Design Wall Monday--Mother's Day with Grandsons

It's Design Wall Monday--see more Design Walls on Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts blog. 

I haven't been doing very much machine sewing of late, being caught up in my latest handwork project, but did grab a couple of leftover blocks to whip up a quick handmade gifts for Mother's Day.  

I think this was an extra block from some guild project, or just a play piece to practice curved piecing.  I used my walking foot and ended up with sort of a squircle for the quilting as I went around. Fun!  The leftover binding bin produced a yellow crosshatch fabric for the binding.

Neglected to get a pic of the finished mat, which is about 8 " square.  Mom loved it.  I also started to quilt, but did not finish, another single block mat. 

This block I modified with the stem--pattern was from APQ magazine March 2021 cover quilt. 

I even found a fat quarter with a strawberry print in stash.  This one is for my sister.  I do plan to make myself a four block quilt from this pattern from fabrics I've already set aside.  We live in strawberry country on the coastal plain with many acres planted nearby. 

Our small Mother's Day brunch included all our grandsons and two of our kids, DIL, plus our son-in- law, who took this pic at my request.  He noted that he is not a great photographer, but given the nature of small boys, I think it turned out fine :)

They held still for a moment or two!  Look at those chunky baby legs and feet on baby Dane, yum, with oldest cousin Cove holding him, and cousin Hunter sweaty from running around.  Love having them with us.  Daughter Elaine was having a mommy's getaway poolside in LA with two of her friends, a great Mother's Day gift as the pandemic eases!

After they left and cleanup attempted, I settled into some stitching on the Loose Feathers project.  Leaves and window boxes are now added.  I'm so enjoying these pretty colors on the linen I tea-dyed.  I'm looking forward to adding more detail.  

Catching Up/Mother's Day

A week disappeared in a flash, what with working three extra shifts and then getting the house ready for 25 guests on Mother's Day.  It certainly left no time for quilting or stitching.  DH Grant and I moved around furniture for what seemed a good hour plus on Sunday morning, followed by the usual mad rush to get four big tables set with chairs and tableware, cook, clean up, and get ourselves ready.  We have hosted a Mother's Day Brunch for over 20 years at our house and I don't see it ending anytime soon.  Here's a few pics of the day: 

A galley style kitchen makes it easy to cram people in there--including my mom, daughter, niece and sister.  Everyone is generous in bringing dishes to share and we all ate til we were stuffed.

Hanging out by the waffle bar are youngest daughter, my brother, son, and nephew making a face.  Later I gathered my siblings and mom for a photo.

We're missing one brother from this group, but it was great to be together.  Grant and DD Erica had High Tea with his 98 year old mother at her senior living place the day before. 

Isn't this a sweet pic?  They had a lovely visit and Grandma was happy. 

And look what finally happened with all that moving and cleaning:

My cutting table was cleared at last!

Memory Quilt and Mother's Day

I hope you all had a lovely Mother's Day, we sure did!

Having a deadline is a good thing for a busy quilter, don't you think?  It's practically essential for me these days!  I set Mother's Day as my deadline for the memory quilt for my sister in law, which I've shown  in progress before, made of my brother in law's shirts.

Spray basting set up in the garage by myself worked well.  And I think I got about 500 steps in with all the walking back and forth and around and around as I worked on each layer!  This was the first time I'd used the more expensive 505 spray, and sure felt it was worth the cost.  Actually, I bought it on a show special at Road to California so it wasn't that bad.  I did some very simple quilting with my walking foot and midnight Saturday night I put the last stitch in the machine binding.  On Mother's Day morning I washed, dried, and labeled the quilt before getting the house set up for our 18 adult guests, two toddlers and two infants coming for our annual Mother's Day brunch.  I presented Mariana with her quilt after we ate. 

She shed a few tears but enjoyed pointing out the shirts she had bought for her husband Jan over the years and remembering his favorites.  If you can tell from the picture, there are a number of rows with the same shirt fabric, two vertical and three horizontal.  

 

I used some of the shirt fronts for the backing, sort of mimicking the block design with the two solid side panels  I left the pockets on, though I stitched all but one closed.  You can see the simple quilting in this shot. 

