I was visiting the blog of Bejeweled in America Samoa and she mentioned that there was a great giveaway at Trends & Traditions by designer Heather Mulder Peterson of Anka's Treasures. I went to that site and found some really beautiful quilts and she was right...a great giveaway. I've entered, hope you do too.

Flowers for her garden:

Over the years I have made quilts for each new grandchild. This one was made for my granddaughter Kelsey about 6 years ago. I worked on it for a few weeks and did most of it while Ray and I were driving on a vacation. All the flowers were done by hand as individual hexagons, then formed into flowers, then hand sewn onto the white background. It turned out so cute. What I learned from this quilt is that when I make a quilt the is "too cute" it doesn't get used on the new baby. Denise has it hanging over Kelsey's bed where the outside purple border looks perfect with the lavender wall. Of course, I have made several fun quilts for Denise's family so having one hanging on the wall (and possibly becoming an heirloom) is quite an honor.

I am still working on my black, white and red quilt. All the blocks are done but I'm trying to decide if I should just sew them all together or use a thin red sashing between the blocks. I think the red sashing would really look great. Now to find more of the red fabric or something quite close.

My daughter Nicky and I loved all the sweet tutus that we saw in stores and on little girls. We figured we could make one quite easily. We got the netting, cut it into about 1 1/2 to 2 inche wide strips and started working around the elastic. The more we put on the scrunchier it became. After we put all the netting on it turned out pretty cute but even after we sprayed it with a detangler it still scrunched up tight. Later we found a great tutorial on line that said we should have cut the strips 4 inches wide and then they would hang straight and should have used wider elastic also. We will have to make another one to see if that works better. I added ribbons to the one I made and sent it to my granddaughter, Kelsey, in Illinois.

I just read my last post and realized that I wrote Paducah, Tennessee instead of Kentucky! We had gone to Tennessee to drop off my youngest daughter with my oldest daughter while we were at the quilt extravaganza. Please all you Kentuckians excuse my mistake.

Non Allergenic Cats:

When my daughter, Nicky, got married 3 1/2 years ago I knew her soon-to-be-husband, Patrick, was highly allergic to cats.....and Nicky had a cat all her growing up years and I was pretty sure she would want one some day again. So I found this wonderful Buggy Barn pattern and had to make it for him. I call it, "Non allergenic Cats". The whiskers are made out of ric rac. I really enjoyed making this quilt and I especially love the flower centers. So much fun to make and so much more fun to give to Patrick.

I mentioned in my last couple of posts that my friend Janine had some black and white fabrics that we were going to make quilts out of. I had some left over blacks and whites and made a mock up of a couple of blocks for her to choose from. I made a Log Cabin block to show her. We loved it and decided that was the pattern we wanted to use with her fabrics. However....and that is a big however!...the fabrics she had didn't have enough of a contrast between lights and darks to show off the pattern. After making 4 blocks I decided that I needed to find something better. I considered Rail Fence with the whites horizontal and the blacks vertical. No good. Then adding a thin red strip between each strip. Still no good. I finally made Square in a Square blocks and they look great. When I get the top made I'll post it along with the Log Cabin ones for you to judge. I think I'm going to like this one. (Boy do I need to get a camera so I can post immediately and not have to wait until one of my kids come home to do it for me)