Unlike most people I clearly remember the Independence Day Bicentennial celebration in 1976 (yes, I'm that old). And now we're celebrating the 250th! 

I've added this wonderful decorative 10" wide pillow to the Etsy shop, it's almost identical to my 7" pillow and the two complement each other perfectly.

 

I'm on a short break from markets so getting the shops filled and lots and lots of fall and winter items ready for season, so keeping checking the Jude Harbor and Because I'm Me shops for new "must haves".

 

Quick foster update, since I haven't mentioned that in years (side effect of not posting much in years). I now have two darling toddlers in my care. Both are 17 months old - they're not twins but are four days apart, so it's like having twins. And both are amazing. I have to admit that I do a horrible job keeping up with pictures of them since most of the time I'm holding at least one of them ... but if I am able to get a nice picture I'll share it. :)

  

 

While I absolutely love baby bibs with fun prints and designs, sometimes I really love my baby's outfit more and want to show that off. I needed simpler "coordinate with everything" bibs for him ... so I made some. And they're now some of my favorites for him.

 

So I made more, because of course I want to share. :)  White eyelet, green gingham, black gingham, tan linen, and blue linen can all be found at JudeHarbor.com and in the Etsy shop. 

 

Oh my gosh, I saw the cutest pattern for these and had to make some! They've been a great seller at local markets, and it's easy to see why.

 

Both the watercolor palm trees and the floral/plaid bibs are available in the Jude Harbor Etsy shop. 

As is often the case, I saw one of these somewhere and thought they'd be fun to make. So I made some. And they were not fun to make. They took forever and did not look good. In fact, the first ones looked BAD. 

So I walked away and while on my way to get the baby from daycare I thought up a solution. Got back home and tried again. Meh. Somewhat better, still super time consuming and the finished look wasn't consistent.

 

Slept on it. And come up with a new solution and now I'm happy with them. I did put one on Lucy, the cat, to see how it looked and it's a winner (she does not agree, however).

 The fish/oranges and bones/rainbows are available in the shop. The others will be available at markets.

 

And if you're taking on this little project - I'm no expert but I'm happy to share what I've learned and what worked for me. :) 

 

 

 

I had so much fun designing and appliqueing this quilt.

 

I had many already made blocks for Lori Holt's Bee In My Bonnet Granny's Garden Sew Along Quilt and then had a handful of the background circles all ready to be used. I opted to make a quilt with the Granny's Garden blocks and then a similar, but more masculine, second quilt.  The quilt with the Granny's Garden blocks was claimed by my sister immediately, so much so that I didn't have time to get many pictures of it! I now introduce the more masculine version of this quilt, still using Lori Holt fabrics but differently.

 

Instead of following the same applique technique in the first quilt I did raw edge blanket stitch applique on this one. The eyes of the whale and fish are circles of Minky, and the mast of one of the boats is a satin ribbon.

 

The backside is pieced from six fat quarters. 

You'll find this quilt in the Jude Harbor Etsy shop.

 

 

 

First, I love this cream succulent/cacti fabric that this quilt was created around.

Second, my grass looks like crap. We're experiencing the driest winter in many years and it shows. Lakes are low, even the Everglades is extra dry in some areas, and fire risk is high. It has been raining a little bit this week though, with more rain in the forecast, so hopefully we're on the way back to normal. In the grand scheme of anything my grass in super unimportant and only bothers me when I'm trying to take quilt photos ...

Back to the girly little patchwork quilt, when I got this fabric I knew exactly what I was going to make from it. And I couldn't be happier with the results. The green, pink, and blue fabrics tie it together so well and the tan linen is so pleasing and calm.

 Available in both my stand-alone shop and Etsy shop.