Starting a new family tradition

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My kids are getting more and more excited about Christmas and the holiday season, I'm so excited for them and for their excitement. 

For the first time this year we have a new friend visiting our home, "The Elf on the Shelf" we're pretty excited about him and he really is helping out with behavior here. 

Along with helping with behavior he will be delivering a small gift, if the kids are well behaved that day, a book. I read about a similar idea but decided to put my own twist on it. I joined in with all the crazies and hit some great deals on black Friday on kids books. I've wrapped each of the books up individually and then when they wake up in the morning there will be a new book for them, which we will read at bedtime that night. 

So far it's worked great. We love to read to our kids at night and the few books that we had in our collection, well we were all getting a little burned out on.

I'm thinking that next year the elf may just wrap books that we already have, but it'll still be a fun surprise!

Do you have any fun Christmas traditions? Or any that you are starting this year?

Silent Auction Quilt

The last four years I have spent a lot of time reading this blog. Their precious daughter died recently, it breaks my heart to read their story.  I'm not a person with mounds of cash laying around, but I do have the ability to make quilts. I recently made this quilt, I'll share more about it in a week or so, but I've decided to donate this quilt to a silent auction for the family. I had planned to take it to an auction tomorrow but I've decided to share it on here instead. I'm not looking for any recognition or credit for this quilt. I just want to help the family raise a little money to pay medical bills and for the funeral for their darling daughter. 

(all money raised by this auction will go to the McDonald family.)

Read her obituary here.

The quilt measures 53" x 69"

materials for this quilt and the machine quilting would cost you about $175. not including the labor to make it.

The quilt "Skittles" was designed, pieced, and machine quilted by me.

I hold all of my quilts really close to my heart, I have never sold a single one of my quilts so this scares me to death.

 Please read their story and think about this family when bidding. 

So here are the rules. 

Bidding starts at $100.00 usd.

Bidding will close at 7:00a.m. MST. 11/22/12

Payment for the quilt must be received within one hour of auction closing. 

I will send you a paypal invoice for the quilt. Shipping is free.

Leave a comment with your bid.

Email address must be left in bid or emailed to me (nataliabonner2@gmail.com)

Thanks so much for your support!

Bidding has closed. My heart is very full today, thank you very much for your kindness and thoughtfulness to everyone who shared this families story and who bid on this quilt. Thank you so very much to Donna for purchasing the quilt. You are truly an angel. I hope you have a very blessed holiday season.

Mixing Modern & Traditional

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We all know about the ongoing debate over modern vs. traditional. Personally, I don't like to get involved, it's not worth it to me. 

I recently machine quilted this beautiful quilt that belongs to Ruth. When I received the quilt I immediately thought it was the perfect combination of modern & traditional.

So, when it came time to machine quilt, modern & traditional is exactly what I did!

I machine quilted very traditional feathers in each of the setting blocks, I love the subtle detail that they added.

The pieced blocks all have a geometirc spiral. I love the modern feel that it adds to the quilt. The borders, I also machine quilted, feathers, circles and a geometric spiral. 

I love the way it turned out!

See! Modern and traditional really can mix together and be friends! :)

A Jelly Roll Quilt

Heidi pieced this darling quilt from a jelly roll, plus a little yardage. It's such a pretty quilt and Heidi actually made it to donate to a school auction, how cool is that!

I machine quilted this cool feather pattern all over.

The quilt back was solid white so the quilting really showed off nicely. :)

It was sold at the acution last week, I attended but my baby couldn't make it the whole time, I sure hope it raised a lot of money because it really is a beautiful quilt! :)

Home Sweet Home Quilt

Don't you totally want to just move into that little house! Too cute!

Coni pieced this darling Home Sweet Home quilt from Lori Holt's pattern.

I custom machine quilted it for her, adding little details to make you want to move right in! 

Pattern is Home Sweet Home by Lori Holt of Bee in My Bonnet, available for purchase @ Fat Quarter Shop.

"Orange Slices" ~ Beginner's Guide to Free-Motion Quilting

So, here is one of the fun parts of my new book, Beginner's Guide to Free-Motion Quilting, the six quilt patterns in the back of the book. I really love to design quilts so I just had to have quilt patterns included in the book.

