A Good Mother Makes a Happy Home...

Yesterday was my sister’s birthday and she's in town right now with her kids.  We’re heading to my mom’s tonight to celebrate as a family.  Actually, both my sisters and their families have come to visit so we've been having a great time, especially with all the kids running around together.  

I’ve been working on a mini quilt (whose design I took directly from Sew Mama Sew --  I think) and it seemed like a great birthday gift.  I just wish that I put onto it the words “A Good Mother Makes a Happy Home”.  My mom has had a plate that hangs in her kitchen with those words on it for as long as I can remember, and this mini quilt would have been a perfect backdrop for that saying.  

I am also working on a second mini quilt, but I’m not nearly done with it.  I found it in a book by Kathreen Ricketson, called Whip Up Mini Quilts.  I didn’t follow it exactly.  I made my own bird entirely, and reoriented the quilt a bit.  But I certainly enjoyed using her ideas.

I'm not sure how to quilt it, so I'll need to think about it a bit.  I think I'll embroider the details onto the bird before I begin quilting, so that I don't need to think about defining it during the quilting process.  

I thought these mini quilts would be an easy and fun way to work on my machine quilting skills a bit.  

Working on texture for sky.  I used a freehand spiral that I think worked well with the fabric.

Here's a close up of the grass.  I tried to ground the quilt with a texture that would feel very different from the sky.  I think it worked.  

I’m still working on an “Indian Throw Quilt” that I started a few months ago.  I’ve been quilting chrysanthemums onto it, and it’s going well, but it is time consuming.  I’m nearly done with the quilting (hopefully this week will do it) and then I need to think about binding.  But I do see the light at the end of the tunnel.   

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts.