Malcolm's Quilts

Malcolm's crib quilt, which Susan always used as a wall hanging, and his big boy bed quilt are both, like Locke's, from the same design--sawtooth stars alternating with double four patches.  (This is a Marsha McCloskey design.)  In the first picture, the twin bed quilt top with its old-fashioned-trains theme fabric is showing.  In the 2nd picture, the quilt has its backing showing, which is a race car fabric.  Perhaps Malcolm has outgrown trains and moved on the race cars!  His crib quilt is titled "Basketball Kitties and Wintertime Bears," with the kitties being in the double four patches and the bears, in the sawtooth stars.  This crib quilt is one of the few I've hand-quilted.  I used the so-called utility stich or "big stitch", using perle cotton, with a design of fat, puffy stars.  It is much easier to do and easier on arthritic hands than is the traditional tiny hand stitches.  Incidentally, if you click on the photo of the crib quilt by itself, you can see the quilting better both in the border and in the center.    His pillows were also machine-quilted, and I am particularly fond of them.  One of them is made of a block I rejected for his first quilt, but the block was very nice and used the same fabrics.  The other two are the same block patterns in both of the quilts.  Folded up on the bottom of the bed is the fleece throw I made for Malcolm, which had a Thomas the Tank Engine print.

Two Youngest Grandsons' Quilts

Bit by bit I plan to show as many of my quilts on this blog as I can work in.  While in California, I wrote about Lia's quilts and dolls. Now it is Locke's turn.  First, his crib quilt, which Kathy chose to display rather than to use.  For it I used transportation-theme fabrics, with planes, trains, and boats.   His big boy bed quilt had the same theme, to coordinate with the wall border and the crib quilt, but there is less variety in the fabric choices.  For it, I added hot air balloons for the border.   I did use the same design as in the crib quilt, however, and this is probably the quilt design I've most often used--a sawtooth star alternating with a double four patch block.  (Malcolm's two quilts have the same pattern.)  I've made pillows for all the grandchildren, too, and you can see his on his bed.  I took this picture before I gave him his new fleece throw, so the old one is folded at the foot of his bed. 

Dawson's baby quilt wall hanging is called "The Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat."  Mommy Susan chose the design for his big bed quilt and wanted the plaids and stripes in soft greens and blues; many of these same fabrics were used in the wall hanging.   (If interested in seeing details, click on the images; the fabrics can then be seen much better!)

Malcolm's crib and big boy bed quilt will be the subject of another blog!

Blue Bonnets and Flat Stanley!

Today is a gorgeous, 70 degree, spring day. Our state flower is particularly beautiful this year, thanks to a cold, wet winter and spring!  The flowers are late in blooming, but once they came out, they came out in much glory.  I went around our neighborhood this afternoon, taking pictures of the Blue Bonnets.  Likewise the Indian Paintbrushes, which are mixed in with the Blue Bonnets in the 2nd picture!

And who's the little guy below, climbing our stairway inside our house, sitting in the pansy pot, and sitting amongst the Blue Bonnets?  Why, that's Flat Stanley!  Our granddaughter Lia let us have Stanley for awhile, to show him our house and other sites in Waco.  We've got lots more places to go, so you might be seeing Stanley again!

California Kids and Their Birthday Scrapbooks

The last two days have been non-stop scrap-booking for me!  On Monday Lia and I got to work.  She wanted to begin with her latest birthday and work back.  We got her 9th and then her 8th birthday pages (multiple pages for each) done.  I asked her to choose her favorite page for a picture, and this is her choice.  Today Locke and I began to work.  Oddly, I found this six year old much more "into" the scrapbooking than was Lia!  He wanted to go on and on.  With his book, which had barely been started, we began with his 2nd birthday and have just now completed the 5th.  So just one more to go for him, but it will have to wait, as my time here is running out.  I leave tomorrow on a 10:00 AM flight.  I'll leave all the scrapbooking materials I brought with me, though, and hopefully, on my next visit, these books will both be up to date!

Part Two: Easter Day

Easter Morning began with the Easter Egg hunt.  Lia is wearing the little sundress she and I made the day before; Locke still in PJs. We had a delicious breakfast of ham with cheese grits. Then we all dressed for church and left for a wonderful service.  After church we ate lunch--more of Lia's soup, ham sandwiches, with our tasty sugar cookie "blobs" for dessert.  Tonight we are anticipating an Easter feast for dinner:  steaks, Kathy's potato salad, no doubt other veggies or a salad, and our Bunny Cake for dessert.  We'll end the day watching the Lady Bears play basketball in the Final Four!

Part One: Easter Eve--Fun with a Few Baking Glitches

Easter Eve began with a fun visit to the Farmer's Market, held every Saturday in Newport Beach.  After browsing and buying, the family walked to a nearby park, kids on their scooters.  All along our walk from the car to the market, to the park, and then back, I kept snapping pictures of lovely spring flowers and blooming trees.  Later that day, Lia, Locke and I made the bunnyface cake.  Sadly, we had problems getting the cake out of the pan, so we contented oursellves with decorating it inside the pan.  We used decorating gel for the inside of the ears, red licorice sticks cut into strips for the whiskers, gum drops for the nose and mouth, and Hersey bar pieces for the eyes.  We made sugar cookies, too, and had another baking glitch:  the cookies spread all over the cookie sheets and the cute shapes of eggs, bunnies, tulips, and butterflies just looked like misshapen globs!  They tasted delicious, though!  The dough was well chilled, not overly handled, so why didn't it work?  A mystery, just like why the cake stuck to the pan, despite its being well-greased and floured!  Later that afternoon Locke and I worked on an Easter quilt and Lia and I, on the little sundress she wore the next morning for the egg hung!

We had a delicious Easter Eve dinner of baked chicken, rice, salad, and brocolli, with a starter made by Lia with her Dad assisting, fabulous Potato and Leek soup. After baths, the children dyed eggs, always fun!