I thought it would be fun to re-make the quilts in different colors/fabrics. I hope to re-make all six of them but I don't know how the next year will play out... So far I have 2 of them re-made.

This one is "Orange Slices" it's the quilt that is featured on the cover of the book, I love it, but I'm a little partial right now. :)

"Orange Slices is a simple appliqued quilt, made originally from solid fabrics in two colors -- white and of course, orange. It's fun made as orange slices, but it would also be darling in yellow (lemons), green (limes), or pink (grapefruit)! The quilting adds lots of interest but creating the appliques with prints would add even more texture."

Moda fabrics recently came out with a whole bunch of darling new solids. When I saw them I knew they'd be perfect for this quilt. So, Kathleen and I re-made "Orange Slices" with 17 of the new Moda Bella solids. I wish I could tell you the name of each of the colors but I didn't even keep track of them as I made the quilt. :)

I have a few signed copies of  Beginner's Guide to Free-Motion Quilting available here.

Unsigned copies are also available @ Fat Quarter Shop or on Amazon.

Merry Merry Snowmen Quilt

Christmas prep is in full swing here!

I love this time of year, it's crazy, busy and so fun to be able to help my friends complete their Christmas gifts. :)

Last week I machine quilted two of this darling Merry Merry Snowman quilt, I also quilted one a few months ago, it never gets old, so cute!

Of course lots of custom machine quilting, lots of detail to make those snowmen pop!

This version the snowmen are made from wool, the other one that I quilted they were not, it's cute both ways!

Pattern is Merry Merry Snowmen by Ann Sutton and is available for purchase @ Fat Quarter Shop.

Rip It ~ Rip It!

Yesterday I had a great date (insert sarcastic voice).

I had the opportunity to spend 8 wonderful hours with my sweet seam ripper.

Actually to be totally honest, no it wasn't fun, I wouldn't wish seam ripping on anyone, however, it was so nice to just sit, and do almost nothing. I think I'm always running and never just sit. The first couple hours my kids were sleeping, it was so quiet, I loved it, I didn't even turn the TV on, I just enjoyed my quiet time ripping. :)

photo via my instagram

I also have a pretty sweet seam ripper that makes unpicking quilting stitches not so horrible.

It's Alex Anderson's 4-in-1 Essential Sewing Tool.

Seriously, this thing is awesome!

Here are a few stats from C&T:

• Flat-ended presser cap for finger pressing, folding, burnishing 
• Super-sharp BERNINA seam ripper for fast "unsewing"
• Pointed wood end cap for turning bias tubes and doll parts
• Extra-long stiletto protects fingers while pressing and machine piecing
• Won't roll off your work surface! 

I will also add to that, the tool is large enough that when holding it for hours on end your hand actually doesn't start to ache. :)

Available for purchase here.

Hope you all have a fantastic day! After "unsewing" all day yesterday, today has got to be a better day! :)

Raining Cats & Dogs Quilt

Amy pieced this darling "Raining Cats & Dogs" quilt, made from Ann Sutton of Bunny Hill Designs pattern.

Her patterns are always so dang cute, and so much fun to machine quilt! :)

 I custom machine quilted this quilt for Amy, I had a lot of fun doing so! I quilted a lot of different details in each block. So cute!

Pattern is Raining Cats & Dogs and is available for purchase at Fat Quarter Shop.

2012 ~ The Year of the Chevron

I'm pretty sure that 2012 will go down in history and "the year of the Chevron", the quilts the fabrics, they are all so dang cute.

 I've machine quilted quite a few Chevron quilts this year and also machine quilted quite a few chevron patterns on quilts, they are so cute!

Last week I machine quilted two different chevron quilts, one custom, one with straight lines edge to edge. They are both super duper cute!

Below are links to a few other Chevron quilts that I've machine quilted recently.

This is a quilt that I machine quilted with an all over Chevron pattern.

This is a Chevron quilt that I machine quilted.

These are a couple baby Chevron quilts that I machine quilted.