Clean house or quilt?

Laundry, dusting, sweeping, mopping......hard choices here!  I wanna get this quilt pinned and quilted! 

Quackers anyone?

For the past week, I have noticed a pair of Mallard ducks in my front yard. Every morning when I go to work they are there.  Yesterday, I noticed the female duck walking around in my flower bed and the drake was standing on the steps to the porch.   It made me wonder if they were looking for a place to nest....sure enough, when I came home there were 3 eggs hidden under the iris.  This morning there is another one!  Wonder how many she will lay before she starts to sit on the nest?  The lake is a few blocks away, hope they figure out how to safely get their babies through the neighborhood to the lake. 

I have my courthouse steps sewn together...need to get some backing and get it quilted.  Not such a great picture, but I made the border out of 2 different fabrics.  I love to make blocks and I love the quilting process...but not the pinning so I can get it quilted....major road-block! 

I need to get busy cleaning house...yuck!  Then I think I will reward myself with a card-making class at Archivers this afternoon.  It is too wet to work in the flower beds again.  And more rain this weekend....oh well, it makes for lovely flower beds!

Hope everyone has a great weekend...we are going to my grand-daughters 6th birthday party tomorrow.

Happy Mother's Day!

Making a decision to have a child.....it is momentous.

It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. ~Elizabeth Stone

Hope everyone is enjoying your day!

A little retail therapy

Goodies on my sewing table!  I haven't had much time to sew, but last weekend we were on a little bit of a road-trip.  We stopped in Hamilton, Mo. at the Missouri Star Quilt Company.  It is a delightful little shop, and the family that runs it are very friendly and helpful.   If you have not checked out their website, you should.  They have an awesome collection of jelly rolls, honey buns, turn overs and charm packs.  I had to have the Caterwaulen fabric to make a little quilt for Max to hang out on.  Hope she will lay on it instead of whatever quilt I am working on at the time....maybe?   And I got the car fabric to make a little nap quilt for Jack....cute stuff!  Got it cut out today, but not much sewing done. 

I had both boys today, it was a stormy, rainy day, so we went out to eat pizza.  We always have a good time, and they do not want to go home.  I think if they were here for very long they would be ready to go home to Mommy and Daddy!

Jim came home with a very nice surprise...tickets to see Tim McGraw in concert, with Lady Antebellum.  What a great birthday present!  Can't wait until June 27th!  

Hope everyone has a nice weekend, we are hoping the storms are gone so that we can paint the deck tomorrow!

Checking in....

Hatching dragon eggs! and aren't these the cutest little dragons???

I managed to have a major allergy attack all of last week, or a virus...who knows which one?  Anyone that lives in the Midwest knows that we had a huge "pollen explosion" last week, one day it broke a record...it was 8000!  Anyway, no sewing for me...laid low and tried to breathe!  This week is much better!   I'm ready to work in the flower beds in spite of the allergies.  Hope everyone is enjoying Spring!

WIPS

Look what I dug out of the UFO box!  It has to have been at least 10 years ago that I made these blocks!  It's all set together now with a border, the backing is ready and I just need to pin it and quilt it.  I had a few blocks left over...so I made a pillow as well. 

It's Friday, and I am getting ready to go to a mini-quilt retreat tomorrow.  I joined the local quilt guild, Nimble Thimbles, and this will be a good opportunity to get to know the rest of the ladies.  I am going to work on "Summer Breeze" from Kim Brackett's book Scrap-Basket Surprises.  I cut up all of my pastel scraps into 2 1/2" strips and this will be my first project from this wonderful book.  It's nice to try to get my scraps more manageable, and I love Kim's ideas on sorting and storage.

Quilts for Kids

Downy is sponsoring a quilt project for kids.  I decided to make a quilt, and contacted them. 

 Look at the darling fabric they sent to me!  Won't some little girl just love these "Kool Kats"?  It's quilted, bound and washed....now off the the post office to get it in the mail.    

Check out their website: Quilts for Kids.   Your heart will feel good looking at the pictures of the children with their quilts.