Happy Independence Day!

I hope that you all have a wonderful and safe 4th of July!


Long may our beautiful flag wave and long may the Divinely inspired Constitution stand!
How grateful I am for those who have fought, and are presently fighting, to keep this wonderful country free. My heart and prayers go out to them and their families. May God Bless you all! My prayer is that we may all remember what this country was founded on and the price that has been paid for our freedoms! :~)

Hugs&Stitches, Jul♥a

Look Who's Mowing the Lawn

My baby is growing up. *sigh*


Randy is teaching him to mow the lawn this year. Nice to have his help and it is certainly good that he learns the value and importance of work, but it sure is bittersweet to see this little boy growing up so fast. If only I could hold time still for just a little while. *big sigh*

Here is one of the birthday quilts that I finished in May.

This is for my older brother. He has severe heart problems. He is in and out of the hospital a lot. I thought he could take this with him on his future visits to the hospital room. He is on the heart transplant list. So unfortunately, he makes these trips frequently.

I used Heather Mulder Peterson's pattern, "Keyholes" from the book "On a Roll Again". This was fun and easy to make. I made this one a bit bigger than the pattern, so it took about 1 1/2 jelly rolls, plus some yardage for the borders and binding. I backed it with some striped flannel from my stash, to make it cuddly and cozy. With all of his medications for thinning his blood, he gets cold real easy.

Hope that you are all enjoying your summer! Not much sewing going on here. Can't seem to get much time to spend in the sewing room. But, I am enjoying time with my family and just being lazy, sitting in the shade doing nothing at all! :~)

Hugs&Stitches, Jul♥a

Happy Father's Day!

I hope that you all have a wonderful Father's Day!

I, for one, have been blessed with the best Daddy in the whole wide world!!! He is my friend, mentor, handyman and so much more. I am greatly blessed to have him and my Mom live right next door to me. He just celebrated his 80th birthday earlier this month, so to mark this special occasion and let him know how much he means to me, I made him this quilt.


One of his favorite pastimes is golfing, after an extensive search, I found this fabric at the quilt show in Utah last month. Now he can be wrapped up in hugs and loves from me every time he uses it! I love you, Pappy!!! XOXOXOXOXOXO

Hugs&Stitches, Jul♥a

Busy Springtime!

Yard-work and quilting deadlines have kept me pretty busy this past month. Thought I would make a quick post to show you some of what I have been up to.

Flower gardens are looking delightful,

veggie plants are starting to pop their precious little heads out of the ground,

front porch is set up to enjoy some time relaxing,

(I do need to add re-finishing the deck to my list of summer jobs! *sigh*) Oh well, I am still going to plant my behind in one of those chairs and do some serious relaxing! :~) As soon as the weather warms up a bit more and the rain quits, that is. This has been an unseasonably wet and cool spring for us. Everything is sure pretty and green though!

I will share some pictures of the quilts that I finished for birthdays next time. Next on the quilting front is a wedding quilt for my nephew, he is getting married on July 10th.

Blogs posts will be sparse this summer, don't give up on me though. I will still pop in occasionally just to keep in touch with all of you. :~)

Hugs&Stitches, Jul♥a

Home Machine Quilt Show in Salt Lake City, UT

I had a blast at the HMQS in Salt Lake City, UT! This is my first year to go and it was so much fun that I will be going again next year. I didn't take any classes but, three of my friends did, after hearing about all that they learned I will definitely be taking some classes next year. I think that I would actually save money by taking the classes instead of hitting the vendors booths for two straight days! Eep!! While the others were in classes that left two of us hanging out together. Let's just say the two of us should not be left alone together! LOL We both had smokin' wallets! As it was a machine quilting show, there were a lot of booths with machine quilting related items. I did buy some new pantos, some templates, rulers etc. Now just to have time to play with them and see what I can create. I am going to load a piece of practice fabric on SuzyQ and play one of these days.

I am still working on the three birthday quilts in every spare minute that I can find. I finished piecing the top of one of them last night. I also prepared the backing for it. I just have to do borders on another one and prepare the backing for it. Then on to SuzyQ they will go. :~) While at the quilt show, I did find the perfect fabric for my Dad's birthday quilt. He is a golfer and I was able to find some fun golf fabrics that are not juvenile. I just have to decide on a pattern now.

I took lots of pictures of the show. I will share them later. Right now I will leave you with a picture of the quilt that won best of show. This picture doesn't really do it justice. It was absolutely stunning! Be sure to click on the picture to enlarge it.

Can I just say WOW!!! I just kept going back to it to study and stare! There is just so much detail. It is a whole cloth quilt, quilted with metallic thread and little sparklys added here and there. It is a tribute to the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Amazing!!!!! This kind of a machine quilter I will never be! She paints pictures with thread, a true artist!

Hugs&Stitches, Jul♥a

Rainy Saturday

It is raining like crazy today. Look how pretty and green our grass is getting! I love the rain! Of course, living in a high plains desert we don't get tons of rain, so I enjoy these kinds of days.

I am babysitting today. Kristy is at work, so we are watching our two darling, little grandsons. Kyson loves to play with the pans and kettles. Before the day is over these will be spread all over the house. LOLI am trying to distract him with some of Ethan's toys, we'll see how long that lasts. :~)

Ethan is entertaining Kaden for me. They are downstairs playing some video games. Maybe we will read some books or play a game here in a little while. I am trying get my laundry done too. We were drowning is a sea of dirty clothes. :~)

I would love to be working on this quilt for my brother's birthday instead of doing laundry,

but there should be some time later this afternoon, after the little ones go home. I am using a couple of jelly rolls and some charm packs from two or three different Kansas Troubles lines. I love how they can all go together. This is a fun pattern to make! I love using the pre-cuts, like jelly rolls, charms, layer cakes, etc! I wouldn't want to use them all of the time, but I sure do enjoy using them once in awhile.

Uh oh, I hear a chair scooting across the dining room floor. That can only mean one thing, Kyson is getting ready to climb somewhere he shouldn't be! eep!!!

Hope that you are all having a wonderful weekend!

Hugs&Stitches, Jul♥a

SPRING!

I seen this design on Kim's blog last spring and I loved it! To my utter delight she published the pattern this spring. You can purchase it from her Etsy shop. Now this little cutie is hanging on my wall! I just had to throw in a yellow tulip! I used rick rack for the stems instead of piecing them. I did some free-motion quilting on it. I really struggled with how to quilt the tulips and after about 4 hours of stitching and unpicking, I threw my hands in the air and just did something simple. I am not all that proud of it. I have such a long, long, long, long way to go on my free-motion quilting. Except meandering and loops, I can do those. Anything else looks like a 2 year old did it! lol Pantos I can do with no trouble now, for the most part anyway. This free-motion stuff is going to take tons of practice, practice, practice! I don't mind practicing free motion stuff on my quilts, but I am a long way from ready to do it for others! I think that I need to throw some practice fabric on SuzyQ and just play!

It is raining here today, which is perfect timing, because Randy put our spring fertilizer on the lawn yesterday. The grass will be pretty and green in no time! We spent most of Saturday getting the yard cleaned up, finished trimming trees, etc. Now I have to spend some good quality time in the sewing room. I have three birthday quilts to make by the first of June!

Hugs&Stiches, Jul♥a
"Do one thing everyday that makes you happy!"