My First Quilt

In a much earlier post I showed you the fabrics that I had picked out for a quilt class that I had signed up to take.  Well, here's the finished quilt!  I actually had everything done on this except for the hand stitched binding (and even that was half done) and I wanted to finish it up for Thanksgiving so one day I sat down to watch a Packer game and whip stitch the binding on.  I just love how it turned out!  The fabric is Fandango by Kate Spain (Moda) and I love these bright colors! 

This is actually the second quilt that I finished even though it was the first that I started.  The other quilt that I've completed start to finish is a baby quilt for my friends Kristin and Jon for the birth of their baby daughter.  I'll see if I can find a photo of that quilt too. 

This quilt is machine quilted and pieced and I've flipped a corner over so you can see the backing fabric.  I also think it looks fabulous in my guest room which is decorated in some of these same colors! 

Frances Eden

As promised, here is my finish of Frances Eden.  I finished her last summer and got her into her frame this fall.  Isn't she pretty?  I stitched her on 36 count Forest Haven linen by Zweigart.  For threads I did a conversion to Anchor.  This pattern is charted for either silks or DMC but I wanted the slightly softer colors of Anchor.  I love how this fabric is a pale blue/green and that with all the greens in the piece the ground fabric appears more blue.  I purchased the chart, linen and threads from Lynns of Madison, if you contact them please tell them I sent you! 

The frame is also from Lynn's shop and I love the way it looks!  Here's a close up view:

Isn't it neat?  I just love the way that a cool frame really sets off a piece!  I struggled with this piece a bit since it's a reproduction.  I wanted to keep the personalization true to the original stitcher but also wanted to include my information.  I ended up stitching my initials, JB and the year toward the bottom.  I'm currently stitching Elizabeth Sheffield and think that I'll add "Reproduction Stitched by... " at the bottom in over one lettering.  What do others of you do? 

Thankful

Wow, I'm so thankful for being able to spend a long weekend with my family, it was wonderful to spend the time together and to be here in Colorado for the holiday!  We had my parents, Grandfather and Aunt all here plus some of my neighbors joined us for dinner so all in all we had 8 adults, 1 baby, 4 dogs and 2 cats in my house for Thanksgiving dinner.  It was great! 

If you've stuck with me all this time, you know that I've been working to finish a bunch of projects by the end of this year.  And, since I was expecting company I was very busy for a week or so before the holiday weekend framing projects, putting the binding on my first quilt, cleaning and organizing the guest bedrooms.  It feels great to have all of that completed and I'm happy to say that I have a few more finished stitched projects hanging on my walls now!  Photos soon! 

The card pictured here is one that I designed for a card swap earlier this fall.  It uses three stamp sets.  The words are from Thank You Kindly (111700) which is one of my favorite Thank you sets.  The frame around the sentiment is Elizabeth (117120) and the Acorn is from Gently Falling (123802) from the Holiday Mini.  I've also used Spice Cake DSP (124003), the Lace Ribbon Border Punch (122362), Crumb Cake seam binding (122332) and the Elegant Lines Embossing Folder (119277). 

The Holiday Mini Catalog is Here!

The Holiday Mini Catalog is here and it's packed with lots and lots of cool products for your holiday crafting and shopping needs!  From the new stocking punch and die to new fabrics, ribbons and of course, stamps it has everything you need for a fun fall lineup!   If you haven't received your copy yet just email me and I'll send you one! 

Stampin' Up! Convention 2011

I'm home from this year's Stampin' Up! Convention, here I am with two of my group, downline Trina in the middle and one of my uplines, Glenda on the left.  The opening night of convention we had a garden party so everyone in our group (there were 28 of us) made coordinating hats and wore them, we got a lot of compliments!  It was great to be back in Salt Lake sharing stamping with friends and getting inspired to create great things! 

This year at convention they did something different and gave each convention attendee a three ring binder with the catalog in it, it was great!  And, in true Stampin' Up! style it was a beautiful binder with coordinating tabs!  You can see photos of this cute binder below.  The first photo is of the binder cover when it's closed and then the photo below that is of the inside of the binder with the catalog inside! 

In the second photo there is a smaller notebook sitting on the binder flap, this is one of the notebooks that I made for my downline who attended convention this year.  For those who know me, I always make a notebook of some sort for my girls who come with me to convention and this year was only different because the journals that I usually use had been discontinued.  :(  So, I went with composition notebooks instead and covered them with Designer Series paper.  This year the DSP I used was Paisley Petals (122367) and then I accented it with a little Baja Breeze seam binding (122331)  and  a mini vintage tag (118763) that each person could personalize with the year, their intials, a stamp, button or whatever they wanted.  I think they turned out cute, I just wish that I had thought to take a photo of the other two designs before I gave them all away.  Oh well!  I made a bunch of them this year and it was so fun to give them away and see them get used! 

