Happy Birthday, Mom.

I love my mom. She's generous and kind, an amazing listener and the best "Ama" my kids could have ever dreamed up. I love her so much and still wish every day that I could be more like her.

Last weekend was her birthday and I wanted to make her something special. She and my dad are both retired, so they have been doing a little bit more traveling around the country these past few years. With that in mind, I thought maybe she could use something special for her travels, so I made a little zippy pouch for her to tuck her small things in when she's on the road.

The exterior is made almost exclusively from Vintage Modern charm squares that I cut into fours and mixed around until they seemed happy together (the only non-Vintage Modern prints are the scrappy zipper tabs). The interior is left over from the backing used on my postage stamp quilt (The Simple Life by Tasha Noel for Riley Blake Designs).

Mom opened up her gift on her birthday last weekend. Her squeezy hug told me just how much she loved it.

Blogger's Quilt Festival

If you're here visiting from Amy's Creative Side, welcome!

I look forward to the Blogger's Quilt Festival every spring and fall, and I'm super excited for this spring's festival because I can finally enter my postage stamp quilt. Woot!

I'm absolutely in love with this quilt.

It all started with an enormous mailer full of beautiful scraps, sent to me from the wonderful Jolene of Blue Elephant Stitches:

I later added a bunch of my own scraps and started cutting lots of teeny, tiny squares (1.5 inches to be exact!). After all that cutting, I started assembling the blocks by color. Eventually, hundreds of blocks later, it ballooned into this gorgeous stack (and the photo below doesn't even include the green blocks!):

And then – nearly a year and a half after that mailer full of scraps first arrived at my doorstep – I finally put it all together and made my wonderful, snuggly, all-time-favorite Love Quilt. I'm just so proud of how this quilt turned out. From the tiny postage stamp squares to the beautiful spiral quilting. I hope you enjoy it too!

Quilt stats:

• Blogger's Quilt Festival Category: Scrappy
• Size: Approx. 60 x 70"
• Fabrics: A gazillion different prints!
• Block notes: No two blocks are the same, each tiny 1.5" square was sewn together individually to make the blocks

Summer plans.

The weather has already grown hot in our little corner of California, and the kids are growing restless. Summer is almost here and we can taste it.

Miss C.'s Kindergarten class has been counting the days left until the most important day of all: the last day of school. Each day, she eagerly reports on how many days are left: "Mommy, there are only 19 days left of school. Soon there will only be three... then two... then one!"

She's not the only one around here who can't wait for summer vacation to start. This mama is eagerly anticipating having her girl home for three whole months. I miss having her around all day long, and often wish we had more time together. By the time she's finished with school and homework, it's time for dinner... then bath, stories and bed. There simply isn't much time for fun during the week.

Last Saturday morning, Miss C. and I laid around in her bed and daydreamed about what we are going to do together this summer. We didn't want to forget anything, so we made a list. I loved listening to her ideas and watching her write everything down.

Would you like to know what she has planned?

Miss C.'s Summer List:

• Make popsicles
• Go to the library
• Play dates
• Bounce place (this in one of those indoor play places that are perfect for hot summer afternoons)
• Play in the sprinklers
• Go to the park
• Play games
• Sew a pillowcase (our first sewing project together!)
• Art projects
• Make cookies
• Learn to roller skate 
• Blow bubbles
• Make cinnamon toast
• Read chapter books

This is going to be a wonderful summer. I think what I like most about her list is that it's filled with simple things. We're not going to over-schedule ourselves or rush around "doing things". We're just going to have fun.

Have you started dreaming up summertime plans too? I'd love to hear them!

A Lovely Year of Finishes: May Goal

Last night I started the quilting on my String Fever quilt and I'm already so excited by how it's coming along. I decided to quilt it using the geometric quilting that I chose for my brother's wedding quilt, only this time I'm going to leave the quilting a bit looser. I think the looser quilting will keep the quilt extra soft for the baby, but still allow me to stitch over all of those random strings used to construct the top.

This is going to be my last new quilt project before I get started on Master W.'s bed quilt (finally!), so my May goal is to finish the quilt by the end of the month. Finishing it this month has an added bonus of ensuring that my friend receives it well before her baby arrives!

April finishes.

Just a quick post to check in with my finishes for A Lovely Year of Finishes over at Fiber of All Sorts and Sew BitterSweet Designs. 

This month, I had two main goals: finish the binding on my postage stamp quilt and make a special gift for a friend's daughter. I managed to finish both and start a new quilt as well! 

Let's hope May brings lots of finishes too!

Scrap Attack Quilt Along: String Fever

String Fever seems to be going around, and I've got it bad!

Rachel at Stitched in Color is hosting another Scrap Attack Quilt Along, and this time the focus is on all those long strings hanging out in our scrap bins. Last year's quilt along was so much fun that I knew I'd have to join in again.

This time I'm making a baby quilt for a dear friend who is expecting a baby. My quilt design is completely inspired by Jolene's Scrappy Strip Quilt, which I've been wanting to make ever since she wrote about it last September. My blocks are slightly smaller (due to an error I made when trimming the first block – oops!) and incorporate a good mix of tiny, skinny and fatter strings. (Oh, and check out my helper's adorable chubby little arm!)

The color scheme is bright and cheerful, just like my friend. I pulled virtually ever scrap of red, blue, aqua, purple, yellow, orange and green that I had in my cupboard, knowing that my friend will love the bold use of color in this quilt.

There are no intentional block designs, just pretty scraps happily pieced together until they're the right size. Yes, yes, I know I just got through saying I can't stand improv piecing. But you know, I think I've realized that I'm okay with it on a quilt like this. Everything is still nice and straight-lined. Maybe it was all those solids and wonky piecing that I couldn't stand?

So far I have 12 of 16 blocks stitched up and ready to go. Finishing it is going to be fun!

Love.

I never thought about naming my quilts, but this one kind of named itself: Love.

Just one word, but so heavy with meaning. This quilt was truly a labor of love.

It all started with an over-stuffed mailer of scraps, generously sent to me by Jolene at Blue Elephant Stitches. In the next year, I sorted the scraps, cut them into tiny 1.5" squares, organized them by color, then patiently stitched them into small colorful blocks. Time passed, and all of those tiny blocks were stitched together into a top and finally quilted up in a beautiful spiral design. And now with the last hand stitches in place on the binding, it has found a home on my couch.

And I'm so in love with it. Any little flaws on the back have disappeared into the crinkles from the wash, and to me it's absolutely perfect.

Master W. turns it into Disneyland and drives his cars through quilty tunnels. We cuddle up underneath it at nap time each day. Little Miss C. looks so sweet as rolls onto her tummy and back again over the colorful squares. And everyone enjoys snuggling up underneath it for movie time.

We pour so much love into our quilts as we stitch them together, but the real love comes from years of playtime, snuggling and happy memories. I think this quilt is off to a great start.