ruffles

I made a couple of fun, ruffle dish towels.  I saw them on Sweetwater's blog and knew I needed to try them out for myself.  I started with pre made dish towels and simply embellished them with ruffles. 

It was fun picking out the fabrics.  This is a great way to use up scraps of special fabrics...probably the most 'expensive' part of the project was the twill tape that goes on the top of each ruffle.  I'm still trying to come up with a way to eliminate it on each ruffle...you really only see it on the top ruffle.  But...that's a whole 'nother post...

These would make great hostess gifts and they would be so easy to make for holidays....I can just picture a Christmas one with some fun holiday fabrics.  As is fitting for this season of my life, I cut the fabrics one day, ironed and sewed them another day, gathered the ruffles and pinned them on a third day and finally finished them off on a completely different day.....Maybe I should call them the 4 day ruffle towels?  

Whatever they are called, they sure are cute.  When I finally finished them, I hung a one on my oven door and told my kids not to use it for cleaning up spills!  ha!

insta friday

 I'm linking up again with Jeannett at Life Rearranged for Insta-Friday!  

Here are some sneak peeks into last week...all taken with my cell phone:

A dear friend brought over some sweets and we caught up over coffee....it was a great way to start off my day.  She made me feel very special with the gourmet box of goodies.

 I was hosting book club on Saturday, so on Friday I made 2 kinds of muffins:  blueberry  and good morning muffins.  The favorite were the blueberry!  We also had egg muffins, fruit and wonderful conversation!  It was one of those relaxing, sit back and chat kind of mornings...I needed it so much!

 Our book club ladies are so generous...they often have little gifts at the table.  Since it was my month to host, I made everyone a bookmark (I know, how original!) and I packaged them with a a highlighter (for marking quotes) and sticky page tabs (for finding those highlighted quotes).

Someone is also playing some type of ball...these just stay on our entryway bench, waiting for the next player to grab them and go!   Someone is always heading somewhere! I'm just trying to 'roll' with it!

 I think I've finally finished gathering up all of our school supplies....we start on Monday!  yikes!!

 This is my mom's car.  She has little notes and scriptures and recipes tucked all over the place.  Her cup holders are full of coupons and fliers and reminders.  We went shopping on Thursday and I had to get a picture of it.  She calls it her brain!  Without those little pieces of paper...she'd be in a mess.  Too funny!

Me and my kiddos....they really are the best kids a mom could ask for.  I'm a very blessed mama!
It's fun looking back over my cell phone pics and seeing all the silly, wonderful, crazy blessings that fill up my days.  I hope you can find the blessings in your life too!

sweet things

One of our friends just recently had her first baby!  We haven't met sweet July yet, but wanted to send some baby love their way.  She and her husband just relocated to North Carolina because he is in the Marines.  I am hoping they get some precious time together as a family of 3 before he is deployed.

One of my favorite baby sweaters was sent along with a burp cloth and an embellished onesie.  The sweater pattern can be found here.  I used a washable yarn by Universal.  I made several of these last summer...they seem to be a fun summer knit for me.

Baby gifts really are just the best to send aren't they!?  Hope your week is filled with sweet things too!

Hourglass Quilt....the tall version

Sometime a while ago I started my second quilt.  My first quilt was made using Larissa's scrappy log cabin tutorial and it is a family favorite.  I think however, that it has been upstaged by my second quilt.  Not because my second  quilt is better, but because it is longer.  And in our family...a longer quilt is a good thing!

We are a tall family.  I am 5'11", my husband is 6'3" and my kids are still growing....with my middle one tipping the ruler at 6'.  So.  We need a quilt that can cover those long legs when snuggling on the couch.  When I was laying out my squares for this quilt, I realized that it wasn't going to be long enough for our height.  So, I added some borders which in turn added some length and width. It ended up being 54" by 67".   I used Allison's  Hourglass Quilt tutorial and a group of fat quarters that I bought in Lancaster, Pa several years ago.

 To freshen up the fabrics, I bought a tiny green and white polka dot fabric that shows up in the border and on the back as well.   I really like how it turned out....so soft and romantic.  It's quite the departure from my usual khakis and greens and reds.  There isn't much in our home that it actually 'matches'.

 But that's OK...it's getting lots of use and that makes up for it's lack of coordination.  I was laughing with Mckenzie because I originally bought the fabrics to make a quilt with her...but she didn't like them.  She didn't think they were bright enough.  (She's my tutti fruiti pink girl)  But it's Mckenzie that I find cuddled under this quilt each night...sweet irony!

My favorite part of this quilt is the scrappy edging.  I used every piece of fabric that I bought in Lancaster.  There wasn't a bit left over.  That is fabulous!  I love using things up!

 I also love that I quilted this quilt all on my own. It's just quilted with straight lines but I did it myself and that was a huge sense of accomplishment for me. It was a fun process....and Allison's tutorial was very helpful.

