New Year’s Hike

January 11, 2012March 19, 20131 Comment

It’s January and I’m already behind on my blogging. It’s a good thing I didn’t make any kind of resolution about that!! We had a wonderful holiday full of family and friends. To kick off the new year in a healthy way, we took a hike with our friends to the top of Calico Hills in beautiful Red Rock Canyon.

Janice and I have been friends for nearly 18 years and we still feel and think of the other as the friend we met in our 20’s!!! She has one daughter the same age as mine and our husbands are great friends, too. We loaded up the crew and took them all up the mountain on a clear January morning. It was unseasonably warm and our spirits were high.

Janice is about as passionate about photography as I am about quilting and she snapped this family picture for us. Here’s to a great new year!

Funky Monkey Scrap Quilt

December 27, 2011March 19, 20134 Comments

My sister adopted her second baby boy this past summer and I couldn’t be more thrilled. His nickname is Jacob-Monkey so of course I had to make him a Funky Monkey quilt!

I started off with one of my favorite patterns which I’ve named Baby Bricks. I cut random scraps of 3 1/2″ x 7 1/2″ rectangles in a coordinated color scheme. My sister wanted green and brown so I combed through my stash of fabrics that would fit the theme.

Once the top was done, I felt that it needed something more. So I took one of the larger themed monkey fabrics depicting playful monkeys on scooters, with pogo stocks, hoola-hoops and more! I made my own iron-on appliques using light Steam-A-Seam 2 on the back side of the cream monkeys.

Then I appliqued them randomly on the top. I stitched around the edges of the monkey patches and randomly stippled the rest of the top. It turned out rather cute, don’t you think?

I used an allover “Goodnight Monkey” print for the back in brown and green.

Jacob seemed to like the cozy quilt. He took to it right away, chewing on it and looking at the monkeys.

It matches his car-seat carrier, too!

Merry Christmas from Christa Quilts and Family

December 24, 2011March 19, 20131 Comment

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Quilty New Year!We’ve had a wonderful Christmas! All of our extended family gathered around for Christmas Eve dinner and to open presents. It was fun to see my children’s excitement as they experienced the fun of giving and the joy it brought to others.

The younger kids and cousins made candy Christmas trains while Jason Sr. and Jr. battled each other on their favorite computer game. Ryan was off in the distance, admiring his new collectible card games. My favorite gift was a set of warm fleece pants & top, gloves and a scarf. I just love to be comfy-cozy!

Jenna got her very own sewing machine. Now we can both sew at the same time and work on projects together. Merry Christmas!!

Christmas Cookie Exchange and Recipe

December 16, 2011March 19, 20134 Comments

Yesterday, some friends and I had a really fun cookie swap. 12 of us met for dinner and we each made 12 dozen of the same cookies, then took home 12 dozen different cookies!

I used my son’s favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe. It calls for ice cream in the batter which makes them very rich.

Doesn’t the batter look delicious?

Here’s the recipe: 2 sticks butter, 1 cup sugar, 3/4 cup brown sugar, 2 eggs, 1 1/2 T vanilla, 1 1/2 T mint extract, 3/4 cup mint ice cream, 4 cups flour, 1 1/2 t baking soda, 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips.

Cream together wet ingredients; mix dry ingredients and add to wet mix to combine. With cookie scoop, drop onto baking sheet. Bake for 11 min. Makes 4 dozen cookies.

Jason Jr. made the dough while I spent 2 hours baking 144 cookies. The cookie scoop was fun to use. I packed each dozen separately so they were ready to swap for our party.

My fiiend Katie and I hosted the dinner at her house and we all swapped the cookies with recipes after.

Katie has the same model house as me. It’s fun to see how she decorated it, especially with fabric centerpieces!

It was such fun sampling all the different cookies and adding to my recipe collection. I ate as many of them as I could, then packed up the rest for my neighbors and friends. After a couple of days of indulging, I’d better hit the gym, first thing in the morning!

Family 5K Turkey Trot

November 25, 2011March 19, 2013Leave a comment

Each year my family has a tradition of running a 5K on Thanksgiving morning. This year we kept with our tradition but it was a little simpler and lots more fun!

Jason, our kids and I, along with Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt & Uncle (& the dog!) gathered up a few friends and ran a 5k (3.1 miles) in our very own neighborhood, rather than traveling across town for an “official” race, like we have done in years past.

We had a nice showing from our running neighbors and friends. We ran an easy course with light traffic and beautiful weather. Families with kids in strollers and bikes all got to participate in the fun, too.

My oldest son finished first with a time of 21:16 and my younger son ran with his dad. (My daughter and I did a shorter run so we could be there at the end to take pictures.)

My friend Marci (one of the fastest runners I know and last year’s winner), got to be the Turkey while everyone tried to catch her.

She ran with her kids this time so she slowed her pace quite a bit. I know she was sad to give up her Gobbler Crown but now it passes to my son for next year.

At the finish, we celebrated with bagels and snacks. Everyone who finished got a small prize, courtesy of ChristaQuilts.com. What a great way to start our day!

Happy Halloween – Toy Story Style

October 31, 2011March 19, 2013Leave a comment

Ok, so Jason and I are never too old to dress up for Halloween!

This picture was actually taken last Christmas at our in-laws house.

We all dressed up as characters from Toy Story and had a costume themed scavenger hunt with clues from the movie. We loved the costumes so much that Jason and I decided to use them again for this year’s Halloween fun.

