Merry Christmas from my family to yours.

 

This past week we had our family pictures done. I'm not great at keeping scrapbooks full of pictured family events, and I struggle at times to write down favorite moments - but, I plan on getting our family pictures done once a year. It makes me feel like I am a least keeping track of how our kids are changing (and my hair of course ;)  

It has been a wonderful year for us and we are so thankful to all of our family, friends and customers.  Thank you so much for being a part of our lives. We are taking these few days to really enjoy our kids and we wish the same for you and your families. Thanks so much for an incredible year. We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and would like to leave you with a video of what Christmas means to us.

  

December

 

One of my favorite traditions for December is our trip to Temple Square in Salt Lake City. Clint and I moved away from family four years ago and this is our annual Christmas trip each year to spend time with family.

 

We want the kids to understand the true meaning of Christmas, so we take them to see the Christus Statue in the Visitor Center. They also put on an amazing story of the birth of Christ with a life size nativity.

 

 

The fun part about this trip is we get to stay in a hotel in Salt Lake, the kids love it - they appreciate being able to watch a little Disney Channel too ;) I had to take this picture because my little guy has to do everything his brothers do - they just melt my heart!

 

 

The lights on Temple Square are so beautiful, if you ever make it to Salt Lake in December it is worth checking out. My Instagram pictures do not give this place justice.

 

Me and my mom at a family dinner. I love this lady! It is so hard living far away from her, but I am grateful for the times we are together.

 

The best part of the trip is being with family. My nieces and nephews have so much fun with their aunts and uncles. I come from a big family, so when we get together we take up a whole room (plus more) and it is absolutely loud and chaotic, but it is the best sound in the world! 

It is these moments that mean the most to me.  I hope that during this Christmas season you are able to spend time with those you love.  I plan on hugging my kids more and being grateful for the blessing they are in my life.  With recent tragic events it has made me think twice about letting any moment go by without letting my kids know how much I love them.

Winner....

Photo courtesy of my Instagram @judiakagreenfairy

Wow!!! I can't believe how amazing you all are!  You know how to make a girl feel special and I am so grateful to you for a successful giveaway and for helping me surpass my goal with more than 3000 followers. YAY!  I'm so excited now! Thank you!!!

So, let's keep it short and sweet!  I picked a random winner for my giveaway and CONGRATULATIONS goes to Deb from Mountain Musings! Deb, email me at judi (at) greenfairyquilts (dot) com and I will get your bundle shipped off asap!  

Thanks again everyone for your kind words of encouragement and for being the awesome followers you are!

Take care.

2900 followers, 501st blog post and a giveaway!!

 

So, a little over 4 years ago I started this blog and I never really thought that just after a few short years I would have a following and a great following to boot! You readers out there make me feel so loved! THANK YOU! I realized that my last post was my 500th post. I can't believe I have had that much to talk about ;)  I was thinking this morning that I should give away something that I love in celebration of this little milestone of mine. It had to be something special - and I want you to know that it comes out of my personal stash. The reality of me just hoarding this fabric and not getting to it makes it a little easier for me to give it away to one of you. I am sure you will make something out of it before I would even have time to unwrap the corded ribbon ;)

 

How about this beauty of a Fat Quarter Bundle?  Sew Stitchy to be exact and I love it! This bundle is up for grabs in a random drawing.  Now, I would be lying if I said I didn't want more followers, I do - it would be the perfect start of an awesome day!  I want to get over 3000 followers with this giveaway - now, most likely you are already following because you are reading this post, but if for some reason you aren't - just click the follow button over on the left sidebar on my blog and make it official!

Here's the rules - just head on over to our website and tell me some of your favorite January - April 2013 precuts.  We have all our pre-purchase fabric on sale for 25% off.  This is a great way to be sure that you get the precuts you want before they are released to us.  So, that's it - just tell me what fabrics you love the most!  Good luck!  I will announce the winner in a few days! 

Oh, and follow me if you aren't already! ;)

This week!

 

This is were I was all week - in our office, sending out orders. The music was cranked up loud and we got a lot done, but we (Clint and I) still have a few more orders to get out. Thank you customers for being patient with us during our Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales - you will have your orders as soon as humanly possible with just the two of us sending them out to you if you haven't received yours yet ;-)

 

I managed to get a little quilting done, definitely not as much quilting as I would like to get done, but every little bit gets me closer to the finish line.

  

 

And, it's going to be fantastic! 

Have a fabulous rest of the weekend!

Randomness!!

Okay, this video has nothing to do with anything quilting, but I can't stop laughing at my sister's fear of ET. We had a wonderful weekend with family and Clint and I are currently working on orders, thanks to you lovely customers! So, watch this video if you want, or don't, it's up to you! Have a fabulous Monday - and for everyone out there, we have our in stock layer cakes on sale for $24.50, best price all year! And this price is only good for today! Take care!

