Gingham Baby Quilts

For some reason, I've fallen hard for the simple gingham baby quilts I've seen lately and in the middle of binding one quilt and piecing another, I decided I needed to make one NOW.

I wanted to use this fabric:

and tried several other fabrics that I thought would coordinate. I tried every blue under the sun, but nothing really worked, so I settled on this:

Then, in the middle of another project, I remembered another fabric that has been lingering in my stash for many years so I pulled and cut

                               

and sewed and asked Jackie to work her magic on two of them

YES. And it just so happens I need a couple of sweet little quilts for a precious set of twins that have recently arrived and if I'm making 2, I might as well make 3 because I can't get enough gingham right now.                   

Road Trip

Last Tuesday I spent some time in the air. I spent the week with my Mom to celebrate her 80th birthday. I'm not a huge fan of flying, but I came prepared.

It's been a long time since I made any progress on my EPP stars and this was the perfect portable project. My mom didn't want anyone to make a fuss about her birthday even though turning 80 is fuss -worthy. She said she was planning to run away on her birthday so I planned a little road trip for us.

Anyone recognize where we visited?

We enjoyed browsing through Magnolia Market:

And then spent a couple of hours poking through the venders at Spice Market:

I didn't need a thing, but I couldn't resist this little list pad and kitchen towel:

We ate at the hotel and the food was absolutely amazing - I ordered the Porcini Chicken Roulade ( chicken breast stuffed with creamed spinach and mushrooms topped with white wine cream sauce. Served with Parmesan risotto and vegetables. )

The next morning we ate brunch

                                     

at Magnolia Table:

The food was wonderful, but the thing that stood out the most was how very kind the staff was. I don't ever recall conducting business with a company where the employees were so attentive and personable. After we enjoyed a cupcake and cookie from the bakery, we loaded up and headed to Tyler, Texas to visit the rose garden that is supposed to look like this

Alas, this is what greeted us.

The recent rains had decimated the blooms, but we enjoyed the few that survived:

And simply enjoyed our time together:

That night we ate at a beautiful restaurant called The Grove. I feel like all we did was eat on this trip! We ended the evening by celebrating the birthday girl with a creme brule sampler

And she didn't quite outrun her birthday as we returned home on Saturday to find that friends and neighbors decorated anyway

I'm an infrequent traveler and I was surprised by the number of folks in the airport at 4:30 in the morning:

The neighbors are early risers and they took me to the airport on Sunday morning. I didn't want mom to have to get up that early, but moms will be moms and she was up anyway, packing me a sandwich. 😄

I'm so glad we were able to spend the week together and I'm very grateful that my mom is still active and in good health and willing to let her daughter drag her around on occasion.

A Visit With Our Boy

When Blueberry Muffins are cooling in my kitchen, it means one thing:

Our boy was home for a visit and that made this Mama's heart happy! Seems we always put the kids to work when they come home:

He and DH cut down an old storage tank,

And stacked it to the side until we were able to bring a trailer out and load the metal:

But after work, there is always time for fun

And around here, this is what we do for fun

I treasure times like this

I'm so proud of this kid and the path he has chosen to walk and I love that he and his Dad were able to spend this time together. It was the best Mother's Day present!

A New Project

Last week I started a new project. I didn't NEED a new project. I have a long list of quilts I want to make and more project boxes than I am willing to admit to. And this project is not even on the list. Although technically, using my collection of jelly rolls is a goal. Why is it so hard to unroll a jelly roll? For me, I think it's just a case of finding the right project because when I saw this quilt

I grabbed this jelly roll

I searched for a pattern, but came up empty handed so I just did some figuring, cut those strips up, added a background fabric from my stash,

 and started making blocks

I didn't know how many I was going to make - I just figured I'd sew until I ran out of fabric so we'll see where that takes me, but for now, the stitching continues