Puppy Love DONE!!

No that isn't your eyes playing tricks on you, you read that post title right! Puppy Love is quilted, bound, washed and ready for use. I'm really happy with the way it turned out. I can't believe it took me a year to get that done after the quilt top and back had been finished. Binding was going great until I got to the join. I ended up hand sewing it after many attempts to machine stitch. No matter how pinned it was (tried with lots of pins. less pins, no pins) I just couldn't get it together. I realized I forgot to label my quilt. LOL. I'll try to remember on the next one.

Front

Murphy's Law came into play. After a few beautiful sunny days, it came out of the dryer after the sun had started going down and the weather forecast for the next few days is rain. I quickly ran out and pinned it to the clothes line and took some pictures.

I think the back looks interesting, but I'm not sure if I would go to all that trouble for a back again. I was pretty worried it wouldn't line up or would be off center.

Back

We are actually happy about the rain that's coming our way. We put down top soil down on our front yard on Monday to level it along with a ton of grass seed. Also we got the side garden built and planted. Previously, the space between the house and the walk was filled with river rock. I think Chris did a fabulous job relaying the walk and building the gardens using all materials we had in the garage.

Now on to my one of my mom's quilts. Not sure which I want to start on first. Hopefully it won't take a year to finish!!

One last look

Backyard haven

I didn't think to take a a before picture but let me tell you, just a few touches and some flowers and our backyard went from tired and worn out to feeling like a shiny new penny.

Chris and I spent the morning putting up our no dig fence to keep the dogs out of the back garden. Not much going on in there other than a small clamatis (it's second year), our dwarf cherry tree, my lillies and the hanging pots. We are slowly replacing the soil so next year can plant strawberries, raspberries, and whatever vegetables we can find in that back garden.

We put down the sod in the corners, went out and bought flowers and cleaned out and refilled all our pots with new soil and flower seeds. I tend to over fill my side garden, I just love that instant pop of color.

We still need to do something about the bbq area. Chris feels all it needs is some river rock, while I'd like a platform of some kind. We'll see. I'll take a picture again in a month or so when my Clamatis's are in full bloom. This is our little piece of  heaven.

Off to see what we can do in the front. Fingers crossed it turns out as nice. Once that's done maybe I can find some sewing time.

Not much progress

Not much to report, my quilting on my puppy love quilt continues to be a work in progress. I did get more done but still have a ways to go. I also worked on hexies for my grandmothers flower garden using Paris Flea Market while watching the season finale's of some of our favorite shows.

Chris has been on vacation for over a week & my vacation started yesterday for a week. Yesterday was our wedding anniversary, we enjoyed spending the day together doing some running around. As you can see from our wedding pictures to the left we didn't do the traditional big wedding with white dress and tuxedo's. This was a second wedding for both of us and we wanted it small and to do it our way. We got married in our house with only a few people and a bbq reception in the backyard. My girlfriend made my cake. It was a topsy turvey made to match Chris's shirt. I should have moved the flowers from behind, she had silver sprigs that you can't see coming our the top like sparklers. As beautiful as this cake looked it tasted even better. One layer banana chocolate chip, one butter-cream and the top was chocolate.

With the kids off to school, we headed out to the garden center and about 15 minutes in the rain started. Soaked to the skin we bought what we had on our cart (2 Ivy's for the front of the house) and drove to Lowe's. We did get the pieces for a fence we've been talking about for awhile for the back garden, but with the rain neither of us were really in the frame of mind to make any decisions for flowers and greenery. We did quite a bit of running around  here and there stopping for a late lunch before making our way home. It was a wonderful day despite the rainy weather.

 One of those trips was to the Fabric store. It's closing in a month for renovations so everything is 60% off. I couldn't resist and bought this minky to pair up with my denim quilt. Chris picked out and bought me the scissors. They were atrociously expensive even with the discount as an anniversary gift.

The fabric below is for Chris. He bought an Elna Supermatic for $10. a few weeks ago. After a clean, oil and some tweaking it is running like a dream. My scrap bucket has taken a beating so he decided it was time to get some fabric of his own. From his selections I'm sure you can guess who picked out the fabric on my Puppy love quilt. LOL

Lots to do this week with both of us off, not sure if I'm going to get much time in my sewing room though. Fingers crossed.

Puppy love - Some progress

I've finally spent some time working on my puppy love quilt. I'm doing large waves. Some are hits, some are misses (the really bad misses were ripped and restarted). This exercise has re-enforced that for now, I'm going to work quilt as you go style as much as possible. I start off strong but lose my rhythm trying to move the quilt up. I still have the waves to do across before I start panicking thinking about binding.

The background/backing fabric for youngest's Kansas Troubles - Token of Friendship quilt has arrived. It was like a surprise bag, I'd forgotten exactly which fabrics I'd ordered within minutes of placing the order with the exception of the beige and the darkest fabric. I'm pretty sure I had meant to remove at least one of those reds. My own bad habit coming to bite me. When shopping online I tend to add a lot to the shopping cart, compare my choices from there and just remove the ones I decide to pass on. I remember paring it down earlier in the process but waffling between those reds. I know I'd check-mark the one I decided to pass on as Remove once the decision was made. I have a sneaky suspicion that I forgot to update my shopping cart one last time before clicking checkout. I think it all looks pretty good together and wish all my oops moments turned out so well. I'm more than set for this quilt and I'm sure I will have no problem finding a use for any leftover fabric.

Mother's day this coming weekend and I haven't even started on either of her quilts. While Mom knows they won't be ready for a good while yet, I would like to at least be able to show her the beginnings of one when we go for dinner Sunday night. Time to get hustling!