Mothers Day WIP Recap

I had a wonderful Mother's Day!  We stayed close to home with my other half recuperating from back surgery but still was able to spend time with each of my sons.  Last year for Mother's Day my oldest son and his wife gave me a lovely peony plant...and (despite me) it's still alive and about to bloom again!  This year, in addition to a bag of pekoe tea leaves from the Azores (I wish you could smell this tea!), they gave me this beautiful columbine plant:

Isn't this spectacular?!  And wouldn't those colors look great in a quilt?  From one of the younger sons and his fiance came this fun bundle...

Can you guess which fat quarters were selected from my stylish future daughter-in-law and which from my son?  Oh and the kayak ornament is hanging in the sewing room!  And I had a wonderful, long chat with my third son who will be coming home from Chicago at the end of the month for a visit!   Yeah!

And....between visits and phone calls, I spent some time in my sewing room!  You may remember my post on the sewing room.  Well, it never looks that neat!  This is more typical:

Can you find all the WIP projects in this room?
1.  Pillow for the chair in my bedroom
2.  Spiderman and StarWars quilts for two little buddies of mine
3.  Blueberry fabric....shhhhhhhhhhhh...this one is a secret
4.  Vintage Modern quilt top almost done
5.  Sneakers...because I should be working out not sewing.
6.  Fabric pulled for the Boston Modern Quilt Guild "Quilts for Boston"

I had a lovely day working on all these projects!  Time with my family and in my sewing room...a lovely day indeed!  And I even got my Wednesday post done on Tuesday...now that's progress!

Sew Mama Sew Winner!

I am overwhelmed by the amazing response to my first giveaway!  I will definitely have to do this again!  So, without further ado....

The lucky winner is comment #265:

Four dogs and one quilterMay 9, 2013 at 7:00 PM

I would be traveling.

Isn't that a great reason to not be sewing for a week?  I had so much fun reading all of your responses to my open ended question:  " If I could not sew for a week, I would ______. "  My goodness, there are a lot of readers in the viewing audience.  And ambitious people who would clean or work on their gardens (both areas suffering from neglect here!).  I love the honest folks who implied that something would be seriously, seriously wrong in the world if they went without a week without sewing!  Many of you would obsess over an alternative craft or feed your fabric stash!  And my heart went out to the few who said they would sleep as the only time they get to sew is when they should be sleeping!  

So, thanks again to all those who participated in my FIRST giveaway!   And a special welcome to those who took a look around my little blog and are returning!

Stitches

I am continuing to enjoy stitching up this lovely Vintage Modern fabric.

36 blocks finished and ready to become a quilt top!  I will have some time to do just that over the next few days as I watch my husband recover from his back surgery.  I am thrilled to report that everything went well, even if his stitches are not as lovely as those above.  We'll be kayaking together very soon!

Have a great weekend!  Linking up with Amanda Jean's Finish It Up Friday!

Just a little sewing going on

Well, it's only Wednesday, but I have had an interesting week so far! One of my goals this year for my little blog has been to participate in a giveaway contest!  CHECK!  I have been overwhelmed by the great response to my post as part of the Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day!  I will try to respond to each comment, but my goodness, 200 posts is a few more than this little blog normally gets!

I have done a little sewing this week:

And I have started to think about the upcoming summer season and what to do with this lovely group of summer blueberry fabrics:

Any suggestions?

AND my husband is having back surgery tomorrow!  Life is interesting.  We are optimistic that the surgery will go well and be the beginning of a path toward getting him back on the hiking trail very soon!

Linking up with:

My First Giveaway Post!

Another FIRST in my blogging and quilting life!  Yikes!  

WHO
Welcome to KayakQuilting!  I'll make this brief as I know there are literally HUNDREDS of fun and beautiful blogs that you (and I!) want to visit this week.  A sample of what I have been up to since I started this little adventure last year:

You're probably quite busy signing up for all the fun giveaways, but do come back again and visit me.  I love the quilting company and all the support and advice I get from my readers!

