Claiming my blog

I'm finally getting around to doing this.

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America The Beautiful!

I believe I've been feeling very patriotic lately! Thus, I have dubbed my latest finish...

AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL

O beautiful for spacious skies

For amber waves of grain.

For purple mountain majesties,

Above the fruited plain.

America, America

God shed His Grace on Thee, 

And crown thy good with brotherhood

From sea to shining sea.

God's richest blessings to each and every one!

Flag Day and the Winners!!!

I thought it would be appropriate to announce the winners of my Patriotic Giveaway on Flag Day!!! Thanks to each and everyone of  you for participating and leaving such encouraging comments!

So I corralled the resident cowboy and his trusty black hat!!

And he drew the winners...

Congratulations!! I'll be contacting you to get your mailing information.

I first saw a quilt that Dawn was making from the book "Promenade in a Dutch Garden". She has made hers from vintage Dutch fabrics and it is just lovely! Well, I didn't have Dutch Fabrics, but I did have a charm pack of French General Panier De Fluer, and some coordinating yardage. I down sized the blocks and voila here is my version!! I opted to not use a border, as I didn't have anything in my stash that I liked. I do have some blue that I'm going to use for binding that should frame it nicely. But...how would you quilt it? I don't want to take away from the fabric or the piecing. I'm thinking about just diagonal in the ditch, but...really would like some feedback!

REMEMBER

BLESSINGS

Patriotic Giveaway!

Okay, the girls chose their quilts and I took out a couple for gifts, but I have three left over! So, I felt like it was time to share with all my wonderful blogger friends! You have all inspired me to "quilt outside my little box"!!! What wonderful projects ya'll share!!

So, if you would like a chance to win one of these little quilts, just leave a comment on this post. You don't have to be a follower and I will ship overseas, so everyone is welcome! I will draw for the winners (3) sometime this week (depends upon when I get around to it between my chores and stitching!!)

Be Joyful!

Patriotic Jamboree!

For the past several days, I've worded a post in my head a bunch of times - wondered if I should split into more than one post or just say everything at one time. So...one time it is!

I finished up the two quilts that a customer asked me to make for graduation gifts for two boys. So very simple and functional, but she loved them! (YEAH!!)

Glad to have that little project finished and with a satisfied customer!

Mandie (DD#2) asked me to quilt a lap quilt for her that she was giving as a gift (sorry no photo, but it was a cute scrappy blue/yellow/white chevron quilt). I wanted to try a new all over design, and felt like I needed to practice, so I made up a couple of practice sandwiches and - looked pretty good, but wasn't quite ready to put it on the gift quilt yet, so I got out the patriotic small quilt tops that I made last year and practiced some more!

I thought they turned out pretty good, so got two more and quilted them in "strings of stars".

I thought they turned out even cuter! I was binding them, when Mandie stopped by and she said, "Oh, Mom these are so cute - I want this one!!" Well I can't refuse my daughters, so I thought, okay, I've got quite a bit of some fabric I used for backing on two of the star quilts, I'll make some for the girls.

Here's the backing:

and I dug through my stash and found some red and white scraps and FQs to make a couple of small quilts...well six quilts later I said enough!

But I had SOOOO much fun making these and practicing different FMQ designs and ideas! I did cross hatching, pumpkin seeds, loops, stars and hooked feathers!! I must say I'm HOOKED on hooked feathers!!

They were a lot of fun and I think I'm even getting pretty good at them!

I also make three little flag quilts, too! They measure about 9" X 13" and Mandie wanted one of those too!!

So now the girls have several to choose from and I needed a couple of gifts, so I think I'm set for a bit.

While I was digging through my box of small quilt tops, I found one that I had forgotten about. It was a SAL with Joanne. Her SAL was fun and I loved it, but I wasn't crazy about my fabric choices, but I had it, so I thought I would machine quilt it also (and practice some more feathers - Joanne had used feathers on hers and I liked it so....)

I LIKED it! It turned out better than I thought (if you look close, you will see lots of mistakes - but I did want to so my progress!)

So in closing to quote a character in Marie Bostwick's latest book "Between Heaven and Texas":

"You know what I call a machine quilted, quilt? DONE!!!!"

"Frugal Frannie's" tip of the day!

(image from google images)

First of all, I must add my disclaimer: 

"No my name isn't Frannie, and by no means am I starting an advice column, and no slight is intended to anyone named Frannie or to anyone who has an advice column!" 

But I do consider myself very "frugal" - not a hoarder, just keep things that I might use later! (by the way, I DO throw away fabric that is less than 1 1/2" square!)

But I was just "pleased as punch with myself" and wanted to share and give ya'll a laugh!!

Well, I have been stitching away on some small quilts and what's a girl to do with the little strips of batting left over? Well, Frugal Frannie just couldn't throw them away so she thought and thought and thought some more - put the strips in a pile and thought some more...