Happy Thanksgiving, almost....

 

but then again, my Christmas tree is up already. Clint is ready to put Christmas up right after Halloween, so I just have to go with it and decorate the tree when he puts the tree up, luckily he gave me a couple weeks after Halloween before he put the tree up.  I promise we celebrate Thanksgiving over here, and for the most part I refuse to listen to Christmas music until after Thanksgiving. Anyway - it feels like true confessions over here - like it matters what we do, right?  

What we love most about this time of year is the time we get to spend with family. My sister, her husband and their 5 children will be spending Thanksgiving with us and I am so excited! There is nothing better than eating total comfort food with the ones you love. There are so many things that I am grateful for and family is always priority number one.  So, I just wanted to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving and I hope you are spending your day with the ones you love.

  

 

I'm going to turn off the quilting machine and not turn it back on again for a few days. It will be a wonderful little break, but I am totally excited to get right back to this one....Take care!!

Beth and her excellent applique skills!

 

So, first off - this quilt is Beth's. I have quilted several quilts for Beth and it is always a pleasure to quilt for her.  She makes me think that hand applique might eventually be fun to try ;-)  Her skills are just amazing.  This quilt pattern is called Stevie's Garden by Susan Smith and it has almost 650 applique pieces, WOW!!! I know it takes patience to quilt, but hand applique must take so much more patience.  I am always so impressed with quilts like this.  They are so beautiful!

 

I have to apologize if the quilt looks a little blueish - the background is white fabric, but I took these pictures when the clouds were out and it changed the colors. I did my best to fix them. Anyway - the quilt took me 17 hours to quilt - my back aches, but it was so worth the pebbling. I used Magnifico #2003 for the top thread and So Fine #401 for the bobbin thread - the thread worked nicely together.

 

Because there are a lot of circle applique shapes in this quilt, I wanted to add large quilted circles in the filler.

 

It is always tricky to quilt around applique and time consuming to go in between each little leaf, but again - so worth the effort.

 

Close up of the large circles with a swirl in every other one.  I love the look of the extra detail to the circles.

 

Random swirls throughout gives the quilting more character - that is why I love free motion quilting!

 

I just love this!

 

More close ups of the circles.

 

And, it is always tough to pick out a favorite section of my quilting when it comes to a random design. But, this swirl just worked out so perfectly that I think it is my favorite part of the quilting :-)

 

And the back - love it! Because the border fabric was so busy - in a good way - I just did my free motion feather swirl. When you can not see the quilting, no sense in doing a custom quilting job in that area, right?

 

 

Some of you have asked for a video tutorial on this filler - I will do that, eventually.  Sorry, it is a little crazy right now so I will let you know when I get a chance to quilt this filler again.

 

Last, but not least.  I love the texture difference between the border and the inside of the quilt. 

Thanks for letting me share!

2

 

Well, it is hard to believe this little monkey is 2!  It seems like yesterday I was in the hospital going through natural birth (I know, I am slightly crazy) to bring this little boy into the world. It was worth the pain, he has been such a joy and blessing to our family.

   

 

We could not get one good picture of this kid smiling, but I am ever so thankful to Clint for pulling this face - he tends to do this a lot - especially when I just want to get a good picture of us. So, I told him this time I would not hold back and this picture was going on the blog! Ha!

 

He was so cute blowing out his candles - and yes, I made his cake! Big step for me, I usually buy a cake - it turned out so yummy! Lucky for us we had family in town and were able to celebrate Noah's birthday with a big group.  It was so wonderful!

 

And we finished off the weekend with an incredible sunset. It is the small moments that help me remember just how much I love my family, each day with them is a gift!

PS - one more thing, the fabric line I am using for my baby quilt from the last post is called "Mischief" by Nancy Halvorsen.

What I'm working on this week...

 

So, this week has been an adventure to say the least. Between cleaning the house, taking care of the kids, laundry, dinner - I am making time for a little fun sewing. Multitasking is always fun, isn't it? I think us moms/quilters are pretty good at it. This current project is a design in the works, after the pattern is finished and the quilt is done, the quilt will go to a friend having a baby. It's a surprise though, so I cannot wait to give this to her.  I imagine this quilt will be in the works for the next few months because I am sneaking little bits of time for it in between all the other tasks.  Quilting is always one of those tasks.....

 

This filler is fun and random and I can not wait to share the finished quilt! I hope to finish this week, fingers crossed!

The past week

With all the positive comments that keep me going and the encouragement I get from you readers, I am always thankful to the people who make it interesting and keep it real.  You never know what you are going to get when you do a blog post and my last post was no different.  First off -  Wow!!  THANK YOU to all of the sweet comments you left me.  This blog started out as my business blog and in the beginning, it was boring to say the least.  As I have learned how to blog I have put more of myself into each post, turning this blog into more of a personal blog for me and not just a place to share sales on our pre-cuts or patterns.  I also share my quilting through my blog with a ton of pictures because I want to encourage new and seasoned quilters to improve their talents.