Say hi to Jessie the yodelin’ cowgirl with the yarn-made braids and Sheriff Woody, the cutest cowboy in town!!

Our kids however wanted new costumes. Jason Jr. picked out a commanding “Star Trek” themed outfit, Jenna wanted to be a “cute” witch and Ryan looked just perfect in his police officer’s uniform. He rounded up all the kids and kept them in line!

We had a safe night of Trunk or Treating on Saturday (people from church decorated their cars and handed out candy from their trunks). Then tonight, we’ll head out in the neighborhood for more yummy treats!

Aren't these Witches Cute?

Community Carnival & Quilt Show

October 17, 2011March 19, 20132 Comments

As part of an outreach effort, my church recently put on a Country Fair for our small neighborhood community.

It was quite a show with carnival booths, free food, entertainment and of course a little quilt show!

Here are a few quilts that some church members made to share their talents. Many of them were donated afterwards.

I loved the set of Halloween charm pack quilts and the family tree quilt was simply adorable. Notice the little Sunbonnet Sue quilt to the right.

I also made a very special quilt that I’ll blog about in my next post.

The committee asked all the local bishops to take a turn in the dunk tank and Jason was a good sport to participate. To add to the fun, he dressed in a full dress shirt and tie and was dunked quite a few times. Thank goodness it was a rather warm October evening!

Each ward was responsible for creating and manning an activity booth. Ours did a Cornhole bean bag toss which everyone loved. My kids’ favorite booth was the cupcake walk!

It was a fun evening!

Baby Showers Galore

October 14, 2011March 19, 2013Leave a comment

I live in an area where I’m really close to a lot of ladies that I attend church with. Many of them are sewers, several are learning to quilt, and most of them are young moms. That means lots of baby quilts and oodles of baby showers!

I went to lunch this week to celebrate two friends and their baby girls. For my friend Alissa who has been hit by the quilting bug, I gave her this little wrapped up bundle for her new bundle of joy.

My gift to her is to teach her to make a quilt from it. I selected a pack of pink & green City Girl fat quarters along with the French Rose Buds baby quilt pattern.

We are going to have a good ole’ fashioned sewing bee while she puts this quilt together.

A few years ago I made Alissa’s first daughter the quilt below. I thought it would be cute for her to make a coordinating quilt for her second daughter. It’ll be “sew” much fun!My other friend Heather has 3 boys and finally had a sweet baby girl last month. She’s the one I made the pink and green French Roses quilt for. (See previous posts for pictures of that one). I had to snap this adorable picture of her cute little girl dressed in a day of the dead skirt with matching “Skull” cap! Perfect for an October outing, don’t you think?

It was hard to get her to wake up and the lighting was bad but it’s still a cute picture!

The skirt reminds me of the new Day of the Dead & Sugar Skulls fabric from Alexander Henry that I just posted on my website this week. Too fun!!

Quilting Retreat

September 27, 2011March 19, 20132 Comments

This weekend I attended my guild’s annual quilting retreat. It was an out-of town adventure that was just what I needed to get my creative juices flowing again and recharge my energies for the upcoming holiday sewing and gift-giving season.

The theme was “Girlfriends” and it was all about hanging out with your sewing buds and appreciating their friendship.

Here’s a picture of me and my BQF (best-quilting-friend) Stacy. We’ve been going to the retreat together for years and it’s the most time we get to spend together all year!

What friendship retreat would be complete without a Tea Party to top it off? During our Saturday lunch, the ladies all got dressed up in their sunday best complete with hats and flowers to go with the theme. Each table was decorated with a hand made tea-cozy quilt. These quilts were raffled off to guild members (along with other prizes) during the weekend. We love to win stuff!!

Tea Party

Stacy and I taught a class on machine applique while we were there. We used a pattern from the book Patches and Posies (available for sale on my website).

Teri Christopherson, the author, let us borrow her quilt as a sample for our class. It’s a great pattern for either hand or machine applique, using the button-hole stitch or traditional methods. I showed the class how to machine applique with fusible web and a decorative machine stitch.

Stacy's Posy Quilt

Stacy walked around the class helping and encouraging the students as we went along. We felt like it was a successful class when one of the students who had previously decided to hand stitch hers decided to put her machine to use after trying my method.

It was a fabulous weekend and I can’t wait to do it again next year!

If at first you don’t succeed, “tri” again!

September 20, 2011March 19, 20133 Comments

Wetsuits are NOT flattering!

This past weekend I raced in a triathlon along with my husband, oldest son and a couple of girlfriends.

This is a 3 part race that involves swimming, biking and running: the swim is 1/2 mile, the bike is 12 miles, and the run is a 5k or 3.1 miles. And that’s called the “sprint” distance!

I love to exercise and feel that it is an integral part of my sewing career. After all, if I don’t keep myself healthy, how will I possibly live long enough to make all the quilts I’m dying to create??

The family that bikes together stays together!

As with quilting, I have different fitness goals depending on the situation. My goal this weekend was to cheer on my husband and son while encouraging my two friends to complete their first triathlon.

This was my 5th triathlon so it’s pretty old-hat to me by now. I set modest goals and didn’t finish with a super fast time, but I got the job done and was pleased with the results.

The finish line is in sight!

Now that the race is out of the way, I can look forward to a different sort of weekend coming up: my guild’s annual quilting retreat.

I’m just glad it is happening the week after my race, not before, so I can eat a little more and rest a lot less! I’ll post again next week with pictures of all the fun I’m sure to have!!