Take Me To Paris!!!

Take me to Paris!

There is a very long story that goes with this quilt...  It all started about 40 years ago, decisions were made, choices chosen and lives were changed.  At the time, I'm sure no one thought of the future repercussions of those choices and the two kids lives they affected.  Even though at the time I was not involved in my husbands life, those choices made all those years ago, have impacted my life, as well as our childrens lives too.  As I made this quilt I thought of all the things we all missed out on.  Birthdays, weddings, having babies, Family Christmas's...luckily a few months ago my sister in law reached out to us and now our family has grown by three!  So now I have a wonderful new niece and that niece needed a quilt from her Aunt Jen!  Natalie has her room decorated in a Paris theme and her favorite color is aqua/teal so that was my inspiration.

 (My husband and daughter went out in some yucky weather so I could get pictures!)

 I found the perfect fabric for the top with help from my Sister in Law...

I tried so hard to match up the chevrons...this one turned out perfect!  Now I just need to teach my sister in law how to quilt so I will have an actual family member to quilt with!

Until next time...Happy Quilting

Jeni B Quilts

Quilting again!

After many months away from the sewing room, I finally returned!  Between Christmas and New Year's Aunt Susie asked for a couple of baby quilts and I worked them into my busy schedule (we had 5 Christmas's to attend) and whipped up two quilts over a couple of days.  The request was for a patriotic boy quilt and a girly girl quilt.  I did simple patchwork and everything except the binding came from my stash!

I also did very simple quilting.  After these two quilts, I got my quilting mojo back!  It was buried under crazy schedules and commitments, but now its back and I am so happy to be back at the sewing machine again.  There will be more quilts and other things coming soon!

Its only been 4 months!

Wow, it's November already!  I haven't been around much in the last few months, we have been so busy!  I did find some time in my sewing room...

July 4th shirts for the girls

A quilt designed by my youngest daughter (there is also a quilt designed by my older daughter, that will be another post)

Another quilt for Baby R (this took about three hours to make)

And a trip out west to visit my Sister in Law

And lots and lots of other stuff ...

Back in the saddle again!

This song is what I listened to when I came back to my sewing room and finally sat down at my sewing machine!  Back in the saddle by Aerosmith....

It felt good to be sewing quilt blocks again, but this time I have a helper, my oldest daughter!  She has made two quilts of her own with some help from me but she wanted one made by mom.  Last year she designed this quilt we called Denmark for her friend as a going away gift.  She wanted her design in fabrics I bought for her years ago and I persuaded her to go with gray for the background and she wanted us to do a tutorial too!  So we have been busy over the last week and will hopefully get things done in the coming week so you can make one of your own!

We had some mix ups and frustrations because she is a lefty and I'm a righty so I had to change everything to make sense for her.  We learned on the Denmark quilt what happened if she has to work as a right hander.

Luckily we have almost made it to the end! 

Finally back!

After a long absence I am back!  April, May and June are so busy for my family.  I have not had much time for quilting or knitting so nothing is getting done with either of those!

There were a lot of track meets...the 4X800 girls team my daughter is on made it to Sectionals this year

We took my sister in law, Jenni, up to St Croix Falls to start on the Ice Age Trail with Warrior Hike

Sean, Brian, Jenni and Natalie

You can follow Jenni's journey from the beginning on trailjournals.com  She had to come off the trail for a while due to some medical issues but she plans on going back in the next few days.

There has been much more going on but I'll keep it short and sweet!

The floor is DONE!

The Brain finished the floor today!

Now all that is left is 

painting the accent wall,

putting in the trim,

waiting for the furniture to arrive,

and getting the house back in order!

Almost there!

On another note...

Earlier today I had to go to Dubuque to order new track/cross country spikes for my daughter and we came home to this!

About 3 inches of snow!  I don't think Mother Nature got the message that Spring is supposed to be here.  I think I will send her another one!! 

Kitty Quilt

Among all the crazy that has been going on around here, I managed to finish my sister's Kitty Quilt!  Her birthday was Saturday and I put the last stitches in the binding around 11 pm on Friday night.

The only place to take a picture,with every other room messed up, was in our entryway.  My daughter was the quilt holder...

The back has kitties too...