WHAT

For my first ever giveaway, I would love to give you the above goodies:

• I loved this book so much I have two copies (actually the on-line book store goofed and sent me a duplicate in error and did not want the return).  Zakka Style by Rashida Coleman-Hale.  Inspirational!
• A Tucker Trimmer...amazing tool!  
• And a charm pack of Odds and Ends by Cosmo Cricket (so cute!).

I hope this fun little grouping inspires a few of you to throw your name into the hat for this giveaway!

HOW
Again, let's not make life difficult.  Just leave me a message answering this question:  If I could not sew for a week, I would ______.  For me, the answer is:  spend the week on the water in my kayak!

WHEN
Following the rules, the giveaway will stay open until 5:00 PM PST on Friday, May 10th.  I will notify the winner by email before the end of the day on May 12.  International readers are welcome to join in (only if I get to visit you to hand deliver the prize if you win)!

If by any chance you are stopping by here and have not seen the fun things going on at Sew, Mama, Sew this week you really should stop over there!  Thanks for visiting KayakQuilting and hope to chat with you soon!

A Little Fun Finish

(Wow!  I am not near the last joining Finish It Up Friday linky party!  I'm making progress!)

Happy Friday!  It is another beautiful spring day here in New England!  (Sorry, Minnesota!)  And the weekend ahead is expected to be just lovely for all those little cherubs celebrating their First Holy Communion, including my special friend Katerina.

This little bag (filled with a few goodies) is made of fabric that I purchased with Miss Katerina in mind.  You see, she is a beautiful, petite little girl who is fascinated by wild animals...wolves and foxes being two of her favorite!  I down-sized the same pattern I used here as I wanted to ensure she could easily carry it around!  The two main fabrics are Michael Miller Les Amis Socks the Fox and Sarah Watson Indian Summer Menagerie...so cute and special, just like Katerina.

Meanwhile, I am continuing to work on finishing my master bedroom decor, finishing the quilt was a REALLY big step!  Pillows for the bed...done!

 This fabric was the original inspiration fabric for the quilt colors.  I love the grey, blue, green combination with the strong white contrast.  Unfortunately, I do not remember the name of the fabric...I purchased it at the amazing Fabric Corner store in Arlington, Mass.  I will research my scraps and update this post if I find the info.  I made the pillows with invisible zippers on the side using the very helpful tutorial at Sew Katie Did and leftovers from the quilt for the backs.

Standing a few steps away, the flipside of the pillows still work in the room.

However, up close, the quilting on the back of this pillow is AWFUL!  The little bubbles in the middle are fine but for some reason the swirls are terrible!  As this is the back of the pillow, I will call it "wonky swirls," flip the pillow over and not lose sleep on this pillow! 

Much happier with the quilting and style of this back.

 Now I have a few more decorative pillows to make and find some things to hang on all those blank walls!

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend!

Happy May 1st

When I began this quilting adventure a little over a year ago, I was puzzled by the number of projects so many of you have going on at the same time.  How could you keep all this straight?  How do you get a sense of accomplishment?  Well, I GET IT now.

Repetitive quilt piecing syndrome.  Hundreds of little pieces of fabric to cut, sew, press, sew, trim, press, etc.  Now, don't get me wrong...I LOVE all of this but a change in project really does help keep each project interesting and staves off RQPS boredom!

So, on that note, I have these three (!!) projects on my sewing table:

 A few hundred pieces of carved up beautiful Vintage Modern.

This lovely group of fabrics will evolve into a little gift for a very special girl.

and a pile of work-in-process Mama Said Sew, that I love, love, love.  In addition to these I still have six quilts on the waiting-to-be-quilted rack!  And I am happy, happy, happy about all of this!

It was a beautiful day here in New England.

Once a year, and only for a brief period, the trees on our street blossom with style.  Spring is officially here.

Linking up with Lee's WIP Wednesday!