Almost Complete

I have all of my Farm Girl Vintage Quilt blocks sewn together. I still need to add a border and get it quilted. The final step will be to add the binding. There is a total of 48 blocks. I am looking forward to having the project finished. I had never made 6 1//2-inch quilt blocks with so much detail before. I learned a lot about my sewing skills and over the course of construction, I also was able to work on the areas that I needed some improvement on.

I am glad I participated in our Quilt Guild's challenge.

Amazing

It is amazing to me how a "friend's birthday" can draw us back to our paper crafts.  Yesterday we were celebrating Daan's birthday. Today he turns 80. I looked through my cards but didn't find one that I wanted to use. After looking through my stamp inventory book, I came to SU's "Enjoy Life". This set had the perfect stamps.

You see, Daan has Parkinson's Disease just like my husband. He sometimes has trouble walking because of his freezing. BUT when he gets on a bike, he is free and can ride for miles. Actually, there are a total of four couples that have become very close friends over the last two years. All of our husbands have Parkinson's, but more than that, we all love the Lord. We enjoy being together. We all have similar interests. Yes, our husbands have Parkinson's but that does not define who we are. We all still have an identity. We love doing the things other couple's enjoy doing. It may just take longer for us to accomplish the task. Of course we are each limited from doing certain fun things. Often time, I feel excluded from social events because we have to deal with these certain limitations. These friends understand.

So I want to share my card with all who come to my blog.

Here is a list of the items that I used--

Stamp sets --  Stampin' Up "Enjoy Life" and "Bloom with Hope"
Card stock --  Pacific Point
Ink --  Gina K Designs Black, SU Soft Sky, Brocade Blue and Pacific Point
Accessories --  Make up brush for sponging

For the sponging, I used one of the new make-up brushes that I received as a gift. I was really pleased with the results. I love the softness that the brush creates.

I hope have a beautiful day. Our Michigan weather is perfect today.

Circle of Friendship

I love the "Friendship Star" quilt block. One day as I was looking at different quilt blocks, I came across a picture of the friendship star blocks. The unique pattern placed the stars in a circle. I immediately fell in love with the pattern. As I looked further, I came across a picture of a graph for the pattern. I decided what size I wanted each square to be and then I got out my own graph paper. I had collected a number of fat quarters that featured the same design -- just different colors. So that was what I decided to use. The background fabric was a charcoal black Kona fabric. I had always wanted to make somethings with a black background. So I set to work.

The results----

Each of  the individual finished squares measures 3-inches. The quilt finished to a 31-inch square. I did the quilting on my Pfaff  Quilt Expression 4.2. I have had my machine since the first of May. Love it's features. I did my quilting by stitching down each seam using one of my decorative stitches. When I finished, it looked like the quilting was too far apart so I stitched in the middle of each row.

Finished!