Category Archives: Mother’s Day

A Quiet Christmas

Happy Holidays everyone! For those who celebrate Christmas, I hope the day was lovely. I think this is probably the smallest gathering we have had for Christmas but you know what? It was great. Julia, Ray and I were together and we enjoyed it very much.

Knowing it was supposed to snow on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, we invited my parents over for cookies and coffee on the 23rd. Mom and Dad live at a higher elevation than us and thus get quite a bit of snow. Once it snows, their part of the highway is often impassable. They know to plan ahead and ‘hunker down’ when it is snowy. Our afternoon together was very nice though.

Because it was going to be just three people for Christmas dinner, we decided to make something less traditional than the prime rib my husband normally makes. Julia found a recipe for Bao (Chinese Steamed Buns) as well as a recipe for a Chinese Beef Noodle soup. Both were fun to make and really delicious.

This is the bao after we steamed them. Making these was a fun family project. Julia made the dough and I made the pork filling. We all worked to assemble them. Yummy!

I had some time to do a little bit of sewing on my Meadow quilt (which, per my usual, I started long ago). The flowers are all glued down with heat and bond. I did some free motion quilting to hold them before I basted the top and backing. Now that it is basted, I have been doing more free motion on the flowers. Once that is done, I will work on the background. It is a fun project and I love how it is looking thus far.

Just before the holidays, I found these cute cups at one of the local thrift stores. I bought five of them. They are so sweet and I have visions of grand children drinking hot chocolate from them at Grammy’s house. A grandma can dream, right?

Closing with a cute picture of my girls. They are becoming good friends as A gets older and H develops patience. I love seeing them snuggled up together watching cartoons on this little iPad. Check out the curls A has!

That’s it for now. We are in the midst of a power outage so I can only write while the generator runs and it is time to turn it off! More soon.

Take care everyone.

Spring Blossoms and a Finish

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Oh my gosh, my garden is exploding right now. Our property looks its absolute best in spring and fall. We have gorgeous flowers this time of year, including iris, roses, clematis, peonies, columbine and coral bells. Once the heat arrives everything begins to look stressed and overheated (including me.) When fall comes along, all of the dogwood and maple trees give us a wonderful show of color. The property was the main draw when we bought this place, the house was definitely secondary.

After a recent rain, our roses just shimmered.

So many gorgeous colors.

Completely surrounded by six foot tall deer fence, we don’t have issues with the bajillion deer and rabbits that wander through our property each day.

Up against the south wall of Ray’s shop we have a few climbing roses and this year, they are just monstrous. This picture was in the middle of the day and doesn’t do them justice. They are gorgeous. Ray had to actually reinforce the trellis they are on; it seemed like the weight could cause them to break away from it.

Back to the subject at hand, sewing! Last week I shared a bit of a project that I was working on. It was a gift for my mom for Mother’s Day. She and I both like vintage pieces and I managed to swipe a crocheted doily from her house when I was there a couple of weeks ago. I thought it might look pretty quilted to a simple rectangle to be used under a vase of flowers.

Overall, I am very pleased with how this turned out. Because I was sort of creating without much of a plan, there are things I would do different the next time around. To make this, I made the quilt sandwich and pinned the doily to it. Using a zig zag stitch and my walking foot, I stitched around it in three places. First I stitched the innermost circle, moved outward to the next circle, and then I stitched around the first set of petals. Finally, I stitched around the outer edge. My mistake was adhering the outermost edge before I did the cross hatch quilting. I was constantly butting up to the edge of the doily. If I had left that edge loose, I could have stitched right under it, backtacked, and snipped my threads. It would have been so much easier.Lesson learned.

After I stitched the doily, I began working on the framework of the FMQ. I did the little scrolls and loops all the way around the edge (leaving about 1/2″ to use for squaring up and binding). After the first pass, it looked too sparse so I echo quilted the little scrolls and loops. Were I to have the chance, I would add more detail to this section. It is a little narrow for the scale of the mini. Finally, I worked on the cross hatch lines. For this, I used my trusty Hera marker. Wow, I love that thing. I could mark one whole quadrant at a time and the lines stayed visible. No ink or chalk to deal with made this so easy! I made 3/4″ blocks in the cross hatch which worked out well.

The binding came from my stash of vintage fabrics. Remember the story I shared about the wonderful woman in Downieville who gave me her mother’s fabric stash from 1940-1950? This piece was from that amazing gift. It is a sweet print that adds a pop of color to this mini. The fabric was only 32″ wide, selvedge to selvedge which confirms it’s age. (I have actually been dying to start another project with these fabrics. So many project, so little time, right??)

