Doll Quilt Swap Complete

The two were done by me and sent to Alissa in Austrailia and the third is the one I recieved from Flossieblossoms. Pretty awesome huh?

What Happens

This is what happens when you rush through quilting a quilt and decide you hate it. During the giveaway week I have been working on a quilt that I had hoped to have done by now. The middle quilting turned out great and I thought I would try something different for the sides and I HATED IT. Those quilts will talk to you alright. They say stuff like " OOH put me with that fabric" or "What were you thinking doing that?" or " You're kidding right? This is So not happening". So I listened and spent a day- yes a whole day -don't tell Soulmate- sitting on the couch and picking all the little stitches out of the outside quilting. So to redeem myself I made this............

Meet yumm. For those of you that haven't been over to www.thepioneerwoman.com GO NOW! She just had her first show in the Food Network. So exciting. Anyhoo -This is the whiskey BBQ peach chicken. It was so good people, so good. I put in some fresh peaches too just because I had them. Did I mention it was yum? Yum! Skin off the thighs because I didn't want to add to my thighs. Brown rice instead of mashed potatoes, again because of thighs. And a butter leaf salad. Perfect.

Oh and some of you have asked why our Virginia house is still on the blog header. Well, because we still own it. God has a buyer picked out for us and when that happens I will change it to our New Mexico house. Keep praying! I hope you have a great weekend. Girls have homework, Avery wants a pink streak in her hair ( I'll take a pink streak over a boyfriend anyday) and we are having our Virginia friends (met them at school registration- Thank you God) over for dinner. I'm making the World's Best Lasagna by allrecipes.com. It's a whole day adventure.

My Doll Quilt Arrived

Susan aka Flossieblossom sent me this beautiful quilt. Words cannot express how lucky and loved I feel. She put so much work into this quilt and it is amazing.

Winner!!!

Natasha You Won!!!!!! I would put down what your comment said but my copy paste is not working and I have given up coffee. You will just have to take my word for it. Shoot me an email with your address and I will get the fabric out to you. Congrats to you and thank you to all who commented.

Giveaway

You thought I forgot about you huh? I promised a giveaway 10 or so posts ago because, well, why not. Maybe it's celebration of new move, school beginning so I have sewing time again, or maybe because I have over 500 posts on this little humble blog.

Up for grabs is one yard each of these two prints of Joel Dewberry's Deer Valley.

Leave me a comment telling me whatever you would like ( how you would use the fabric, what you are doing for the rest of your summer, last movie you saw or book you read, your favorite dinner to cook. etc)
Second chance to win- become a follower or if you already follow leave me two comments telling me so( you get an extra chance)
Third chance- blog about this giveaway and leave me a comment with your blog. I love reading new blogs.

I promise to temper the overwhelming need to take a picture of every beautiful sunset. Winner revealed August 24th. My parents anniversary. High school sweethearts and still sweet:)

It's their first day

Up early and ready to go. Yes, I made them take the bus. Does that make me a bad mom? My thinking was we would meet some kids right? Wrong. I was getting texts that went like this, "Mom you are so driving us to school tomorrow. We are the only kids on the bus and we are going to be late because this lady doesn't know what she is doing!!!" She may have called herself and sister loosers for riding the bus too. I pray today goes well. I will let you know.

Meanwhile, last night was amazing. The skies are like gifts. So beautiful. So breathtaking. Everyone should want to see this right? Wrong

It went something like this.............

"Avery, you have got to see the skies!!!!"

"Hello, what are you doing in my room?"

Avery, some look outside."

"Um Mom I'm like skyping with my friends in Virginia. I can't"

"OK just smile nice and I"ll leave"

Say cheese. Good enough.

Can't believe she pasted this up. Pray for a good first day and plenty of nice girls for friends.

Old Town Albuquerque

I'll let the pictures do the talking.

A different kind of crown

for the queens.... We had fun today in Old Town . More pictures tomorrow.

Rain is a good thing

When you live in the desert rain is something to celebrate. There is a sweetness in the air and you can smell water. Everything seems to rejoice at getting wet, children included.

We had our second good rain here where you could actually measure the water. Thank you Lord. Could we please have a few more?

Scrappy 9 patch

I got a bag full of scraps from a friend and I have been making my way through them. I have four huge bins full of fabric that I won't let myself touch until I get these baskets of scraps under control. This is a scrappy 9 patch- irish chain. It is 43 inches square. Good size for a kiddo or lap quilt.

I sewed the scraps together to make the border also.

And the back. Straight line quilting. and tada a finished quilt.

Outdoor Living

It was Smores las night with our new gas firepit. So completely awesome. Vacation at home.

We eat lunch every day out here. I love having outdoor space that is so useable.

Above the patio area is the girls balcony where they can see for miles.

And most of the time are treated to amazing sunsets and skies. At night its city lights twinkling like jewels.

That is some of our outdoor space. To see more of the indoor space click on my flickr button on the right side of my blog.

One week until school starts.......wow.

Reason #52

I find myself falling more in love with this place day by day, moment by moment. And who would have thought? I feel so blessed. Found a great church today. Enrolled my kiddos in school this past week. Encountered kind people everywhere. Blessed I tell you.

I don't know if you can see that little strip of green down there? We live there. Soulmate manages the 27 hole private country club there. We see these mountains everyday and they make me happy.

Finding beauty in each step and watching the bees have a feast on these flowers.

Blessed.

Reason #52 I love New Mexico because..............see above.

Most beautiful

Most beautiful, originally uploaded by denawayne.

We went for an adventure today and headed up the mountains we see everyday.

Cutting into Scraps

I find that when I cut into scraps they muliply, they breed, they expand. Does this happen to you? I started with the plum tree, made a mug rug with some embroidery and am now moving on to a 9 patch quilt. Which leads me to my next question....... how do you 9 patch?

This is a stack I've made so far... but back to my question of how do you sew together your 9 patches? Do you chain piece them? Do you get up and iron each one? Do you seperate them in there own block pieces?

I seperate them by blocks, chain pieces 1-3 to pieces 4-6 and then sew 7-9, iron the three strips and sew them together. I would love to hear how you put your 9 patch blocks together.

The Plum Tree

I have had this idea for a few months now, just needed the time to do it. This quilt is traditionally pieced on the sides and then I used the ticker tape approach for the tree and leaves. Lots of fun to do. Ok I won't lie, I was cussing at the machine a bit sewing down all those leaves. The result was worth it. I used a glue stick to hold the leaves in place. That helped too along with the cussing. Fabric was scraps given to me by my friend Dolores. She also led the ticker tape round in the Old Red Barn Quilt Along Flickr group. I love the end result.

So what are you working on?