 I just followed the straight lines and diagonals on the hourglass blocks and then used straight lines around the borders.   My back was too large for one piece of fabric to completely cover it so I used a strip of patchwork to connect the two pieces so that I wouldn't have an obvious seam running through the back.

I really enjoyed most of the steps involved in making this quilt...I wasn't in a hurry and I think that's why I enjoyed it so much.  That's not typical for me...Usually I'm all about checking things off my list. I may need to adopt a less hurried mindset when working on big projects more often.  How about you, do you have a 'hurry and get it done' or 'enjoy the journey' kind of mindset?  

insta friday

It's Friday and I'm linking up my photos with Jeannett on Life Rearranged.  This is my first InstaFriday!
I just recently joined the craze on Instagram so I've still got a lot to learn.  But it's so easy and fun to capture those little moments with my cell phone.  You can follow me at lisamariequick...let me know if you're on Instagram too!

I've been spending most of my evenings in front of the tv cheering on the USA in the Olympics....my cross stitching is getting some good time in as well....unless it's too intense, then I can't stitch!

John Samuel got to go see the game of a lifetime with his good friend.  They went to Nationals Park to watch the Nats take on Miami.  They had seats right behind homeplate...he was on tv every time the 

batters were up.  So fun to see him having so much fun.  These seats were so good they got dinner and snacks all night long...for free!  The chef even gave them those hats to wear!  So fun!  

On Sunday, John Samuel and I went to Chantilly, VA to take in BrickFair.  I have never seen so many lego creations in all of my life.  It made me realize we don't nearly have the lego problem that I thought we had!  He was in his element all day long.  So fun to watch him interacting and taking it all in!

We spent a day at the lake....it was perfect until they made us get out of the water due to "unsanitary conditions"!  eeewww...I don't even want to know what was in that water. 

Since we couldn't get back in the water, we headed over to the nearby creamery and fed the baby calves and had ice cream!  It was a great way to end the day and it distracted us from thinking about what was in the water.

I captured this gorgeous sunset one evening...it was a beautiful night!

And today, I found some time to sew....it's been a while.  I'm working on some ruffled dishtowels.  It was a good way to end the week.  Tomorrow we're heading to pick up Maggie's senior photos, Kenzie has a sleepover and Jammer is hoping to ride bikes!

I hope your week ends on a good note too..and that as you look back over it, you can see beauty sprinkled throughout your days!

lessons in grace

Thanks to everyone for their messages of love and sympathy.  They truly meant so much to me.  I've saved them and printed them off to go with all the sweet sentiments that came our way over the last couple of weeks.  The service that we had for Baba (that's what we all called my grandmother) was just wonderful.  It truly was a celebration of her life.  We laughed and cried our way through it all.  This is the first significant death in my life and I have learned so much.

Lesson one:
Cards really do mean so much!
Every card we received really meant so much to me....I will never under estimate the power of lovingly sent sympathy card again.  (and I'll be much better at sending them to others when I hear of their loss)

Lesson two:
Grief makes you tired.
Getting a good night's sleep in the midst of our planning was so important.  I had no idea how tiring grief really is.

Lesson three:
The scriptures really are a balm of healing.
Reading over God's word and reflecting on His promises has proven very powerful over the last couple of weeks.  Some of my favorite scriptures have been:  Psalm 30:4-5, Revelation 14:13, Psalm 62:1-2
and Lamentations 3:22-25

Lesson four:
Death is hard...it doesn't matter the age at which someone passes.
My Baba was 93 and while we knew she wouldn't be with us forever, when she passed it was still hard.  I think we were all expecting to be able to gather and hold her hand and be with her as she passed.

Lesson five:
Everyone needs to grieve in their own way.
Each one of us handled/is handling the loss of Baba differently.  No one way is the right way or the wrong way.  My little guy cried hard the first couple of nights...he didn't cry during the service because he told me "I got it all out in the beginning, Mom"

Lesson six:
Being supportive is powerful and it really does make a difference.
We had friends that came to the viewing just because they loved us...I wasn't expecting this and it was so wonderful.  We also had friends calling and checking in on us throughout the week....that made a world of difference.

I've been thinking about all of these things and more over the last couple of weeks and I realize in addition to these lesson that I've learned more about grace as well.  I've been shown such amazing grace in the form of friends and family who have loved and prayed and cared for us.  God has been so gracious to us during this time.  I've also learned to extend grace to those who haven't lost anyone significant in their lives and therefore don't understand the sadness that was so tangible to us.  (I'm sure I've been one of those people to someone else at some time in the past.)  These past couple of weeks have been hard...but good.

 All the photos were taken on our vacation...We were on our last day of vacation when we learned of Baba's passing.  That night we went down to the beach and flew kites "up to heaven" as a special way to remember her.   It was an amazing night. Kite flying will always be special to us from now on.

I'll be back very soon with some happier things to share....just needed to get these thoughts out of my head and onto "paper".