This mini was a sweet project and I think Mom really liked it. It fits her house just perfectly.

I will finish this off by showing you the baby geese that we have been watching. They live up on our pond and are just adorable. Ray took this shot from our deck with a telephoto lens. The geese are very protective and no matter how quiet we try to be, we cannot get very close to the family.

Linking to my favorites. Find the links at the top of the page under Link Ups.

Remember: In celebration of their 5th anniversary, Craftsy will hold a great sale of kits and supplies beginning today and running through the 15th. Kits are a great way to buy coordinating fabrics at a wonderful price – even if you decide to use it for something other than the pattern it is sold with. Check it out here!

Mother’s Day Giveaway Winner

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It was a great weekend! I hope everyone was able to celebrate Mother’s Day in some fashion! I wanted to share a couple of things. One is that I drew the lucky winner for the Sew Mama Sew giveway that Needle and Foot participated in. I had so many wonderful comments to read through and the lucky winner (by random drawing) is number 80!

Peggy wrote that a favorite memory of her mom was “Seeing the excitement on my mom’s face when she was getting ready to go for a long awaited visit to her family in VA. and seeing the photos/video of her visit afterwards.”

When I set up this giveway, I asked readers to share a memory about their mom, being a mom, or really anything to do with motherhood. I knew I was drawing the winner on Mother’s Day so it was perfect to honor mom’s everywhere. Wow, what a great response! I loved all of the comments and thought I would share a few with you. Really touching to read these. Hope you enjoy them.

From Judy: As a kid I always wanted 12 children. My mom told me I should marry a farmer if that were the case. Well, I didn’t marry a farmer but managed to collect 12 children through the years. By the way I was an only child. You always want what you don’t have.

From Gene: My favorite memory of mom comes from a very scary time in our lives. My mom was very sick with pancreatitis and had been in a coma for over a month. She was in an ICU unit and we could only visit for brief periods each day. One day we walked in and were met by her nurse – a guy with a BIG smile – who said ” I have a surprise for you today” He pulled back the curtain around the bed and Mom was awake. She smiled so sweetly at us. Although it was still a long recovery, MOM was back with us and hope was restored. Years later, Mom is still with me and her sweet smile makes my heart sing.

From Kathy: I lived for a time in Seoul, South Korea. My Mom came to visit me, but had not told me she quit dyeing her hair. What a shock to see her so gray! I never thought of my parents as getting older until then. Mothers and fathers should always be here. I just visited her grave for the first time on Sunday (600 miles away). I talked to her and Dad. I miss them so much and can’t believe it’s been 5 and 7 years. I still find myself thinking that I have to tell her this or that and start to reach for the phone.

From Diana: One of my favorite memories of my mom is her helping me fix up my first home – painting the kitchen and planting 2 lilac bushes in the back yard. Lilacs were both our favorite.

From Betsy: The best part is seeing my babies in my grandchildren. It’s like a second chance at seeing a loved child grow

From Linda: I am a coffeeholic! My son learned at a VERY young age (3-4) that the way to mommy’s heart was through coffee and chocolate…so he did both. One morning he used my one cup coffeemaker to make me a cup of coffee. He used THREE SCOOPS of coffee in my one cup maker. Yes, it was MUD. To make it flavored he melted an entire Hershey Bar into the coffee. He brought it up to my bedroom and put it under my nose next to the edge of the bed to wake me up. The best part of waking up…my kid. YES, I drank it….chocolate covered grounds and all.

From Doris: My favorite memory of my mom is when she would bring me lilacs from her yard. My mom passed on Mother’s Day several years ago.

From Karen: My mom loved to sing! She has Alzheimer’s now, but when I am with her, I put on a little Perry Como or Ansy Williams and watch her eyes light up as she sings along.

From Melissa: My mom passed away five years ago. I really miss her especially when I’m sewing because she taught me how to sew . When I miss her the most I create a quilt and give it to the nursing home where she spent her last days .

From Ramona: I have so many wonderful memories of my mom. Unfortunately, this is my first mother’s day without her and I am trying to think of all the fun memories. She loved to sew, knit and create! She passed that love down to me and taught me how to sew which we shared. I will be bringing her 1950’s Singer machine home with me this summer. I learned to sew on this machine so it will be a treasure.

Thank to everyone that left a comment. There are many more memories that were shared. Too many to include here. If you would like to read more of them, check out the comments section on this post.