A Finish and Some New Beginnings

Now that you've met Sage you know what's been keeping me busy and away from my blog for the past few months. But, I have had a few other things happening too! I did finish my Frances Eden Sampler back in June. Just in time to take it back to Wisconsin with me to pick out a frame at Lynn's of Madison. They are so helpful there with framing and with my needlework supplies so of course I picked up some new stash! One of the things I kitted up while I was there was the new Birds of a Feather mystery sampler by With thy Needle, that's my new start pictured here. I am stitching it on 35 count Tin Roof. I don't have part three yet and the shop was out of the color Sage (which I found amusing) and that happens to be the color used in the border so I decided to start in the middle. Now that I've seen the full chart I'm excited for part 3 to arrive so I can do the rest of the tree parts but for now I have lots and lots of leaves to stitch. The called for linen is much lighter than what I chose so when I started the leaves I wasn't sure I liked the lack of contrast. However, now that I have a few of them done I like it more, reminds me of something antique. I am also going to start Elizabeth Sheffield sometime soon but I really like to stitch one thing at a time and thought the mystery sampler would go much faster!

One other thing I've been up to (besides stitching, stamping and dog stuff as if that's not enough) is that I decided to learn how to quilt. I went to my local quilt store, which is called The Quilt Store, back in December and they had a beginning quilting class going on. The next one offered in the evening wasn't until April but I decided to sign up and purchased my fabrics, pictured at left. This is the Fandango line by Moda and is really "me". I love this fabric and would pull it out to admire it from time to time. It was really fun to quilt with too! My class was great, we made an entire quilt from start to finish in the five week class. My only homework after the fact was to finish hand stitching the binding. But, do you think I've done that yet?? Nope. Oh well, it's on my to-do list and I hope to get it done soon, especially since I've made a few other quilts, more on those in a later post.

So you can see that I've been quite busy in the past few months and will show you some of my stamped goodies shortly too! Right now I'm getting ready for a visit from my Grandfather so I've been trying to catch up on some of the things on my to do list that have been lingering, like organizing the garage (which got done yesterday) and cleaning up my gear room (which is half done). In fact, I've set a goal to finish up all the half completed projects around the house by the end of the year. There aren't a lot of them, but they are all things that will take a bit of effort to complete and aren't as fun as doing new stuff which is why they're not done yet. But, things like finally finishing the framing on my Immigrant Sampler and reframing an antique sampler will give me great joy and things like organizing the gear room will bring great satisfaction. I think I've decided on a bookshelf for the gear room and our IKEA opens this week so I hope to make it down there sometime in the next month or so in order to really finish that project! Well enough rambling for today, stay cool!

Jen

Introducing Sage!

Wow, it's been awhile since I've been on here posting, but I'm back!  I've had a busy few months!  First and the "thing" that has kept me the busiest is that I adopted a dog back in March.  Her name is Sage and she's a 2 year old Aussie.  She's a sweetie and I'm having a great time giving her a better life than she had with her first owners.  We started by taking obedience training at the Longmont Humane society, this was a great way for her to learn some manners and me to learn how to teach them to her and was a great bonding experience!  In fact, we will be graduating from our Advanced Obedience class today!

 

Once we were well on our way in obedience we started to take Agility classes at the Zoom Room in Longmont which has been so much fun!  We've built on the obedience foundation and have so much fun zooming through all the obstacles!  Sage is such a high energy dog that it's great to have an outlet for the physical energy and to give her mind a job to do.  It's been a great fit!  We're about halfway through Agility 2 and will start the next in the series in a few weeks.  It's a lot of fun for both Sage and I!

When I was on vacation last winter I read a book called Dogged Pursuit by Robert Rodi, it was such a hilarious read!  It is about a man who rescues a Sheltie and trains it to do agility.  I grew up with a Sheltie so it was even funnier because I totally "got" what he was talking about when it came to the dog's neurotic behavior.  Not that an Aussie is that different...  Anyway, I had met Sage before my trip and then reading this book I knew that I had to give agility a try.  When I found out that my friend Marnie was opening the Zoom Room close by I knew that it was meant to be.  Check out the book if you have time, it's hilarious!!!

That's all for now, more soon... :)

Jen