He’s taken his Mom for a visit to the north GA Mountains and to see the boys. Chris took some wonderful photos this afternoon but he’s not in any of them. I’m so jealous that Keith gets to see Caleb and the boys without me!

I’m not a big fan of YouTube but I do occasionally watch a quilting video posted there and Adam posted a video of Caleb to share with us yesterday so that got me playing with my iPhone and the iMovie app to combine a few photos of Chesty with a short video to send to Keith with just a few clicks.

We’ve never been video fans and I usually forget that my camera has video properties but I can see how this might be fun to combine photos and short videos to send to family.

Chesty’s video

And not to bore you with family video but isn’t technology amazing? I know being so far away we’ll miss a lot as Caleb grows but I’ve watched this video of him cooing several times already.

Caleb’s video

Funny but when I got my new Pajama Quilter DVD and workbook, this wasn’t the design I thought I’d be quilting first but Dawn made them look so fun in the DVD I just had to try them.

My spacing could be a little better but that’s pretty typical of my trying out a new pattern. This is a little HeartStrings top I pieced during our last project.

Do you know what makes Dawn a GOOD teacher? She encourages you to have fun and to not stress, she tells you that you can’t mess up. So when I quilt a butterfly like this where I didn’t do a very good job of retracing my center, I don’t give myself a hard time.

And when I do one like this ….

and this….I tell myself what a WONDERFUL quilter I am.

I also found that I could space the wings out a little and have less of a line to retrace.

Dawn is such an inspiring quilter and a nice person … she even laughed when I called her Fern Ziggle design BLOB quilting when I posted my drawing the other night. That’s the next one on my list to try out but first I might see if I can find another top here to do this one again to help embed it in my brain.

I needed to run to the Mall of America and was able to coordinate with Sue to meet for coffee. It’s so convenient to take the Light Rail

Usually my life revolves around my quilting but lately quilting has revolved around my life ….in spite of that I am making some binding progress. This top was pieced by Sue in FL. I don’t know what pattern she used but I posted a brief explanation of how the blocks are pieced and now it’s bound and labeled and ready for donation once I wash it.

I’ve also been playing with EQ7 again – this time in anticipation of getting the new Dresden Plate die from Accuquilt. I’ve been planning to make a Fan quilt for years but haven’t wanted to do all the cutting. I’m not sure if I’ll use any of these ideas but I might. I love how easy it is to take an idea and quickly create different variations looking for the one perfect design.

The unveiling was last week and you can see photos and details at the Accuquilt site

I was awarded a generous gift certificate for my second place win and I’m getting ready to spend more of it with the new Dies coming out in August but having my design on the Accuquilt headquarters is the biggest thrill.

EDIT: Michelle requested I post another photo of my Barn Quilt.

For those of you who’ve bought the new Pajama Quilter DVD what’s on your drawing board?

I’ve got a small Heartstrings top that I’m thinking of quilting the little butterflies on and I love the blob quilting…I just have to find a top to try it out on.

Especially in the middle of the night.

The HeartStrings top was pieced by Sue in FL and quilted with my freehand Baptist Fans. Don’t you love the texture?

If you’re interested in more information about how I quilt my fans, check out the links on this page.

I’ve already got the Dresden Plate (which will also make a fan quilt) and the small Drunkard’s Path die on my shopping list….they’re available now for pre order.

Accuquilt GO – new releases

Is anyone else shopping?

I’ve been slacking off on the binding front so today I trimmed two quilts and got the bindings sewn on. The first one, pieced by Tish is complete with the hand stitching finished tonight.

And Adam sent me some new photos of Caleb ….this is my favorite one. Isn’t he cute?

I’m working in slow motion again but I did make some more HeartStrings blocks last night and today I quilted this top pieced during our last HeartStrings project by May in NJ.

I was tempted to do one of the flower variations from the new Pajama Quilter DVD but decided I hadn’t practiced it enough and did Wonky Flowers from Dawn’s last DVD instead.

Someone else is moving in slow motion these days. I came up from quilting and found him curled up in his bed.

Half the fun of having the toys is the finding new apps. This one, iMapMyWalk will track the mileage and the route I walk and allow me to take photos along the way.

Today’s walk included some stops because I prefer destination walking to walking in cicles. I had dinner at Brit’s and NO I did not eat all those fries! I love fries but only eat a handful of them.

At Dunn Bros, I pulled out my new Pajama Quilter Workbook and practiced a few drawings. I can already tell there are a few designs in here that will become standards for me along with the Wonky Feathers, Flowers, and Dwirling from the last DVD.

This time of year all I dream about is being somewhere on the water …so my July postcards reflect that although how successfully I’m not sure.

I’ve been wanting to play with some ribbon and yarn and try couching – there are a few beads in the first postcard for sparkle.

I’m not an artist so I’m not trying to make any great statements with my postcards but it’s nice to try new techniques on a small scale.

My base fabric for these is a hand dyed from Deb.

I’ve not mastered the art of holding a camera out and taking a photo of myself but it probably won’t surprise you to know I have a new toy. When my DIL mentioned that she’d been wanting an iPhone, I decided it was a good excuse to upgrade to iPhone 4 and give her my old one – now it’s time to learn the new features of the phone.

So since I was on my bike ride alone today, I thought I’d snap a photo from both the front and back cameras to share. Here’s another pretty view of the city, I’m just getting ready to ride into Boon Island Park and there’s the prettiest yard with lots of flowers right outside the gate.

I look kind of goofy I know!

We’ve been watching the birds this evening …. the babies sleep and then when Mom flys back with food there’s a lot of chatter. By the way, there are 3 birds not two, the 3rd one is in a smaller nest below the others. I’ve never seen a 2 story nest before!

Can you see the third bird on the left?

I had a question about the pattern that Sue in FL used on her quilt and unfortunately, most of the time I don’t know on these donation quilts which patterns were used but in this case it’s a fairly common string block.

Here’s an EQ drawing of 4 blocks sewn together. The light “star” is actually the foundation fabric.

In order to get sharp points, you’ll need to overlap those strings a quarter of an inch in the corner (this overlap is what will fall in your seam allowance).

You’d also want to decide how much of your foundation you want uncovered — I prefer a version like Sue’s that doesn’t have too much of it uncovered rather than a large amount of the background showing. I’d suggest you measure and mark your foundations on either side of the corner so it will be consistent.

Keith had to work today so I went back to the Habitat build myself. I was a little nervous after Wednesday because it was somewhat awkward being the only woman and not really knowing what to expect or do. Today there was a smaller crew and 2 other women. They divided us into 2 teams of 4 and the other team worked inside the house while the 4 of us worked outside framing the garage.

I know it looks like a lot of people but the others just came out when it was time to lift the walls into place. You can click on the collage if you want to see a closer view.

Here’s a photo that didn’t get imported from Wednesday - Keith and I near the end of the day.

And finally, one more picture just for VickiW. As I drove up this afternoon Keith showed me a nest that had been built right outside our front door. Obviously I missed the egg stage since there are two little hungry babies inside the nest.

Did you wonder if I was ever going to sew this week? I was beginning to think I wasn’t going to sew a single seam but today I found myself with the time and the motivation to start my blocks for our current HeartStrings project. I’ve finished half the blocks.

I think little Caleb is laughing!