California Week-End!

 My husband and I have  returned from a great week-end in California.





Our destination was Santa Rosa - north of San Francisco - in the heart of wine country.  We spent a few hours on Saturday in Healdsburg - a quaint small town with great shops and wine tasting store fronts.   What a great photo taken at a local flower shop!!                                                                                                                                    

    And here I am with my sister-in-law, Dee, in front of the tasting bar for Toad Hollow Vineyards.

    Many of you have probably purchased a bottle or two of their wine because of their colorful labels.

    Unfortunately, we cannot ship wine to Indiana, but we can to Minnesota and Dee is from Minneapolis!!!




    My husband prefers the beer tasting and he was not disappointed!

 

    We visited the Bear Republic Brewery and Restaurant right in beautiful downtown Healdsburg.

    The 3 of us ordered the flight of all brews on tap and did our own little tasting.  Yes, indeed, 15 different ones!  A real treat!!

    To top things off, one of the small boutiques carried one of my favorite lines of knits and I was able to do a little shopping.

Life is Good!

Rainy Day Knitting

      What do you do when it rains and rains and rains - you make a rain coat!!

And that is just what I did and today when I went to knitting - it was raining - so you guessed it - I wore it!  I shot this quick photo of Phyllis trying it on.  Everyone loved it!

It is a burda pattern 7700 and will have one very large button added at the top.

I used the great Rowan laminate - yummy stuff - and it is a Kaffe Fassett design as is the cotton lining.  

I had to revise a little, as the pattern does not call for a lining - but not to worry.

The next one is for my daughter, Natalie.

This is my finished Mermaid Shawl from sugar cane yarn I purchased on our recent trip on the Megabus to StevenBe in Minneapolis.  Oh my gosh - it is wonderful and has such a beautiful drape -

 plus it is finished!!!!!!

 The additional photos are an assortment of knitted scarves we have been working on.
  The multi-colored scarf in the lower right is a great little project from Amy at the Red Purl in Niles, Michigan.  It has little "worms" along the sides that twist and turn.  How fun is that??




 The good news is the squiggly scarves to the left in orange and gray that I recently purchased are probably made much like the little worm one - just bigger and felted.

I am going to work on that project and will see what happens!

Take a closer look!  How would you make these??

Always another idea and another project!

My husband and I are heading to Northern California for the week-end so stay tuned!!

Pie in a Jar

     Last summer I tried several of my pie recipes for "Pie in a Jar" and it was so fun!

     Now I have all of the jars just piling up so I decided it is time to get ready for strawberry, rhubarb and blueberry seasons!

     I found that regular pie crust often became soggy so I decided too try a new recipe form Hungry Girl called Gooey-Good Fuji Apple Pie.

     The crust includes 1 cup of Fiber One Original bran cereal so each jar does have 5.5g of fiber.
In many ways this pie is similar to a cobbler.

     A single pie recipe will fill 8 jars.  I did bake the crust in the jars and cook the apples before freezing the pies.  Last season I did everything uncooked.  I cheated a little on the recipe and added a crumb topping.  Just had to!!!!

     My husband and I tried them and they are very good - not too sweet.  So now we have a few pies in the freezer for a small treat instead of a whole pie for the two of us.

Give it a try!  You will be glad you did!!

Knitting Group Tries Something NEW!

 A BIG thanks to BECKY for having our group into her beautiful home this morning!

She instructed us on making a new style of wool felt flower.

Phyllis in plugging the hand sander here.  She is getting ready to sand the silk scarf in front of her that is covered with wisps of wool roving in a contrasting color.  

In the next photo, I am cutting my sanded silk scarf with wool roving - round and round into one long strip about 1"wide.

You can see our flowers in progress in the bottom photo on the right.

Diana and Linda are busy stitching their flowers round and round.

I will include a photo later of my finished flowers - they need a little work yet.

What a fun morning it was!  THANKS BECKY!!

Seeing Double Pink Elephants!

