days for this girl!

And now that this is all taken care of, we can talk about my second 241 totebag!!

Let me tell you, the second time using a pattern is so much easier than the first! I made another 241 totebag this week and it came together incredibly quickly. I had the process down from the first time I made the bag. (You can check the first one out here.) This one is a keeper – a little selfish sewing for me!

For this bag, I used more of my Allison Glass Field Day collection (the daisy print) and I had a big piece of Kaffe Fassett shot cotton (the solid rust piece). They look great together.

I was bold enough to put in a zipper pocket for this bag. I had a seven inch zipper in my collection of thrifted zippers ( I love finding these in thrift stores and can usually get zippers for 25-50 cents each.) The pattern calls for two zip pockets with them both installed on angles, vertically. I decided I only wanted to tackle one zipper and put it in horizontally. It wasn’t hard to put in this pocket though I am not completely satisfied with the corners – it was difficult to get them to lay flat enough. This is most likely because I didn’t clip the corners close enough. It’s hard to decide how close to clip toward the stitching.

As before, I put in a clip to hold my keys and a slip pocket with velcro closure on the inside of the bag.

I had two scraps of Allison Glass that worked for the lining of the exterior pockets and even though no one will see it, it makes me happy! Love it when the small scraps are usable and it adds a bit of interest to the purse.

I have a bit of a purse addiction and this is going to be a perfect addition to my collection!

Linking to the usuals which can be found at the top of the page, under Link Ups.

If you are looking for classes or patterns to get you going on making a tote bag, check out Craftsy. Loads of classes and patterns to learn from!

(This is an affiliate link, meaning if you click through and make a purchase, I will be paid a small amount in return.)

Lots Going On!

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The week is starting out with a bang! Yesterday I was scheduled to have some dental surgery today and I really, really, really wasn’t looking forward to it. Imagine my joy when the dental office called to reschedule my appointment (hopefully in another decade, another century, as far out as I can schedule it!) Anyway, Ray had taken the day off because he expected to be driving the patient home and rolling his loopy wife out of the car and into bed. Since we didn’t have to do this, we opted for a drive up to Downieville and a hike.

These poppies are just everywhere. Last year when they all went to seed, I collected tons of seed pods and tried to start them in our garden. Not one plant came up. I am not sure why but I am going to give it another try this fall. I know they are grow happily up here as they are just covering everyone’s yards and hillsides. I love the drama of these vivid red poppies.

Really deep and crystal clear, the river is running so fast. Ray and I are curious to see how high it remains this summer. Last year, with the drought, it ran quite low. I suspect this summer will be a different story. Monday was a totally different day than the one I expected. Hurray for small blessings like dental appointment cancellations!!!

This weekend I was able to catch up on the FMQ quiltalong that I have been doing with Lori at The Inbox Jaunt. This project just gets cuter and cuter.

Those sailboats make this whole project shine! I love them and kind of want to make something for a child that features the boats. I think they are just adorable. It is with mixed feelings that I watch for today’s post from Lori. This week we will be quilting the last row and adding some finishing touches. Overall, this was a fun way to practice my FMQ.

In support of the May is for Makers theme this month, I purchased my second indie pattern of the month. Yikes, it was hard to choose. It sort of reminds me of when my youngest son was little. (Ok, even now at 25 years old, he is still like this.) He had such a hard time making choices – picking out an ice cream flavor took such a long time. The donut shop was even worse. When he grew to be a teenager, I dreaded the hours we would spend shopping when it was time to get new shoes. It looks like the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Here I was, shopping for a pattern-just for fun, no parameters. I was buying a pattern only because I wanted to support someone in their creative efforts. And I just COULDN’T DECIDE! Finally, I made my choice and bought a newly released pattern from Kirsty over at Bonjour Quilts. It is called Fleur.

This mini finishes at 11″ square though she also sells a pattern for a jumbo size Fleur which works into a queen size quilt. I am thinking this mini would look great with four blocks so that it finished at 22″ x 22″. It is a sweet, summery look and will be fun to put together.

Finally, guess what! I am working on my first tutorial for Sew Mama Sew! I am excited about it and a little nervous because I really want to get all the details written up clearly and concisely. The tutorial is for something I have made so many times that I can do it without thought. Now I am making a few of them and trying to take good notes of the steps necessary. It posts in three weeks so hopefully I will have it all worked out by early next week.

I hope your week has started out as happy as mine!!

Linking to my usual favorites. Check them out at the top of the page, under Link Ups.

Craftsy Update: In a continued celebration of their birthday, Craftsy is offering some of their most popular classes for 50% off. Sale begins Wednesday, May 18th! Check them out. I have taken some quilting classes purchased at Craftsy and feel that that the caliber of the classes is first rate! (I am a Craftsy affiliate, meaning if you click through my link and make a purchase, I will receive a small payment.)

