[birthday fun]

What a fantabulous birthday day for me! A huge thank you to my family and friends and blogfriends, too! I just felt all the love and kindness and attention that a girl could want for her birthday day!

Before the day had really even started, breakfast arrived in my dear husband's hands! Well done, sir!

Even when I was only half beautificated for the day, my dear friend arrived with the above lovely Sunkissed fabric for a quilt we had been oggling online this week! Ooooh, super excited!!!!!!

And then, after dropping kids to school and to Grandma's house, another dear friend took me to Vancouver for the day to The Cloth Shop! Seriously, every cool fabric I've seen on the quilting blogs, more quilting books than I knew existed, and the nicest shop owner ever! Wow, it was a lot of eye candy... so much that I had to go back to the beginning (the front door) three separate times to get my mind to focus and stop straying to new and prettier things and just actually take any of it in! Such fun!


And check what she gave me?!?!?! I had been eyeing this book for weeks and had, just the night before my birthday, added it to my Amazon wishlist! LOVE IT!!!! And then she even spoiled me further with this amazing roll of eight FQs of beautiful, lovely, oh-so-pretty fabrics to play with while working my way through the patterns in the book!!!



And so today... I am playing quilting! Hooray for Saturdays at home!

[birthday girl me]

Waking up to kisses and good wishes is such a nice way to start the day. I am blessed to be loved by a good man. I am blessed to be surrounded by, wanted by, needed by, loved by four amazing kids. I am blessed to have parents close by, a great Grandma still praying over me and freely hugging on me, sisters and brothers-in-law and nieces and nephews to love and be loved by, and a circle of friends who just keep choosing to love me years after we met. Can a birthday girl ask for anything more? Today I will make my wish for a thankful heart and to love with abandon and for my actions to match the love in my heart. And for us all to have a blessed day!

[The Lovely Honey Bun Circle Quilt]

Has anyone made this quilt? I am soooooo planning on this one for sure! Love it!
I wish the Accuquilt Go had a 10" die that was one solid circle... how lovely would that be!!!

[i won: clover & violet]

*I WON * I WON * I WON *

Guess how super excited I was to see that I WON a wonderful prize pack at Clover & Violet this week!!!! These girls have a great blog that combines life and motherhood and sewing and quilting and they always have such cheery projects to inspire!

Such a treat to win a pattern and fabric and encouragement to 'try something new'!!! Go.... see the super generous prize that I WON!!! I seriously was squealing and happy dancing all over the place, this totally made my day!!! Thanks Clara and Jennie!!!

[quilted cover]

In celebration of the wonderful Valentine's Gift (and birthday and anniversary and Christmas...) my dear husband gave me this year, I couldn't resist but sew up a little cover! Plus, I was paranoid something would happen to it between Valentine's Day and my soon-coming birthday at which I will be gifted the cover for it! This is my first structured piece (thing with a purpose and a specific shape requirement) that I have made. Definitely a learning experience as I made my way through cheater binding (I made my binding strip and then folded the two outsides into the middle to make a finished edge on both sides so I only had to sew it once... is that okay?) and figuring out dimensions and such based loosely on a tutorial I found online. Love the fabric, love the finished product. Considering ripping a few binding seams and doing them over so they aren't so wonky... learned a lot on this project!!!

Definitely need to by those little binding hairclip thingies before I attempt another binding project! I also had trouble with the ribbon corners, probably because I really struggle with reading instructions and understanding them without a photo step-by-step (and even with!). I just kept pinning and trying, and picking and ripping seams, and pinning and trying again. I'm fairly happy with how it turned out, though when holding the case in your hand to read there isn't enough support (like a piece of acrylic behind it) to keep the reader in the ribbon corners.

My favourite feature is the rolled side... it really works to roll it up and raise the reader to a comfortable angle! The tutorial said to use acrylic rods but the commenters said they were going to try without...and since I haven't got acrylic rods, nor the patience to go find and buy them, I went with sewing seams. It works! Magic!

My husband just kept saying "you deserve it" (which I don't, I generally don't believe in "deserve") as I kept saying "I can't believe it!"... eventually I clued in a little and asked "so, did you buy this for me before or after I went away for 4 days (and left you home with the 4 kids)?"... his reply, with a chuckle, "I'll never tell!" :-) I know he appreciates me, he tells me daily, and he did spend a year home for paternity leave so really did live the housewife life and struggled with it, but wow did this gift make me feel honoured!!!

Here's the link to the tutorial I followed: quilted rollable case

Disclaimer: Wow, it's really wonky, I needed to iron it and shape it better before taking pics! Ah well, it's serving it's purpose and is quite pretty just as it is! lol

[it's not late yet!]

Do you remember the F8s that I turned into lovely big chevrons with my magic 'log cabin ruler'? I've now got the four blocks sewn together and have created my backing piece. I've got the whole thing sandwiched and pinned (that was a feat, my first sandwich-making ever and I kept not pinning all three layers) and today, I shall attempt my first ever "quilting"! Wish me luck?!?! Thanks!

[disney magic]

No sewing for me the past week... I was busy partying it up at Disneyland for my Mom's birthday! Such a treat for my two sisters and I to sneak away with Mom, just us girls!! See me with Space Mountain in the background? See me getting ready to bite the ear off of my Mickey ice cream sandwhich? That's a Disney tradition and if ever you go... take a bite for me! =)

Funny how you see in fabric once you are a quilter, eh? The bathroom tiles... hexies. I kid you not!!! And yes, like a good blogger, I took pics in the loo! Totally thought of my friend Jane and had a little chuckle around the bathrooms in Disneyland! =)

Looks like a Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt, doesn't it?! I like how they did green around yellow flowers and white around green flowers with white paths throughout. Inspiration really is anywhere and everywhere!