union jack

my first union jack pillow!

friday night i was lucky enough to take a class by mary at sew to speak.  this was a union jack pillowcover class.  there were 5 great ladies in the class, and it was so much fun to see the various fabric choices everyone had made.  it is not a typical union jack... it is our own interpretations of the union jack flag from britain.   i am inspired to make a few more as gifts with some more adventurous fabrics (which means something with polka dots).  it was suggested to give some as gifts prior to the upcoming olympics in england.  here we are at the end of class with our finished cases...

cute, right?

pearl cotton love

some of the pearl cotton i have 'in stock' at the moment.

when i was taught to quilt last year, it was by my friend mary.  she teaches hand quilting with pearl cotton.  i like the machine quilted quilts as well, but i loooove hand quilting.  mary introduced me to pearl cotton by valdani which has a beautiful assortment of colors and sizes.  the cute little shop where i shop (sew to speak) has a small selection of choices which is usually all i need... but one of the quilts i made in the spring became an issue.  i decided to start quilting with a color i already had.  fine. no problem.  until i ran out and no one around had the same color!  what to do?  i searched the internet to find someone who sold it AND who had the same color.  turns out it wasn't as easy as it sounded.  but, finally i found a great online store called snowflake memories.  they had so many to choose from.  and luckily i found a perfect match... and then i was able to finish my quilt. shoooo.  that was a close call.  so, if you love pearl cotton and/or hand quilting then definitely check out snowflake memories.  They were great to work with and shipped it zippity-zip!

little man bennett

i finally completed the quilt for our good friends who just had a sweet little baby boy, bennett, 2 weeks ago today!  the fabric turned out well and i used the 'little man' pattern from simplify by camille roskelley.  

AND tonight i get the privilege of taking a class from the wonderful mary of mollyflanders.  she is quite amazing!  even with the rain in ohio (what's new, really), today is looking good!

what is the internet?

do you remember life before internet?  some of us actually do...  as well as... no cell phones, no computers, no email, no remote control (seriously), no 800 tv channels (when i was a kid we had: abc, nbc, cbs, and pbs. that's it.).  okay, i should stop there before i embarrass myself even more. why do i bring this up?  because yesterday while checking out pinterest i saw the following youtube video from the today show.  it is so funny to look at now.  back then we were probably thinking, "yeah, what is that internet thingy?" enjoy...

i am now off to listen to pandora on my wireless internet while i work on the binding on the baby quilt i have been working on.  hope to finish today, then pictures tomorrow.

~julie

connecting to 9/11

as i watched the 9/11 memorial this morning, my heart was heavy.  the sweet children who lost parents on that sad day 10 years ago, now reading names of other lives lost as well as their parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents.  the brothers and sisters who lost a sibling.  the parents who lost their children before their time.  the memorial looks beautiful and peaceful with the water flowing over the falls.  my family is not directly connected to the events of 9/11/01, but i feel a connection deeply through my son's choice to serve his country in the u.s. army, my husband's previous service in the u.s. army, and my husband's current position as a firefighter in columbus.  i am blessed with a wonderful family, and i lifted up my prayers this morning to those who were remembering loved ones that were lost.  we are also blessed to be living in an amazing country.  i hope that we might smile at someone we don't know today, say 'how are you?' and really want to hear what they say, and hug those you love who are nearby.  may god bless all how happen to find themselves reading this blog and give you strength. 

sprocket pillow revisited

so, my mom came to visit last week and fell in love with the sprocket pillow i made back in april.  she couldn't stop talking about how she could reeeeeally use two of those on her couch in her family room.  well, what can you do when your mom raves about something except make her a couple of them!  we visited one of our local cute fabric shops,  feather your nest, and found some fabric that would look nice in her room...  here are the results:

now... to get them in the mail... 

quilting goes to the dogs

even though it appears that nothing is going in my life... the truth is that there just hasn't been anything going on in my blog.  i would blame that on someone else if i could... but... this is all me.  the good news is i finally have an update!  yay!  i have been working on a new quilt for a friend of our family who is have a baby boy in the next few days.  i have actually gotten about half of the hand quilting done so far.  but here is a look at the cute fabric with the sweetest little dogs.  oh, and i will try to put a picture of the straightened office some time soon as well.