Weekend Staycation

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Today Ray and I celebrate our 18th wedding anniversary. Eighteen years on the 18th of April. I like when numbers line up like that. 🙂 This is one of my favorite shots from our wedding.

We decided to have a night away to celebrate over the weekend. Ian was available to come hang out with Julia which was just perfect. We stayed at the same hotel that we had our wedding reception at in town, The Holbrooke. Like many things in this area, it dates back to the Gold Rush and is really adorable. The best part was we didn’t have to spend any time driving so we had time to play in the garden, visit with Ian AND spend a bit of time away. Isn’t it funny how we take what is all around us for granted? We live in such a pretty little town but we leave to relax.

Mom and Dad knew we were staying there so they stopped by with flowers and a card and asked the girl at the desk to put them in our room. When Mom explained why we were staying there, she upgraded us to the Bridal Suite. We felt very special!

Needless to say, no time was spent in my sewing room. I have so many projects going right now so I want to be diligent this week to make some progress on each. I have been successfully using my Quilter’s Planner to keep my to-do list organized each week. This is the list for this week:

Complete the block assembly for Stepping Stones QAL. (I have about 1/2 of the 143 blocks complete.
Make two items for my Etsy Shop. I need to build up inventory and if I don’t do a little at a time, it just doesn’t get done.
Finish quilting the art quilt I mentioned in my post the other day. I have just one border left to quilt and I want to make it look like wood grain. Lori has an excellent variation here that I plan to use. Last night I practiced it on paper and it is a simple motif. Should go together with ease.
If time allows, I will face or bind the art quilt.

OK – my list is now public and hopefully I can achieve each of these goals. What is the plan for your week? Does listing your goals help you keep things straight?

Just for your enjoyment – spring is here! A few pictures of what is happening in my garden this week.

The clematis are fully blooming.

This squirrel decided to hide out in a birdhouse. Last year some sort of critter chewed the opening to enlarge it on two of our birdhouses. I actually made (with help!) this birdhouse one afternoon in Ray’s shop. He was giving me a woodworking lesson which was a lot of fun.

Roses are all starting to bloom. They will be spectacular in a week or so.

Artichokes are growing! This plant is fairly prolific. We will probably yield a dozen artichokes from it. Ray has all sorts of lettuce growing and we should be picking some by the weekend.

Hope all of you get a nice mix of outside time (weather permitting in your area) and sewing time!

Linking up (for the first time) with To Do Tuesday at Stitch All the Things.

The Birthday Girls

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Last weekend was the best. I mentioned in a post last week that five of my (six) sisters were coming for the weekend. No spouses or grandkids were on the guest list so Ray and Julia took off for Downieville for a couple of nights.

A few of my sisters and I, plus my parents, were in cahoots, planning a surprise birthday party for two of my sisters. Tina turns 60 this year and Alicia, the youngest, turns 50. When I look at that sentence, it doesn’t seem at all possible that the youngest in our family is 50. In my head we are all still 30-something. The passage of time is crazy hard to wrap my head around. We have always celebrated the 50th in a big way and we needed to do this for Alicia too. We told Tina about the surprise for Alicia but we also (secretly) planned a party for her. The surprise party was perfect – neither suspected a thing.

Trying to figure out a theme for Alicia’s 50th party, I came up with a “50 Shades of Gray” party. Not having ever read the book, I was going for the number 50 and the kind of raunchy theme that the the title implies. We agreed that the five of us would each bring ten gifts, some silly and some not, that were either gray in color or wrapped in gray/silver paper. That way she would have 50 gifts to open. It was so much fun to pick things out. Everyone went crazy with it. Lots of silly things and some pretty gifts too.

Being fabric obessesed, I headed for the sewing room and, digging through my gray scraps, made a few items.

The potholder has a “50” FMQ’d into the upper right corner.

The key fob was fun to make. A few months ago I bought a bag of the hardware pieces and hadn’t done much with it until now. Also made a cozy for her coffee when she is out getting coffee, as well as a tissue holder for her purse.

I did have to part with some of my Allison Glass scraps but Alicia is worth it. 🙂

Here are the 50 items all together. Some of the highlights were: socks – lots of gray socks, Grey Goose vodka, two pretty gray mugs, bracelets, a knit beanie, flip flops, Earl Grey tea, denture cleaner, silly magnifier glasses, a book on becoming a mother later in life and a pregnancy test kit (apparently my mom is still hoping for more grandchildren??? Pretty sure that isn’t going to happen!), pretty gray towels, a picture frame and loads more. One of my favorite gifts was a plain, gray rock from my sister’s yard, all wrapped up. It cracked me up – look for it in the center on top of some cupcake liners (which were silver of course.) I also loved the tshirt in the front on the left. Awesome. It was so much fun.

For my sister, Tina, we honored her 60th with more traditional gifts. I had been planning for quite a while to give her the Classic Stitches row quilt. She had commented several times that it was her favorite of the quilts I had made. When I quilted it, I even wrote a little note to her in one corner. (I didn’t ever post about that for obvious reasons.)

