Post 38-Quilt Market Quilt #2

This beautiful quilt was also featured in the RJR Fabrics booth at Quilt Market 2014. It is called Parasol. Very fitting, don't you think?

I love the three-dimensional quality of this quilt!

 I did a little research on parasols and tried to stay true to their feminine qualities in the quilting design. I chose a curved scallop design to connect all the points and used feathers and crosshatching to fill the open space of the quilt. However, I also wanted to accentuate the 3-D look to the parasol, so I added some simple angled and wavy lines.

Post 39- Two Comments = Two Winners!!

I had a lot of people visit my giveaway post, but only two people commented and shared their favorite summer activities (not sure why no one else left a comment?!) Oh, well! I'm grateful for my awesome friends Barbie from The Quilting Mill here in Utah (thequiltingmill.blogspot.com) and Annelize from the UK (byannelize.blogspot.com). Both these ladies are amazing quilters and had great suggestions of ways to spend the summer with my family! I only have one hexie precut bundle, but I'll be sending something just as awesome to one of you! Just message me your addresses ladies (at quiltingtogetherwithmindy@gmail.com)! And thanks again for your comments! :)

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Post 40-Fabulous Friday Giveaway!

It's the last day of school for my kiddos, which officially means summer is here, and I'm celebrating with a giveaway!

This will be the first summer in 10 years that we won't spend most days out in the pool in the backyard. Personally, I'm happy to not have a pool anymore. It was fun, but it was also a lot of work for me and my husband, and a lot of money. So now that our go-to summer activity is gone, I'm wondering what we will spend time together doing instead. I know you all have your own summer plans, and I'm hoping you'll share your favorite summertime activities with me and give me some ideas to do with my own family.

One lucky person who shares his/her favorite summer activity in the comments will win this awesome precut hexie bundle. I would love to hear your ideas even if you're not interested in the giveaway, so please share! And happy summer to all of you!

Post 41-Quilt Market Quilt #1

I've finally recovered from the past month of quilting craziness. I felt like a quilting zombie for four weeks straight! 

On top of quilting and moving, my son's soccer team was desperate for a coach. Feeling guilty, I signed up for the job! (I love soccer but I'm definitely not coach material. I still don't understand what off-sides means!) Luckily, my husband begrudgingly stepped in and took over. He was an awesome coach, but he did make me vow to never sign either of us up again!

Thankfully, soccer season is over and baseball season is almost over! And now I get to do some show and tell!

Two of the quilts that I quilted for RJR Fabrics for Quilt Market were more traditional and two were more modern. 

Modern quilts first...

They were designed by Patrick Lose and featured at Quilt Market. You can find pattern info. on Patrick's website (www.patricklose.net).

I believe this one is called 'Cascade.'

I absolutely love how colorful this quilt is!

I wanted to show a little bit of my designing process. I have a large piece of plastic that I put on top of the quilt and just start drawing. I use dry-erase markers that wipe away with water. I like them better than the regular dry-erase markers because they don't cause dust that can get on the quilt or rub on my hand when I'm drawing!

Like I've said before, my design inspiration usually comes from the pattern or fabric. This time it came from both. I used the wavy lines of the pattern and the bubble shapes from the fabric. It's a little hard to tell, but the speckled fabric is tiny octagons, so I quilted octagons instead of circles on that fabric.

I usually try a couple of different designs and choose what I think looks best.

And, of course, I love the colorful back!

On a personal note, a few events that happened in April:

Mia has the keys to our new home!

And this cute couple had fun at Prom!

Post 42-Just keep swimming!

DISCLAIMER: I just realized that I forgot to publish this post last month! (It's dated May 9, 2014) I had it all written up, but I must've gotten sidetracked before I clicked on the 'Publish' button. :( So the content is outdated but I still want it on my blog!


My post title reflects so well how I've been feeling these last couple of months! I've had deadline after deadline, from quilting, moving, parenting, and everyday life activities, and I have to keep telling myself to 'just keep swimming.' I'm not complaining, because I truly feel blessed with all that I life is offering me right now. But I do look forward to a little R&R sometime in the near future.

Back in March I was able to be a chaperone to my daughter's ballroom dance team competition. We traveled to Rexburg, Idaho and I had a blast getting to cheer her team on. They even tied for first place with their cha-cha routine, which happens to be my favorite routine. I love watching Jalie shake her 'thang,' especially in her fun frilly costume!

I returned home to two quilt challenge deadlines for HMQS. I signed up for both of these challenges back in November, so you would think I wouldn't have waited til two weeks before the deadline to start them. I actually had started both quilts back in January, but I ended up not liking one of them. So it was back to the drawing board. 

I love the way my AdornIt Challenge quilt turned out. Here's a picture of the markings I started with.

And here's what I ended up with. 

And a picture of the back.

The SewBatik Challenge was much harder for me. I struggled with the challenge fabrics. They honestly just weren't my favorite. But that's one of the reason I do these challenges. It forces me out of my creative comfort zone. I ended up falling in love with a free pattern offered on the Fons and Porter website called Little Wren. I thought the feathered stars would be perfect for the challenge fabric. What didn't really phase me (but definitely should have) was the word 'challenging' on the pattern. Have you ever seen volcanos made out of feathered stars? Yes, it's possible! It took a lot of unpicking but I managed to make it look somewhat decent.

Then a week before we were scheduled to move into our new home I received an email from Demetria from RJR Fabrics. She had seen my work on Instagram. (I'm still new to IG and only had one quilt picture on at the time, so it's pretty amazing that she contacted me.) She asked me to do a few quilts for Quilt Market. I've been feverishly quilting ever since and my new house is still a mess. I'll post pics of those quilts sometime soon.

Oh, and Eric and I celebrated our 19th anniversary!! Our stay at The Little America in downtown SLC was sooo relaxing. We both needed that break and are so grateful my parents took care of our kiddos so we could disappear for a day.