Well, hello Spring

 

 

I've officially given up on the idea of a real winter here in the High Desert. We had a few days of overcast 30's and a few days of scattered rain, but no real storms or ice cold temps to speak of. Now, to some this might seen a little ridiculous to be complaining about a lack of winter, but for me, as a California native, I so look forward to a real winter and the escape from the blazing hot temps. Oh well, below are a few shots of the 'winter' days that I captured.

Above is a shot of a beautiful stack of Anna Maria Horner fabrics, so bright, so wonderful. I joined my first ever Instagram Swap, and the theme is Ms. Horner fabrics, yippee! So I have a secret partner that I am supposed to friendly stalk and find out her favorites and then in July send her a mini quilt, and in return someone will send me a mini. I am so excited! This is my kind of fun....blushing.

I have also been starting a lot of new project as of late. I purchased a gorgeous stack of Persimmon by Basic Grey from Moda Fabrics, and I am using an Abbey Lane pattern called Blue Jay Way. It is turning out so lovely, and BTW their patterns are so easy to use. I have also been cutting out more baby quilts to add to my shop, and will hopefully have those done soon. I also finished piecing the top of my log cabin quilt, wow, that took forever, but so worth it. The colors are so inviting, now I just need to figure out how I want to machine quilt that sucker, I might end up sending that one out for quilting.

Books. Lets talk about books. In February I read Me Before You by Jojo Moyes, and absolutely loved it. I highly recommend it. Without giving too much away it's about a quadriplegic and his caregiver and of course, love. Then I just finished The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion, and loved it. I could hear the voice of Sheldon Cooper (Big Bang Theory) reading the narrative in my head. It was quirky and lighthearted. I also recently read The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey, it felt long. I picked it up because it takes place in Alaska, and I am obsessed with Alaska. It is very beautifully written and reads like a fairy tale.

 

 

Starting off slowly....

Oh, this poor neglected blog of mine.....Life just sometimes gets away from you and you look back and realize that you (I mean me) haven't posted since October. Well, the holidays are over and cleaned up and now I have sprinkled a little Valentine's cheer around the house. I made that felt heart a few years ago, can't remember who the pattern is by at this moment, but it remains to be one of my favorites. It makes me smile. 

So does this kitty lying on this pretty quilt. 

 I just listed this new diamond baby quilt in my Etsy Shop. It's so soft and cuddly. I used lots of grays and blues with just a pop of red. It's backed in a light blue cotton feather print. 

January is always a good month for me. After the holidays are all put away and the house is clean, I want to make stuff...bad. I don't start back to my college classes until mid-February, so I have weeks to work on stuff. I started this log cabin quilt I week or so ago and I am loving the colors, it is pretty slow going though. I've also started a couple of stitchery projects. The 'Winter Berry' embroidery was super fast. It took me about two days, and now I just need to find the perfect little frame for it. I am also working on a cross stitch that I started out of Anna Maria Horner's book. I am loving every stitch of this one. I can hardly wait for the evenings to sit and stitch away while my family watches their favorite shows. 

Books. I got a lot of books for Christmas and boy does that make me happy. First of all I finished 'The Hundred Foot Journey' and absolutely loved it. Any book that talks about food and travel is a winner for me. The details are rich and the story was interesting. I also finished 'Olive Kitteridge' and liked it as well. It is made up of many small stories that mingle and intertwine with each other, all with the spunky wisdom of Olive lacing them together. Next for me was 'The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry.' I loved everything about this book. It is about a bookstore owner that has lost his wife and all the magical and sad things that happen as life unfolds. There is a constant mention of literature and books that I always love to find in a book. Good Read. 

Life is happening...

Wow, so it's been awhile since I blogged. I always forget just how crazy busy life gets around back to school time. Did I ever mention that I am in school as well? Well I am. I'm working on my Bachelor's in Art/Design. Anyway, can I just scream out how absolutely over the moon excited I am that it is fall! The weather is so much cooler here...around 80* which feels like 50* compared to the blazing summer. I got out all my fall decor and finished a fall chevron quilt that I started last year. I love it. It's bright and I incorporated some blue, which I think works perfectly.