Receiving the quilt was a huge surprise for her and it made me so happy to see that she loved it.

Note the gorgeous birthday crown she is wearing. My sisters and I got a little crazy with some glue and stickers and made these gorgeous birthday crowns for the girls.

Mom and Dad did a great job setting up the party at their house with delicious food and festive decorations. Mom pulled out their baby pictures and I got a quick picture of each sister with her baby photo.

It was a perfect party that could only have been improved if the sixth sister were able to make it. We missed her. It is so hard to get everyone here at the same time.

We also made a playlist of fun songs from our childhood in the 1960’s. Dad danced with each of the birthday girls.

We went back to my house on a stormy night and promptly lost power for the next 11 hours. Kind of a pain when you live in the country and rely on a well for water. At least it was later in the evening and we slept during most of the outage. The next family get together is one where I will be the missing cog on the wheel. There is a bridal shower for two grandchildren that are getting married. My family will be on vacation at the time though. Like I said, it’s always hard to find a time when the eight of us can be at the same place, at the same time. So it is important to revel in those times when we are (mostly) together.

Linking up with the usual suspects whose links are listed at the top of the page, under Link Ups.

TBT – Embroidery

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In keeping with Valentine’s Day and all of the sweet projects that are posted this time of year, I want to share a gift I made for my parents’ 25th wedding anniversary. They celebrated 25 years back in 1980, several months before I turned 20. I haven’t done any embroidery for years and years. I remember making this piece and a few things for the boys’ room when they were babies but I don’t think I have done any since then.

This project was made from a kit that I purchased. After hanging on the wall for the past 35 years, it is a bit dusty. Last fall when Mom was recovering from her surgery, I looked at this which is still hanging in their bedroom. You know what? I am absolutely sure that I don’t remember how to do this!

I am sure I could still do a satin stitch, a running stitch and some french knots but the other stitches are no longer stored in my memory bank. Like the raised center of the upper flower – that looks pretty interesting but beats me how I did it. 😉

On the uppermost flower, toward the left, I rather like the petals with the vein running down the center. Again, no recollection of how that stitch works. And the center of that middle flower? Very pretty and again, no idea how to stitch that!

The stitching on the words is a bit herky-jerky when you see it up close. Overall though, this is a sweet tribute to my parent’s amazing marriage. They will celebrate their 61st anniversary this spring and I believe they are still each other’s very favorite Valentine.

Linking to A Quarter Inch From the Edge for Throwback Thursday for her February link up. There are others that will be posting about projects from the past so go ahead and check them out!

Road Trip Tote Bag

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Last weekend we celebrated my mother-in-law’s birthday. Wanting to make her gift, I started browsing my pins on Pinterest. I have a board devoted to bags and totes and have long wanted a reason to play with those patterns. I thought it might be fun to make a tote for her and chose the Madras Plaid Summer Tote pattern from Noodlehead.

She and my father-in-law take lots of road trips throughout the year, sometimes camping and sometimes staying in hotels. When Julia and I were picking fabric and we saw this Route 66 novelty print and decided it was perfect! It screams, take me on a road trip, please?

The Noodlehead pattern is simple. While I didn’t time myself, I am quite certain it took less than an hour to put together. I like the exterior pocket for slipping smaller items into. As luck would have it, the fabric totally matched up when I placed the pocket. On her pattern, Anna uses bias tape to trim the upper edge of the pocket. When I saw the perfect (accidental) match, I left the trim off. If you haven’t made many bags, this tutorial is a great one to try. Check it out!

In keeping with our Road Trip theme for this birthday gift, I also chose a cookbook by America’s Test Kitchen titled, Cook’s Country Eats Local. My in-laws, my husband and I, are all huge fans of America’s Test Kitchen. This cookbook features recipes from the four regions of the US, Northeast, Midwest, South, and the West. The recipes look wonderful and I suspect my mother in law will enjoy trying these out. (Hopefully on occasions when we are over there for a meal!) I also selected the Cheryl Strayed book, Wild. An avid hiker, my MIL is sure to enjoy this.

If you give someone a book bag and books, one needs to include bookmarks, right? These were very fun to make with some scraps from her bag. The striped fabric was used to line the tote.

It was a fun celebration with family. Ray smoked a trip tip and roasted potatoes and I made peach pie for dessert. When our peach tree was going crazy last summer, I froze bags of sliced peaches. It was lovely to have fresh fruit for pie in January.

By the way, look at the selvage from this fabric. It is adorable. I know lots of you keep unique selvages. If any of you would like to add this one to your collection, let me know in the comments. I will happily mail it to you. There are two strips that show the little cars.

Linking to Freemotion by the River, Let’s Bee Social, and Finish it Up Friday. All links to these parties are listed at the top of the page, under Link Ups.