If you read up at the top header of my blog it says: "Green Fairy Quilts - Show and Tell, where it's okay to show off."  I don't want you to think that I am showing off or "patting myself on the back."  The reason I share so many pictures of my quilting is because I would have loved to have that inspiration available to me when I first started quilting.  It really is so hard to just get started quilting and I hope that through my blog I can help you new quilters get started along your own quilting journey.

This blog is my happy place, so party poopers stay away!  Life can be so hard sometimes and yes, I admit - I love it when you comment and tell me that you love my quilting - it makes it all worth it! The truth is I love quilting too, I love to share what I know - not because I think I am better at quilting than anyone else but because I believe that God gives us talents that should be shared.  So, when I say that I love how some of my quilting turned out - just know that I love what I do.  What would be the point of me quilting if I didn't love it, right?

I don't know why I feel like I have to explain myself, but if one person comments on how I am doing something wrong, then I start to think other people may think that too.  But, please don't worry - I am not wasting time worrying about it.  I have had a fabulous week with my family by celebrating my husbands birthday, going to Zion's National Park, and Trick or Treating with the kids.  Quilting is a huge part of my life, but it isn't my life - that being said, I will continue to share what I know with you and that includes lots of pictures of my quilting telling you how I love how something turned out.  No apologies ;-) So, I leave this post with a few pictures from the past week via Instagram - @judiakagreenfairy

 He's 32 and still the love of my life!

 Hiking in Zion's National Park with me is all Clint wanted for his birthday.

 It was the perfect day!

 The red against the cliff walls is just too amazing!

 Magnificent trees!

 Santa Clause and Halloween?  Add in ice cream cones and you have the perfect Trick or Treating night with the kids.

  The still mute, but growing kid.  This baby is almost 2!  I can hardly believe it!

Have a fabulous week!  Life is too short to be so concerned about what you think other people are doing wrong, just worry about yourself and learn to be happy for others and their successes!

Bonnie's Quilt all finished!!

First off, quilt stats. I took 29.5 hours to quilt this, I used 2 layers of Hobbs 80/20 batting (for detail to pop) and I used a gold Magnifico thread and a cream Glide thread. I have to say that I love both of the threads I used, this was the first time I tried out Magnifico and I was thoroughly happy with this thread.

Bonnie pieced this special quilt and she did a beautiful job, I love how straight the quilt was.  It is so much easier to work with a straight quilt.  The colors are perfect for this beautiful fall season.  Here is what the pattern is called and a little more info on the quilt in Bonnie's own words:

 

"The quilt is from the book Log Cabin Quartet, by Trudie Hughes. The pattern is called Shadow of the Bear. This quilt was challenging because of the small triangles. The pieced border re-uses the smaller paw that is in the bear paw blocks. The half-square triangles finishes at 1 inch. The log cabin blocks are off center and they create curves and movement in the quilt."

 

This first thing that came to mind as I was deciding how to quilt this particular quilt was the straight lines in the cream fabrics.  I felt like these lines would help to focus the center of the quilt.  I love how they turned out.

   

 I couldn't decide which pictures to leave out, so I will just put them all in here.  I love, love how this came together.

  

 

I decided on fun oval shapes in the corners instead of the continuous lines I used for the rest of the quilt. I had a lot of fun quilting this "first time" stitch for me.

 

To soften the quilt I used my free motion swirl feathers in the darker log cabin fabric strips. I loved using the gold thread on these colors, I think gold is my favorite go to color for a lot of quilts.

 

For those of you that are new to my blog, I free motion quilt on my A-1 long arm quilting machine.

 

I love this picture! Half inch quilted sections always take a long time, but the finished result is always worth it!

 

 

These straight lines ended up being about 3/4 inch apart, it worked great using the seams in the blocks as guides for my lines. I marked the lines before I quilted and used my straight edge ruler to get the straight lines just right.

 

The free motion feather swirls were continued in the borders.

 

A super simple stitch for the inside of the bear paws.

 

The square effect with the straight lines, I love it!

 

The free motion feather motif in the triangles are so fun! The original plan was to continue the straight lines through these triangles, but I decided to go with the feather motif to balance the quilting designs.
  

 

I really hope this post isn't picture overload, but it has been while since I have shared a quilting project and I just cannot get enough of this quilt.

 

 

And the back...

 

Thank you Bonnie for using a plain and simple quilt backing, makes it so much more fun to see the quilting.

 

Love ;-)

 

Love the corners of the quilt more....

 

The goal has always been and will always be that the back of the quilt looks as good as the front. I sure hope I have accomplished that with this quilt.

 

Thanks for sticking it out through the end of these pictures. It feels so great to get this quilt finished! On to the next one!