A Lil' Birdie Told Me

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to not buy any fabric, quilting patterns, or quilting books during 2011. I have made a commitment to only make quilts from the fabrics I have in my abundant stash.

So far...so good! :D

This is the beginning of a quilt I designed myself using a bird panel with coordinating fabrics. Let me tell you all about it ----

The quilt is made of two blocks - the pieced block and the birdie block. I wanted a block that would alternate with the bird blocks and frame them to add some pizzazz.

So I went to Quilter's Cache in search of a block that would meet my needs. (If you are not familiar with Quilter's Cache, it is a wonderful site that has blocks of various size. A gold mine for finding block and quilt patterns. Check it out!)

So with these five fabrics (the bird print will be used in the borders and for the backing), I created the alternating pieced blocks.

The name of the pattern is The Queen's X. I like the name of the block.

Next I 'framed' the bird prints with the wine colored fabric. This brought them up to the same size as the pieced blocks.

I love this panel fabric. These birds appear so gentle and serene as they sing to one another from atop their branches.

I then needed to rotate each pieced block to give the quilt its secondary design - with every other row's bird blocks being framed in either the peach or olive colored fabric.

Now just to get the rest of the rows sewn on there! I'm proud of myself for sticking to my New Year's Resolution. Only 8 more 'no-fabric-buying' months. I know I can do it!

Thanks for stopping by for a bit,

denise :D

God's Wonder Full World

Last month I had the wonderful opportunity to attend a women's all-day retreat at my church. "Wonder Full World" was hosted by wonderful women who shared their love for us and Christ.

We began the day by choosing a postcard from our dream vacation. I chose a postcard that looked like the Netherlands with tulips and green rolling hills and a beautiful old church-looking building in a quaint village.

Then we got to be royality for a day in our vacation spot. Here I am as Duchess Denise! I even got to wear a crown. We answered some questions about how we would live in our kingdom. I will travel by carriage and all the houses will be required to plant flowers in their yards.

These lovely ladies were my travel companions - (from left to right) LeClaire, Elia, Me, and Dorothy. I was so blessed to spend the day with them as we travelled around God's Wonder Full World.

As a group, we created our perfect best friend. Here Elia shows her in progress.

Our new best friend...She has a heart of chocolate, wears an angel halo, she's a Christian women, she likes to shop (has her purse), and has long arms to hug us. Her colorful hair represents all the beauty that we as women possess.

A part of the retreat is always some kind of service project. This year we made blankets for the less fortunate. As we tied the edges we said prayers for the unknown recepients of these prayer blankets.

I thank the Lord for this special day spent with very special women. :D

Blessings to each of you and yours,

denise <><