Spring . . . it's finally here!

It's finally spring. . . . at least for today! Tomorrow might bring more winds, snow flurries, rain and cold again. I can't tell you how good it makes me feel to finally see green grass and have the trees start to get their leaves. We've had a looooong winter so looking out and seeing my yard finally show signs of spring does my heart good.

Even though we had a long winter, I was warm and cozy in my sewing room working on projects all winter long. I spend a lot of time in this room because I'm surrounded by bright fabric colors, photos of my children and grandchildren, quotes and other things I love. It's a room where I can let my creative juices flow. . . listen to good music and enjoy this time of my life.

When it looked like this in my back yard, I was so grateful to have a warm cozy room to work on some of my favorite winter projects.

I'd go through the back yard several times a day . . . both morning and night to feed the cats and horses, just staying out long enough to do my chores. Then I'd come back inside to my nice warm home and find something some project to work on that I was interested in.

The winter months were a good time to learn new sewing techniques that I 'm interested in. This is an example of some tiny little houses I made for a birthday gift for a special friend. It says, "The way is never too far . . . to the home of a friend." The method is called paper piecing and the pieces are tiny and precise. It was a lot of fun and a great way to use tiny scaps of fabric.

I've always enjoyed making gifts for family and friends. As I'm working on the gift I am thinking of them and hoping they'll enjoy it as much a I loved making something special for them.

In December the quilt quild members exchanged a quilt block at our Christmas party. I was given a salt box house block. I couldn't decide how to use just one block. Then I had the inspiration to add sashing (strips of fabric around the block) quilt it and make it into a pillow. I love it! I think it turned out really cute!


I like to learn new patterns but don't want to make large quilts out of each new pattern I try, so I've made several mini quilts for my tables. This pattern is called "flying geese" . . . it's found a spot on one of my end tables.

And this little table runner is called "little spools". Just the thing for someone who loves to sew and uses lots of spools of thread!

The quilt quild that I belong to challenged each member to make a "snowball" baby quilt. (The snowballs are the large white squares.) It was a wintry day and I didn't want to go to the fabric store so I made this from my fabric stash. The pink in the quilt is from a small amount of leftover fabric scraps I had from an outfit I made Lani for her 11th birthday. I added other coordinating fabrics to make it large enough. After I finished piecing and quilting it I gave it to Payton as kind of an heirloom quilt. . . from mother to daughter to granddaughter.