Sometimes dreams do come true :)

Have you ever had a dream that came true? Yesterday I did....

About a year ago I woke up one morning and told my hubby about a dream I had that he was sitting on the couch holding

 2 baby girls dressed in pink in his arms.

 At the time, we had 4 grandsons

and no one in the family was pregnant.

 Then a few months later, our son and his wife announced that they were expecting a baby in May! 

Then 6 weeks after that our daughter and her hubby announced that they were expecting baby in June! 

And the story only gets better from there!

Both couples found out that they were having little girls!!!

Our sweet little Sofia Mae was born in May and yesterday we welcomed Evie Marie into our family!

This beautiful family of mine is my greatest treasure

 and the love we share for one another

is the greatest gift I could have ever hoped for :)

When our 3 yr old grandson, David

met his new baby sister yesterday,

he said that Evie is his best friend and he loves her. 

How can it get any better than that?

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights,
 who does not change like shifting shadows.  James 1:17

Welcome to the family Evie!

You are the fruition of a dream come true,

you are an answer to prayer,

you are truly a good and perfect gift from above!

Out of the blue.....

I went to Irvine this morning to drive my daughter to her baby appt (no baby yet) and then stopped by the grocery store on the way home. Just after I finished my lunch, I heard the mailman ring my doorbell.

When I opened the door I saw this red package on my porch! My sweet friend Jill had offered a

"handcrafted by Jill" giveaway on her blog a while back and I was a winner! I had completely forgotten about it and what a lovely surprise it was to receive a package from her out of the blue like that!

 She is so talented! She designed and made this adorable Fairy pincushion and can you believe that chicken painted on a sand dollar? It's a magnet! Yes....she painted it!

She also included that super fun red wooden shoe because she knows that I was born in Holland!

And 3 wonderful doll patterns!

There are people you will meet in life who are so wonderfully thoughtful and generous that when they give you a gift, it is always something that you truly love and not necessarily what they themselves love.

Clearly Jill is like that :)

 

Still waiting......

Yesterday I spend the better part of the day and into the evening at my daughter's house. Little Miss Evie's due date was the 20th and today is the 28th and as you can imagine.....Nana is anxious to see her little face! It looked like she was going to make her grand entrance last night. Kristina's contractions were pretty regular over the course of about 3 hours they went from every 12 minutes to every 6 minutes, lasting about a minute each. Then at around 9:30pm Evie decided to take the rest of the night off. So I went home to sleep in my own bed. When I got home my hubby told me that there was a package for me on the kitchen table!

I love getting packages of goodness

in the mail!

 I was surprised at how quickly it arrived! The fabric for little Miss Sofia's quilt is here! Most of the fabrics are from Riley Blake's "Sugar & Spice" collection. I had to hop over to M & L Yardage this afternoon and pick out 3 more fabrics to

 co-ordinate with them. I felt like I needed a few more fabrics to make the quilt interesting.

 I like the way they all look together.

I was planning on taking a little cat nap after my lunch...

but I totally feel this fabric calling to me.........

I just found out that Riley Blake is having a competition for quilts made with their fabrics on their blog.

 Click here to check out the details.

At long last......LOVE!

Ok....so this is our bedroom. My DH loves blue and by now you know that I love red! (And I absolutely love love love our wrought iron bed!) Do you know how hard it is to find a quilt that has both red and blue in it? Then try to find one with black accents. Almost impossible! I found this one at JC Penny 2 years back that had all my colors in it. It was never my favorite, but I figured at some point I'd stumble across one that I truly loved.......... Not so much as it turns out. I've had this crazy idea for the past few years that I could just make my own quilt. Sure.....why not? <----- insert hysterical laughter here. 

So I've been trying to find fabrics that would work. Nothing really blew my skirt up. I did have a momentary infatuation with Sweetwater's new "Hometown" line but the blue is really more an aqua and although I really do love the more modern fabrics, I'm more romantic at heart, especially when it comes to our bedroom.

Then last week.....it happened! Totally out of the blue! Totally unexpected! I was looking online to find a good deal on a jelly roll I need for an upcoming project and I fell totally in love with Moda's "Shades of Blue"!

