Quilted potholders

My friend has some super-awesome chickens.  We love to visit them!  I bought some great Robert Kaufman chicken fabric from the Metro Market collection a few months ago with the thought of making something for her.  When I saw Elizabeth from OhFransson! post about the quilted potholders that she was making, I thought those would be a great project to highlight the cute chickens.

Quilted chicken potholders

The other fabrics include Fifties Kitchen from Michael Miller and Juicy Lemon from Alexander Henry.  The white on the front is Kona in Snow, and the green on the inside is also Kona, but I’m not sure which one off the top of my head.  The green woodgrain binding is from the Joel Dewberry Aviary collection.

Blueberry jam and lake fun

We have been enjoying the waning days of summer.  School starts next week and soon it will be fall.  I did my annual blueberry jam canning spree last weekend.  Three batches this year, a total of 30 jars.  Mmm…..jam…..I still have about 6 pounds of Maine wild blueberries to do something with.  I am going to make a pie (recipe from Cook’s Illustrated is killer, it was in a summer 2008 magazine), another pie to freeze, and then I think I will just freeze the rest of them.  I made blueberry cake this morning.  Yum, I can’t wait to dig into it at lunchtime.

Blueberry jam

Other than making jam, we have pretty much been hanging out at the lake.

Boys fishing with Grandpa

Great Blue Heron on the dock

K canoeing with Grandpa

Loons on the lake

Woodland curtain

Woodland Friends Cafe Curtain

I bought some adorable prints on Etsy of mushroom homes, gnomes and hedgehogs for my children’s/Guest bathroom last year.  I really should paint the room, but I really dislike painting.  I probably will one day, but for now, I’m just trying to brighten it up with accessories.  The pictures are great and really made the room look better.  But I still had a plain white cafe curtain in there.  Blah.

So, today after spending the day at my friend’s camp (aka house on a lake), I came home and at 5pm decided that I *needed* to make a new curtain before my in-laws arrive tomorrow.  Umm…children….dinner….hello?  It was quick and easy though and I still fed my children dinner.  Just about 30 minutes later than normal.  The fabric is Woodland Friends in blue.  Now, I think I need a new rug.

Gnome print

Mushroom house print in the background

K doing a super-job kayaking

Embroidered Mini-Quilt

Girl on a Tree Swing Mini-Quilt

I have several tutorials that I want to try linked over in my right sidebar.  One that has been on there for quite awhile, I can finally check off! Comfort Stitching’s Girl on  a Tree Swing mini-quilt tutorial!  I wouldn’t necessarily say that it was quick and easy, but it was relatively, especially considering the huge cuteness-payoff!  The tutorial is very well-written and I had no questions as I moved through the various steps.  The hardest part was deciding what fabrics to use on the patchwork background!

Up-close of the appliqued girl

I have been practicing my freehand machine quilting, so I feel like I did a pretty good job on that.  And by the time I finished outlining all the little patchwork squares, I was getting into a good groove for doing the sketchy stitching applique part of the tree/girl/swing.  I just did some straight line quilting around the white border area for the “quilting” aspect of it.  And I really like the binding that I chose.  (It has orange!)

I just love how it turned out!  It’s hanging over the bed in our guest room.  It’s actually too small for that space, so I’ll probably move it to one of the side walls, but I’ll leave it there for now.

Hubby made the bed

Vintage Featherweight and fabric donation raffle

Raven over at Oversewn is holding a raffle to help raise money for the Santa Barbara Birth Center.  It’s her way of giving back after the wonderful care she received during her miscarriage.  I am really touched by her generosity.  So many times, we feel thankful for something, but we don’t really know how to show that thankfulness.  She could have just donated some money.  Instead, she is holding this awesome raffle, giving away some prized possessions,  and will hopefully collect a lot more money than she would have been able to donate just on her own.  All while raising awareness for the awesome job that the midwives at SB do for women every day.

So, I’ve already headed over to the Santa Barbara Birth Center page and donated $5.  You get up to five entries, one for each dollar you donate up to $5.  All the instructions are on her posts.  The donation part is through Paypal and easy-peasy.  Took all of 1 minute.  Took longer to do my five posts to enter into the raffle on her blog, then it did to do the actual donating!

She is giving away an awesome vintage, refurbished Featherweight sewing machine, as well as some great fabric prizes.  (Flea Market Fancy anyone???????)

Here are the rules and instructions, with a preview of the giveaways.

Here is the official raffle post where you need to enter your comments for every dollar that you donate up to 5 entries.

And here is the Santa Barbara Birth Center donation page, click the Donate button over on the right.  And I think she said to put “Baby August/Oversewn” in the Paypal comment box to help her track the donations.

I can’t wait to hear how much money she collects!!