Then Frugal Frannie had an idea!!! Make stuffing!!!!

So, she lined up the strips into handable (not a word I know - but hey this is Frannie talking! and Frannie likes order!) piles:

Then with the handy dandy rotary cutter (love the person that invented this - why didn't I think of it!! LOL) and large ruler, cut the piles of strips into smaller strips (about 1/4" wide):

Then turned the handy dandy cutting mat (love it, too!) and using the rotary cutter, cut the narrow strips into about 1/4" squares.

Then with the edge of the ruler scooped them into a nice pile,

and put them in a box!

Took less than 5 minutes total to do this!! And boy do I feel good about my tip!!! (LOL)!!!

This really is just to show ya'll that I have been stitching!!! The results to come soon!!

A little bit of quilty stuff and a whole lot of other stuff!

Hello dear blogger friends!! I can say I've missed ya'll. I've been pretty much hit and miss on blogger/computer time. The saying goes that "Time flies when you're having fun"!! Well, I have been having a lot of fun - but a lot of other stuff too!! (most of it fun, too!!) This morning, I've got the bottle kids fed, the cow milked, breakfast for Mike and him sent off on a clearing job, made my "walk-about" checking kids and nannies (I'm on the down hill side of kidding out - only 5 nannies left to go!! Yeah!!), so I got myself a cup of coffee, took a couple more photos and now I'm checking in with ya'll!!

Don't know really where to start, so I'll start with the little bit of quilty stuff. Raewyn came for a visit!!! She spent a few days with us, and she may never come again - she didn't have much of a vacation at my house! She trooped along with me doing my chores! But I can say we talked up a storm and shared our farm/ranch lives as well as some quilting stuff!! What a grand time I had!!

She brought me a bunch of super cool goodies from New Zealand!! A super neat table runner with kiwis!!! And in some of my favorite colors!!! The piecing and quilting are just exquisite!! I will treasure it always! Plus, some Manuka soap, a deck of cards with New Zealand wild life photos (as good as a photo album!), some Old Fashioned Creamy Fudge made locally there in Northland, a note pad with birds (she knows I love birds!), a thimble with kiwi birds highlighted with paua shells (I think) and some buttons made of paua! What a haul!!

We did share a few quilting adventures: I showed her ALL my quilts and projects (I'm sure she thinks I'm nuts!! - like I'll ever finish them!! LOL) Many of you know that I don't favor Paper Piecing (okay, I'll admit it - don't know how to do it and didn't want to learn!) But our guild's BOM for May was a simple foundation paper pieced block! So I hog-tied Raewyn, drug her to my sewing machine and she gallantly instructed me on the art! Voila---my first successful foundation paper pieced block!!! Thanks, Raewyn, I couldn't have done it with out you!!

We also attended a book signing of Marie Bostwick's latest novel "Between Heaven and Texas"! My first ever, and what a great 'send-off' memory with Raewyn!! She has the photo of us together with Marie - so bug her to post it!! By the way, the book was awesome! One of my favorite all time reads!!

Now, to the other stuff! Spring is always busy for me, and this one has seemed even more, but it has been a good one! The day before Raewyn arrived, we received 4 1/2 inches of rain! It feel in about 2-3 hours, so Mike said we had a young flood! I called it a "tank filler". We call our man-made ponds "dirt tanks" and it filled up and ran around on both sides of the dam!! First time is has been full in about 10 or 11 years! Two years ago, it was completely dry, so we are so very thankful for the rain. The down side of that much rain at one time is we lost four baby kids to drowning. (boo hoo)

We had our first kids born on April 16, and there has been a birth every day since then except on one day. For the most part, it has gone very well. We have lost a few kids, and two nannies and we have 12 bottle babies, but the warm weather and rains (we've also had a little more than an inch more in the past week) has helped the pasture to green up, and all seem to be doing well. Go here to see photos of the goats! They are pretty cute!

Other ranch work has included shipping pasture cattle. It also went well, just busy for a few days, gathering, moving, loading etc. Go here if you want to see those events!

Sometimes, Mike needs me to help on one of his clearing jobs (he clears brush and trees from ranch land using a skid steer). So, on his current job, he found a huge cedar tree and the owner had told him that if Mike wanted any cedar trees for posts, he was welcome to cut them. Never a dull moment in our lives!

When Mike got it cut and it fell - the top branches covered up the skid steer! No harm done, though!!

This past weekend was a landmark event for our family! Our youngest daughter graduated with her Bachelor's degree from Tartleton State University! The whole family gathered in Stephenville for the event, and our son and dil were so gracious and hosted a BBQ in their back yard! It was a grand time! Beautiful weather, great food, friends and family - what more could anyone ask for!! So proud of you Mollie!

Well, I'll bid adieu for now! Remember - Be Joyful!!!!