I am excited that my “Blissful in the Clouds” quilt was selected to be in the special issue:

Blissful in the Clouds originally appeared in House of White Birches’ “Log Cabins Today” last year, and now it makes a second appearance in Inspiration for Precuts.

If you look closely, you can actually see how the blues in the quilt background turn darker toward the bottom of the quilt center.

My kites are made of a combination of log cabins! Gotta love those log cabin blocks, eh?

I used a multi-colored rick rack for the tails of the kites.  Miss Baby is really fascinated by the “color-changing” rick rack!

Quilting is in line with the theme.  I quilted shapes of clouds in the background.

Inspiration for Precuts has more than 30 featured projects for your quilting pleasure.  You may purchase your copy at newsstands, or online (print or pdf).  Blissful in the Clouds on page 58.

That’s all for now!  Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you have a fantastic weekend!  It might be too cold and wet just yet for us to fly a kite where we live, but I do hope  to take Miss Baby to a kite festival coming up in our area in a few weeks!

…. from the days they were in the nest in the original Nestlings!

I want to thank you for the get-well-soon wishes.  I am still on the mend.  I am feeling a bit tired of this flu/cold bug!  But I suppose I shall get well soon enough….   Blessings to you all!

Sorry it’s such a quick post, but I am going to lay down for a little before my little one is up.  Hope to catch up with you very soon.  Hugs to you all — love this kind of hugs, at least you won’t catch my bug, eh?

Here is another free pattern for you, designed by yours truly for Benartex using their Covent Garden fabric line.

Click here to access the pattern instructions.

Enjoy!   Have a great day!

p.s. Click here for the table runner pattern instructions I designed for the same fabric line.

I love how my sister did the piped icing on the cake!

The cake goes perfectly with my Lady Carlyle dishes.  Would you join us for a piece of cake?  Miss Baby has been asking, “Piece of cake, Mama”?

This has nothing to do with the cake, only the china.   I love my Lady Carlyle pieces.

The porcelain blings proved to be too much for Miss Baby, and she had to have a part in my fake tea party.  Here you can see her handling one of my precious Lady Carlyle for the very first time.  No, I wasn’t too nervous as the Lady Carlyle pieces are still relatively easy to replace.   See the bling she had draped over her neck?  I promise you I thought I had put those bead necklaces up after Christmas…

And here Miss Baby proceeded to cut the cake with her toy knife, with the cutting side up!

Things went a bit chaotic after Miss Baby took an active interest in my staged photography session… you can see her dime-sized cup and saucer she insisted placing by my china pieces, and how she insisted on hovering in the background when I tried to capture a few last shots.  Nap time was imminent, so we packed up our props, and went upstairs shortly after…

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you have enjoyed our special cake as much as we have at the Ivory Spring household.  My sister sent more felt food items.  I will show you more as we go along.  Have a great weekend, everyone!  Blessings to you.

I have spent quite a few hours agonizing the tree you see in my sketch.  I imagine I will spend a couple more hours on it before I transfer the concept to fabrics.

Thanks for stopping by!  I hope you are doing well.  Be sure to come back tomorrow — I have something adorably sweet to show you!

This quilt design is totally dedicated to a beginning quilter.  I remember how I had wanted to make something not so beginner-looking with my beginner’s skills when I first started quilting.  So I always keep that in mind when I design to see if I could make an “easy to make and yet looks a bit sophisticated” quilt.  If all things go well, the design will be published later this year.

I have got to run!  I will catch up with you later.  Hugs to you all!

As you can see, my feathers aren’t terribly big.  It’s harder for me to quilt big feathers on my domestic machine.  So, I generally keep mine on the small side.  I tend to have a better control on the flow of the individual feather lobes.  If you have trouble quilting your feathers to your satisfaction even after applying this principle, you might try tweaking with the size you are quilting your feathers.  Let me hear from you if that helps!  Till next time.

[Berman Museum: Quilt-Pomegranate c.1860-1875;. Cotton fabric, thread and batting;Permanent Collection, from the Pennsylvania Folklife Society.]

[Arkansas Historic Museum, y Elizabeth Rogers Manning (or daughters Martha or Elizabeth), Cotton de laine, C. 1850, 92” x 90”]

[Indianapolis Museum of Art, Early 1900's, Cotton Applique, 72 1/4" x 74 1/2"]

My Candied Pomegranate quilt, featured in Quilter’s World‘s Feb 2012 issue, is an attempt to “update” the traditional quilt pattern with a fun, sweet and whimsical feel.

[Image from www.quiltersworld.com]

I used fabrics from Henry Glass‘ Tidbits’ collection to achieve the look I was trying to achieve.

You can see here I used fun star buttons to complete the whimsical look of the blocks.

Now to the quilting – I did feathers for the background quilting, and stitched along the applique outlines to give my applique a bit of “pop”.  The quilting thread I used is Aurifil Mako 50 Cotton (Color 2310) over Hobbs Tuscany Silk Batt.

There are more feathers quilted on the border:

I simply have to show you the sweet fabric I used for the backing:

I hope you liked my Candied Pomegranates as much as I do!   Thanks for stopping by.  Have a lovely weekend.

1.  French Bouquet (House of White Birches, April 2011)

2.  Starry Pursuit (Fons and Porter, Easy Quilts Winter 2011)

3.  Quilting Around Applique Block (Quilter’s World, April 2011)

4.  Nestlings (The Quilter, April/May 2011)

Thanks, everyone!  I am inching back toward my routine as you read this post.  I shall catch up with you later.  Hugs to you all.