I was a bit surprised when the above fabrics arrived from Michael Miller Fabrics.

It is a spin off on the old saying - "seeing pink elephants" - which equates to having a wild time!

Take a closer look and that is just what these elephants are doing.

These party mats would be a great beginning shop class to teach simple rotary cutting, machine piecing, fussy cutting, reverse needleturn applique, stitch in the ditch machine quilting and French Fold binding.  Once a shop owner - always thinking of class projects!!

I did 4+ quilts with this fabric in the aqua and gray and now it is making a return engagement in pinks and grays.  So with some simple needleturn applique of a variety of circle sizes a new design is ready for market!  I prefer the other colorway but this finished nicely.  

 And, last but not least, Super Heroes!!  What fun the bright primary colors are in this toddler size quilt!  Michael Miller Fabrics used this as a theme for their quilt market booth in Salt Lake City last week.  Yes, indeed, they were all dress like Super Heroes.  And remember, Super Heroes are girls, too - as featured in the fabrics.  My favorite fabric in this grouping is the city night sky (outer border). 

Oh Amy Butler Corduroy!!

My sewing for Spring Wholesale Quilt Market is complete and delivered in Salt Lake City.  Yea!!

I had a chance to work with some different textures this time including this corduroy from Rowan.

These items shown are size 12 months.  Really cute - including a little beanie and some booties!!

Enjoy!

To Market To Market - on a WHITE Horse??

    
Yes, indeed, Tina Givens does come up with some wild ideas - including this photo shoot with a white horse!

     Tina is a designer for Free Spirit Fabrics and this is the complete quilt I made with her new linens from "Pernilla's Journey".

     I must confess that the linens were like sewing with butter and the finished quilt is delicious!

     This quilt will be a free downloadable available from www.freespirit fabric.com as well as www.tinagivens.com  Check it out soon!

     I also made this little girl's jacket from the linen - the outer shell - with a Designer Essential Cotton from Free Spirit as the lining.  The coat is from Tina's book - "Sew Tina".  I had fun fussy cutting the fabric design for the coat.


     Please note the inside pockets are also cut to feature the flower.

     What little girl wouldn't look adorable in this coat????
     Please note the birds are really shown off on the backing as well as the wild flowers.

     What fun I am having these days!

A Very Happy Mother's Day!

The Crochet Tree!!

Wow - take a look at this!  I am not sure how this was completed but the finished look is awesome!!

Thanks to my friend, Becky, for sharing.

I am very busy with sewing projects for spring quilt market next week in Salt lake City.  My last box of fabrics should arrive tomorrow so stay tuned for photos of all the goodies!

April Showers Bring May Basket Flowers!!

Yes, indeed, I do have a few flowers blooming in my flower beds!
It seems that Spring has been a long time coming.


I took a friend this great May Basket yesterday.  I can remember making May Baskets as a child - many happy memories.  I found this great basket at Marshall's for a very good price.  It is an Amy Butler Bag with
many pockets for many uses.  I got one for
myself as well and have some of my knitting projects in there.
Red tulips out back by my deck.  Hoping for some warmer weather so I can do some of my work outside.


Here is a sneak peek of one of my recent quilt projects for Free Spirit Fabrics.  The quilt is made from linen designed by Tina Givens - her new line of fabrics for quilt market - Pernilla's Journey.
Watch for a free downloadable pattern from Tina and photos of this quilt on a white horse at her website
www.tinagivens.com  I also made the most adorable jacket with the linen for a little girl.  It is from her book "Sew Tina!"  Stay tuned for that one.

Oh dear - we seem to have a lot of these yellow flowers in our yard this spring, too!  
Not a good thing!


Today is my daughter Natalie's 24th birthday.  
We always made May Baskets for her classmates since her special day is so close to May Day.  We even baked chocolate cupcakes in small clay pots one year and poked a fresh flower in them!! 


Quilt Market is May 13-15 in Salt Lake City.  I have very busy fingers these days to finish several projects.  You are going to love them!!