moving

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"Reality sets in. This would be about 1/2 of my fabric. Now that it's packed it finally feels like I'm moving."
(taken at Home)

Tropical bag

A few weeks ago, my friend Yolanda gave me a stack of precut scrap strips to play with... For years, she and I have exchanged goodie bags and boxes of scraps... I took the little stack to Hawaii with me and played around with needle and thread... And ended up with this hand-pieced, hand-quilted piece that I turned into a bag.... And of course, who should get the bag, but the generous lady herself?

sewing at sunset - kauai

 Instagram photo :

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"Sewing at sunset. (Hawaii-style)"
(taken at Nihi Kai Villas Poipu)

Lo-tech girl and hi-tech guy - instagram pic

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just enough - instagram pic

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"At the end of the "Blended Family" quilt, this is all that was left of the thread I was using to quilt it. (that's called "dumb luck")"

Finished - Blended Family Quilt

Here it is! My quilt inspired (and made for) an amazing family I know who we're joined in marriage 18 months ago (yeah, their wedding gift is late). I've been friends with the wife for many years and was overjoyed that after a few years as an amazing single mom of three boys, she met a beautiful single dad with two boys and a girl. Their wedding was amazing and this quilt was in sketched form in my journals for over a year. Then I finally got to work on it and it's been in progress since January. Well, this week, they get it in the mail and they know it's coming, so I can share it here before sending it...
I knew this quilt had to be great because Laura is an unbelievable graphic designer and her mom is a quilter, so I needed to really go for it on this gift... I'm really happy with how it
came out.
Congratulations, Laura and Nate! Your beautiful family is an inspiration!!!! Check your mail!

Mod Mosaic for a friend

You know how some friends are so extraordinary that everyone around them agrees on their fabulosity?
I have a guild member who is that awesome. She's so awesome that over 20 of us made squares to celebrate a special birthday she has coming up as a surprise. This was a huge undertaking, and I only submitted a few squares, while others made huge contributions, but it turned out so pretty that I had to share.

Baby Quilt

My friend, Eliza, recently came to a sewing date with swatches of an entire line of textiles she'd designed on Spoonflower.comwww.spoonflower.com - we stood around her, "ooohing and aaaaahing" over it all. The patterns are all based on the security patterns inside envelopes. I ordered it as soon as it was available for buying - and loved it when it arrived.
I used the cheater print she designed with 5" squares of dozens of different variations of patterns. Then I used a well known "charm square quilt" pattern by Elizabeth Hartman of the Oh Fransson blog...
(I used linen to complement the pattern and variegated thread to quilt it)
I took it today to Malibu for our Mother's Day festivities to photograph before giving it to its new owner.

A belated wedding gift

I posted about this quilt months ago. The top was completed in January...after being sketched out for months in every journal I own.
It's for a couple I know that got married on New Years in 2010... They each were single parents of 3 young kids (total Brady Bunch!) and they now have 5 boys and 1 girl... Including two boys with the same name. They're awesome.
I was so inspired by their love and story... Especially after knowing the wife's own story of "rebuilding joy" only she has a different poetic name for her journey... That I wanted to represent it in a quilt. Then of course I decided it needed to be hand quilted. (which means they now are getting email updates about their gift as it travels to parks and other adventures with me while I work on it.)
Getting close to done... I can't wait to finish it and send it off to them.

hey mom! I'm a sewing machine!

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""hey mom! I'm a sewing machine!" -only my kid"