Goodbye, Pre.

We have had a bit of a tragedy here at our home. Our cat, Pre, died yesterday. It was sudden and unexpected and we will really miss him. Apparently he went downstairs to take a nap under my son's bed and just died peacefully in his sleep. We have had him only 3 1/2 years. Actually, he is Vanessa's cat. She got him as a gift from a couple of friends when our last cat, Scooch, died. Vanessa is a runner and she named him after Steve Prefontaine a runner that was famous in the 70's. His nickname was Pre. Tragically, he died young as well.

Pre was a fun and goofy cat. Kind of spoiled but really loved. Here is a picture of him showing his quilting side.


Goodbye, Pre. We will miss you.

Steffani Knows All the Chords!

My daughter Vanessa has a good friend, Steffani. She was her friend through high school and they were roommates their first semester at Snow College. She is a real sweetheart and is like a member of the family. She just recently got married and of course it was an opportunity for me to make things!

The colors she has chosen for her house are mainly black, white and red. For her shower I made an apron and some potholders out of some really cute fabric Vanessa picked out. The apron is from a book called More Retro Aprons by Cindy Taylor Oates. The potholders are from a pattern called Handy Heart Potholders by Eva Holen of Classic Crafts. Here is Vanessa modeling the apron.

I don't know if you can see it but the apron has three rows of black ruffles along the bottom and one along the top. The ties criss cross in the back. I was surprised at how fast it went together.

The potholders are made out of the same fabric as the apron. This picture is the front of one and the back of the other. The back has two flaps that you put your hand into. They were surprisingly fast to make as well. Vanessa and Emily bought a bunch of things for her kitchen such as cupcake pans, a cookbook, spices, flour, sugar, etc. and we put them all in a big gift basket.

For her wedding Vanessa and I made a Turning Twenty quilt with black and white print fabrics for the blocks and a red, black and white print for the borders and back. It turned out really cute. This picture does not even begin to show how cute it was. We took it at the last minute before we ran to the reception and the lighting was not very good.

Three Sisters

I finally finished the Three Sisters wallhanging. I think I finished it back in January but I didn't want to post a picture until I had the things for the shelf finished.

If you remember this was one of the projects my sisters Gayle and Kaye and I started on our retreat in Canada. This was Kaye's project and it was really fun. I finished the top at the retreat and started the quilting when I got home. I used clear thread and started with free motion stitching around each of the appliques. I was almost done and then something happened with the tension on my machine and so I did the last little bit with a regular foot and just lifting the pressure foot when I needed to turn. Needless to say that was very tedious, especially because I was on the trees with all of their many branches. But I persevered and I am very happy with it.

The picture on the left is the three of us as children and the picture on the right is the one we took in front of the real Three Sisters mountains in Canmore, Canada last summer. For more information about a fabulous quilt shop there check out my sisters blog post. The pillow I just designed and embroidered because I wanted something that actually said we were sisters. There are three little leaf buttons on it. Here is a little closer look.

Cancer Quilt

Well, it has been a while since my last post. I started a new type of job at work and I come home so tired that I can't seem to get anything done. The weekends are always so busy with catching up on housework and such that keeping up with the blog has been difficult. I decided that today was the day to catch up with my posts. I have been doing a few quilty or sewing type thing in the last several months and so now I will share.

I was looking for some pictures for a post and I came across these pictures of a quilt I did almost a year and a half ago. Every year my husband's work has a fund raiser for the Cancer Society and in May of 2007 I decided to donate a quilt to raffle off. I can't remember how much money it brought in, it's been too long, but it turned out really nice. I found some outdoorsy fabric with panels on it that I used for the center of the blocks. Here is the quilt and then a close up of a block.