Wrapped in love. I asked Mariana to send me pictures of the quilt posed on Jan's beloved sailboat, where he spent so much of his free time. She said she wasn't sure if the quilt would live on the boat or be at home with her.  I told her that's the beauty of quilts, they are portable!  I surely have enough shirt fabric to make another quilt--it's surprising how much fabric a shirt gives up.

Grandson Cove with his mom, watching our neighbor train their pointer puppy to hunt using a remote control car.  Cove was very disappointed when the car stopped working after a while and told everyone, "It needs a new battery".

 

 My brother Kevin charming his newest grandnephew, Hunter.

Me with my three grownup kids!  Love them to pieces.  Maybe we'll Photoshop Dad into the picture and use this for a Christmas card.  He took a good picture.

 A very young Uber driver--I title this "Sorry, I don't take change!"

 Gorgeous peonies given to me for Mother's Day. It was a wonderful day!

Mother's Day Weekend

Hope you all had a lovely Mother's Day!

 

We had a very busy weekend, hosting two parties at our house.  The first was a retirement party on Saturday for DH Grant's coworker.  A couple of months ago Grant asked me if it would be okay if they held the party here and I said "sure", without knowing the final date.  Then when it turned out to be the day before our annual Mother's Day brunch, that seemed a bit much!  It all worked out, in the end, as we did a lot of cleanup and setup for the retirement party that carried over for today. It was a nice afternoon party of about 30 people on Saturday and we gave his coworker a good sendoff.  

Today we feasted on creme brulee french toast and strawberry scones my sister made, some wonderful coffee cake my son-in-law's mother made, delicious fresh berries my mom brought, and omelet muffins, bacon, sausage, and waffles we fixed here, for 14. 

I requested a four generation photo for my side of the family: My mom, my daughter Elaine with her son, Cove (10 weeks), and me.  It was difficult, but I did get some Cove snuggle time amid all the family members who wanted turns holding him too!  He was very good while being passed around to everyone.

Since this weekend was about mothers, here's a pic of my coworker and her impending daughter, after the lunch hour baby shower on her last day. The quilt was a big hit and she loved all the pink.  She's very petite, only 4'11", and that baby girl sticks out far!  She had to go on maternity leave a week earlier than planned due to some elevated blood pressure.  My prediction is May 30th, the day before her due date.  We'll await word in the next several weeks.

Mother's Day 2010

The annual Mother's Day brunch we have put on for many years was once again well attended.  My mom and dad, mother in law, Grant's brother and wife, and my brother and his wife and boys came.  This year all three of our kids brought their boyfriend/girlfriend so we topped out at 19.  I made three different oven omelets, Grant cooked a whole lotta bacon and sausage, his brother brought a Honeybaked ham, my mom brought fresh strawberries, and my brother's wife brought homemade chocolate chip scones and blueberry muffins that were to DIE for.  There were also waffles, mimosas, coffee, flowers, gifts, cards, and lots of conversation, laughter, and introductions.  Oh, and 3 dogs, including my nephew's newly adopted lab puppy and the granddog, Scully!   My mom took a few family portrait pics in the backyard and I will share those when she sends them to me. It was a lovely day all around.

Nick brought me these beautiful roses and a mushy card.  He is soooo like his wonderful dad!

These were from Grant along with a lovely card and some of my favorite perfume (Opium by YSL).

The painting was my Grandmother's.  It hung over her fireplace for probably 40 years and I always loved it.  I am happy to have it to remember her by.

Somehow I have acquired a new name...Elaine has called me Moo for the last couple of years, but this is a new one!  She and Erica gave me a gift certificate for my LQS.  Too bad the shop was closed yesterday, I was hot to spend it!  But quilty things did happen.  I did some production sewing of triangle squares for Erica's quilt and sewed a few more blocks. 

When I was cleaning up my sewing room a little on Saturday night I found a pile of leftover triangle squares from the Valentine's day project and I sewed them into this mini.

Those are 2.5" finished squares.  Not sure where I'll go with it from here but it was fun to play!  I also made a pincushion "tuffet" as a belated birthday gift for Nick's girlfriend Ali, but forgot to get a picture.  I'll have to ask her to take one for me.  I used this easy Moda Bakeshop pattern.  Now, unfortunately, it's off to Job #2 for me.  I am really looking forward to that 3 day weekend coming up!