Olivia's Butterfly

As many of you may remember, my niece, Olivia died this past April.

You can see the post HERE.

At her funeral we all released butterflies.

Olivia loved bright colors!

A few weeks ago was Olivia's mother, Cathy's birthday.

I decided to make Cathy a butterfly, just like the one I made HERE for the 

Nebo Modern Quilt Guild Mini Swap.

I really hope she likes it!

I spent a lot of time finding the right thought for the label.

The fabric is Mimosa.

For the quilting I went for whimsical with motion.

I even added Olivia's name into the quilting.

The KitchenAid Mixer

My sweet mother had her 71st birthday a few weeks ago.

She loved my mini mixer that Laura made for me (blogged HERE).

I decided she needed to have her very own!

I actually was going to do the exact same pattern, but there was no downloadable PDF :(

I remembered seeing a KitchenAid foundation pieced pattern a while back so I googled it.

Shazam!!!  There it was, as DARLING as I remembered it to be!

This was designed by the VERY talented Penny @sewtakeahike for Sew-Ichigo (Click HERE)

Even before I went looking for her pattern, I knew I wanted to use this Flea Market Fancy print for the mixer!  AND GUESS WHAT???? It is the very print she used for her pattern sample!!!

My mom's favorite color combo is blue, red and yellow.

I sure hope she loves it!!!

For the binding I used Emily Herrick's awesome ticking stripe from one of her collections.

I cut it on the bias for extra flare :)

(Actually, the selvage strip is also from one of Emily's fabrics too!)

For the quilting I did a few simple fmq designs to make the mixer and bowl pop!

I even painted my nails to match ;)

Foundation Pieced Ornaments

In my last American Patchwork & Quilting magazine, there were the cutest foundation pieced Christmas ornaments.  I knew they would be perfect for my sisters annual ornament exchange. :D

This is my first attempt at paper piecing.

These are 2.5" finished.

I was being SO smart and making a loop for hanging the ornament, and even hid the knot under the binding...

...but then I realized that there was NO way to remove the needle :P

I decided that they needed a cool packaging.

I looted my daughters stash and found this cute cardstock.

I looted my ribbon stash for, well, ribbon ;)

Next I found cellophane envelopes ;)

They turned out really cute :)

***Bonus funny story-  My 6 year old walked in and looked at the ornaments and asked what these little quilts were for.  It told him that they were quilts for gold fish.  He thought that was a great idea.  I told him the hanger was so that after the fish used it and it was wet, you could hang them on the Christmas tree to dry ;)  Later that day when I showed my husband them, my 6 year old was there.  When my husband asked what they were, my 6 year old answered promptly, "Gold fish quilts!"

Linking up with Amanda Jean over at Crazy Mom Quilts :)