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I can't believe it's been over a month. So, quick party highlights. The Boy turned four last month. He'd helped me decide on airplanes and helicopters for the party theme. (Note: he's planned out the themes for his next 12-15 birthday parties. I think #18 is supposed to be a space theme.)

Party Favors. I missed getting pictures of the goody bags, but I was able to find airplane and helicopter themed books at a variety of reading levels for the 1- to 8-year olds that were at the party. I also included these cute little foam airplanes.

The Cookies. I featured the Birthday Airplane Cookies in a post last month.

The Cake: We added helicopters (and that awesome helipad made by Uncle Chris!) to a two tier cake by Nothing Bundt Cakes.

Activities included the art table, bubbles, sidewalk chalk and various backyard games. We also had paper airplanes. I love the feel of a relaxed backyard party with lots of different options.

The Outfits. Bonus pics of The Girl and The Boy in previous posts.

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Around about 2002 I decided I wanted to start quilting. I grew up in a house where my mom was always sewing so I had picked up basic sewing skills, but none of my close friends or family members quilted. My mom made exactly one quilt when I was a kid, and vowed never to make another. I got myself the book Quilting for Dummies which I found to have great information on the basics for getting started.

This is actually the second quilt that I finished, but it is the first that I pieced. I didn't realize before I started piecing it that they hadn't left seam allowances for the corners of the 9-patch blocks to not get cut off when the borders were added. What a major bummer for my first project! But it taught me always to double check a pattern before using it. I used a walking foot to do some very basic quilting and the binding was done by folding over the backing fabric (the one and only time I did this, before moving to using a bias binding). I stitched a "label" on the top of the binding. It reads: My First Piecing by Sarah. It wasn't really my first quilt, since I finished a lap quilt before I actually finished this one.

My 9-patch blocks are 6" finished squares and the whole quilt finishes out at about 21" square, a perfect table topper size. These are not currently my colors... I'm not sure they ever were or how I settled on them for my first project. Mom loves them though, and I'm glad that she enjoys the quilt.




 

I'll be linking up to Quilty Flashback Friday.

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The last week has been a little crazy with all the blog traffic from The Secret Treasure Room post going viral. I'm amazed at how many people have seen my project and that it's been translated into at least four other languages. Welcome to all my new blog followers! It's been a pretty productive sewing week. Unfortunately, I can't show you what I've made the most progress on since it's a challenge quilt I'll be submitting by the end of the month.

I did make some other progress that I can show you. This philanthropy quilt for my guild (pieced by another member) has been prepped and pinned to quilt. If I can get the quilting and binding done by this weekend I can drop it off during Monday night's meeting.

I also started real work on my A Lovely Year of Finishes August goal. I've attached the two appliqued pieces to my mug rug and it's ready to quilt. This was my first attempt at turned edge machine applique and I'm pretty happy with the process and the result. Not sure if I'll knock out a few more mug rugs for practice or jump into using this new technique on The Girl's cuddle quilt that's waiting for some sea life.

I'm linking up to Linky Tuesday, Fabric Tuesday, Let's Bee Social and WIP Wednesday.