 Creamy yellows, cozy shades of blue, dramatic black and hints of red! I had never even heard of it before! It must be an older print because it was hard to find it anywhere online. This one quilt shop had a jelly roll, layer cake, charm pack and some yardage. I didn't hesitate to buy it! Have you ever had an emotional response to fabric? No?....just me then :) I can't believe that I found fabric that makes me sooooo happy! I can already picture it on my bed!

Now if I could just decide on a pattern..........

My Dream Home is finally finished!

OK.....so it's not exactly my dream home, because if it was, you would see my oh-so-handsome hubby on a horse wearing a red and black checkered flannel shirt smiling at me with his big toothy grin and at least 4 chickens running around by the sunflowers. Other than that, I could totally live there and be happy :)

There is something so satisfying about being able to take this project off of the frame after 6 longs months of stitching. I started this just after Christmas. I stitched it on 18 ct light blue linen. If you like patterns like this one I highly recommend checking out Cross Country Stitching Magazine. Each issue has around 20 projects! Linda, the designer of these patterns is amazing! She has a heart for the Lord and it boggles the mind that she can continue to design these gorgeous patterns month after month, year after year! God has truly gifted her :)

This is a finished project I stitched for my daughter last year also from one of her patterns.

The timing is perfect to be done with my cross stitch because I just finished the back of Evie's quilt and now I'm ready to make my very first quilt sandwich and start the hand quilting!

Surf's Up!

It's definitely summer time in Southern California! For me personally, I'd rather have fall, winter and spring and just skip summer. I've always said that cold weather is so much better because you can always bundle up, but when it's hot...you can be naked and still not escape the heat. I get pretty cranky when its hot! (ask my hubby, he'll tell you). Praise God for central air! In the summer bad things happen with my hair and make-up and to subject innocent bystanders to my white legs in shorts is just not right. I'm not even going to discuss swimwear! I really don't think I could survive somewhere super hot and humid. You'd see my face on the news because I'd become a serial killer for sure. But I know some little boys who would miss trips to the beach and pool days at Auntie's house. So I guess I'll focus on the positives of summertime with my grandchildren :)

I've been playing around with an apron pattern in my head for a while and today I had a chance to try it out. It's easy to do and I may just do a tutorial on this one as soon as I have a chance. With summer in mind I made this "Beach Babe" apron out of dark blue denim and a fun Hawaiian print. I chose the same Fuchsia color in the flowers for the accent color in the hemline and waist ties.  I used Wonder Under to make a leaf and flower applique that I cut from the Hawaiian print and ironed them on and then top stitched them down. The large pocket that runs the entire width of the apron is divided into 3 sections.

Who knows, maybe a cute summer apron can give me the attitude adjustment that I need. It could work....right?

It's exactly what I was afraid of......

 I have loved the beauty of quilts for as long as I can remember. I have always wanted to learn how to quilt myself one day. If you know me, you know that I am an "all in or all out" personality. I was terrified that if I made a quilt, I would be hooked and it would become a new obsession for me.

 *sigh*

That's exactly what happened...... I just can't get enough!

At first when I had to cut all the fabric, I told myself that this hobby was definitely NOT for me. Too tedious. Then when I had to sew the 4 1/2" squares and then press them all and then cut them down to 3 1/2" squares, I told myself that I was NEVER going to do this again! But as soon as those beautiful pinwheels started to take shape, I knew I was in deep! It's kind of like childbirth really. When you hold that darling infant in your arms, you totally forget about the 9 months that you struggled to get there. The sleepless nights and fact that you couldn't see your feet anymore towards the end and the constant trips to the bathroom to pee just a teaspoon! It's all worth it for the end result! Standing back and looking at  my beautiful quilt top is very emotional. Hard to explain really. Now it's time to sandwich it together and do the hand quilting. I'm so glad that my first quilt, "my baby" is going to my "baby girl", Kristina,  for her baby girl, Evie, who is due any minute now! I know that she will feel the love in every stitch. And when I see my little Evie rolling around drooling on this quilt my heart will swell for sure :)

I just talked to April and she wants one for Sofie too! Yippie!!! Guess I'd better get busy, I've got some more cutting and pressing to do!