mini iron

Had to search high and low with all my quilting friends, but finally found Diane who had one of these mini irons. I was just about to start ironing my tree onto the background, but with all the intricate little branches I knew using a regular size iron was a disaster waiting to happen. This mini iron did the trick and it was so easy to use. I loved it. It's now officially on my wish list for upcoming Mother's Day/Birthdays/ Valentine's Day/Christmas, etc.
This is going to be a wall hanging and so far I'm very excited about it. After attaching the final borders, quilting around each limb will be my next big task. Wish me luck...

First attempt with a purse

So I finally hopped on the band wagon and found a purse pattern I really wanted to have and make. When I saw Heather Mulder Peterson's Bella Bag pattern, I knew I wanted to make it. I made the large bag from the pattern.
I used material I had purchased while I was in the Dominican Republic picking up my son from his LDS church mission. It's a fabric with embroidery already on it and I loved the colors. They didn't really have any quilting fabric, so I picked up this fabric instead. The pattern was easy to follow and would have been much easier if I had fabric that was the usual 44" wide, but this particular fabric was only about 21" wide, so I ended up having to piece the handles and make them a little bit shorter instead of having each handle cut from just one piece of fabric. I would have preferred to make the handles from the fabric used in the bottom half of the purse, but there just wasn't enough left. I used the grommets that just snap into place and I loved them. I will definitely be using them for many other projects. I used some fabric glue also in between the grommets like Heather recommended. The lining is just a blue/green plaid from my stash and I sewed 3 pockets onto it.
Can't wait to use my new purse now. I'm already looking at my stash to make another bag from this pattern.

Baptism quilt embroidery

I'm off to the quilter today, Terri Hair, to get Nikki's quilt beautifully quilted. She always does an amazing job and I don't mind paying extra for quilts that are meant to be very special. Here are some close-ups of the embroidery work I did on her quilt. The only one that isn't quilted is the scripture verse. I actually printed that onto fabric.