I've been doing a little embroidery at night. It's the sweetest Christmas Tree pattern, but the pattern is in French, so I am having to do a little improvising on color and technique. Also, this past weekend I cut out a quilt that I can't wait to start sewing, I'll share more about this later. And I started a couple of books recently. The one that I will try to finish first is The Hundred-Foot Journey by Richard Morais. So far I am completely loving it. I feels like I've stepped into another world, the details are enchanting. I'm also excited to continue reading Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Stout. It's a bunch of small interwoven stories, very endearing so far. Here's to savoring every moment of this short-lived magical season!

A little bit of everything

So it's been a few weeks since I posted, there is just so much going on. I know every one of us can say that about our lives. So full. Too full sometimes. Summer is wrapping up, I can kind of even feel it in the air a little. We have had a rather mild summer here in the desert, as far as desert summers are concerned, a warm average of the 90's. I'll take it, at least I can sleep at night this year. So anyway, I have been dying to talk about the book The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh. It's fairly new, it was written in 2011. I had seen it for sale at Target, and loved the cover but never bought it. Then a couple of weeks ago I was at my local library browsing the used 'for sale' books and there it was for $1.00 (yay!). I love when I find a really good book that I didn't pay very much for. So I dug right in and it captivated me from the first page. I read through it pretty fast, which is unusual for me. It's about a girl named Victoria that is brought up in the Foster Care system, and gets pasted from home to home. She is hard and abrasive and very dysfunctional, yet I found myself routing for her and feeling somehow connected to her character. Throughout the book there is a lot of talk about flowers and their meanings, hence the name. One of her Foster moms teaches her to love and cherish plants and their language. The characters are quirky and imperfect, yet endearing. I loved this book. I recommend this book. 

Let's see, I made the most delicious chocolate zucchini bread  from a recipe I got off of Pinterest the other day. Wow, so moist, so chocolaty. You should definitely try it. I also made my mom some spider/strip pieced pillows for her birthday. They were super easy to make and turned out adorable...she loved them by the way. My garden is still growing strong, I've been picking tomatoes, squash and peppers. I'm still waiting for my first crop of eggplant, that should be any day now. We had a couple of days of wonderful rain here, actually flash flooding all around us, but it was so nice. The air was cool, I opened up all the windows and inhaled the wonderful smell of  rain in the desert. My plants really loved the soak. Last little thing is that I finished that quilt top in those soothing colors of aqua, cream and red, can't wait to machine quilt it and use it.

Oh ya, this happened....

We recently got back from our annual camping trip to the central coast of California, Pismo Beach to be exact. This is one of my favorite places on the entire earth and basically I didn't want to leave...ever. My family including my sister and her husband, my nephew, my parents and then the four of us all go beach camping together every year. We so look forward to it and count the days until we can go back.

My brother-in-law is our resident outdoor camping chef, and he cooked up something amazing for us every night. This particular night it was chicken legs with chilies, onion and cilantro grilled over an open fire. Yum!

This night he had smoked a pork shoulder all day long and we had BBQ pork sandwiches on a pretzel roll with coleslaw and baked beans. I mean it people we do not mess around when it comes to camp dining!

We drove up the coast to Avila Beach one of the days. This little beach town is so typical California beach town. It is full of surfers, surf shops, bicycles, and colorful beach houses. It was really overcast and I think we even got sprinkled on a little bit.

 These are my two beautiful daughters, Courtney and Lindsey. I love this photo!

One of my favorite parts of this annual trip is getting to stop into all the little local quilt shops up and down the coast. One of my favorites is right in Pismo Beach called 'Quiltin Cousins.' I always find something special there. Look at all the fabulous fabrics that I found. Some are older but new to me. I had my eye out for typography/text fabrics for a quilt that I want to make and I found quite a few. The best thing about buying fabric while traveling is that you can make something with it and always remember your trip by it.