Vacation

I have just returned from a vacation to visit my brother and his family in New York.  The traveling party included my 4 girls, my sister-in-law's sister and her daughter, making my car completely full of girls!  This gaggle of geese arrived at my brother's house and had a great time.  I met my new nephew and delivered his quilt, which I have not shown to anyone yet.  I made the quilt top for his quilt at the retreat I attended in January and finished the quilting shortly after.  When I was trying to figure out what to make for him, I came across the fabulous Dr. Seuss fabric.  This was perfect and meant to be his quilt!

I just love the border fabric.  It has many of the Dr. Seuss characters on it.

A close up of the quilting.  Not perfect, but cute anyway.

As soon as we were safely home I decided to work on a clutch purse for Francis to match the dress I made a few weeks ago.  I found the tutorial at the noodlehead blog.  Francis loved it and couldn't wait for me to finish it.  I don't think I have ever seen her so excited about a trip to Joann Fabrics.  She rushed right back to get the zipper for her purse (I forgot it last trip).  There was plenty of scrap fabric left over from the dress to make this without purchasing anything except the zipper.  The gathers are not very visible in the photo, but they add an interesting element to the front of the clutch.  Hopefully she will wear the dress and carry the clutch for Easter.

While in New York, I had to have a souvenir to remember my trip to Syracuse.  What better keepsake for a quilter than some excellent fabric?  I found a shop that I thought would be good, set the GPS and drove over there one rainy afternoon.  The shop I visited was Patchwork Plus, which I discovered had been featured by Better Homes and Gardens.  This was a wonderful shop and I left with a few things to inspire my sewing.  This morning I finished one of the projects I had planned for the fabric.  Genavieve has another dress for the summer.  I love how it turned out and amazingly enough I made the bottom contrast so that all of the tulips are facing the correct direction.

The model was being moody, so she is not in the dress but is excited to wear it to church tomorrow. 

Tomorrow is the last day of my vacation and there are so many projects I would like to work on.  I wonder which one will win?

Heather