This summer…

…is slowly turning into fall. Fresh, almost chilly mornings are here (regardless of how hot it becomes during the day), and I love it!Speaking of turning…I turned big 50 this July!! Whoa! But all is good here – I don’t have any dark or sad thoughts about it, I am grateful to be healthy, to have an amazing family, great job and my passion for self-expression through quilting and photography…Really, how could anyone complain and think sad with all that?!
Speaking of photography, here is 50-year-old me at my wonderful, so full of love, family birthday party, with the love of my life – my dear hubby and the beat of my heart – our amazing kids.I really am soooo lucky and soooo grateful!

 Needles to say, this photo is going into a nice frame and in the new family photo gallery, in our newly renovated family room. That was one of the house projects this summer that kept us pretty busy over the long 4th of July weekend…Lots of work, but it was worth it – now that kids are all grown up, family room needed to grow up too! New wall color, out with the carpeting (was good for all the sleep-overs!) and in with the nice laminate floor and of course – new and improved family photo gallery!
It went from this:

To this:

And did I mention that I really, really like our family photo gallery? 🙂

It has parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins and nephews, our kids growing, graduating, getting married…everything that makes me smile every day when I look at it. 🙂 When all our loved ones live so far away (in Europe) and some are no longer with us, this is important. Not to mention that kids  love to look at some funny old photos when we were babies, ha, ha!
Now onto some other parts of the house that need renovating…
Well, not quite renovating, but my sewing room is really small and often gets soooo messy that one can’t move in there! Summer was really hot, but some quilting, sewing, creating and teaching was still going on! Mix that with everyday work, garden, dog walking…no time for keeping organized and tidy! At one point I was really frustrated with myself…so I got up very early one morning and changed this:

(OMG, it does look horrible!)

into THIS:

Better, much better. Now we can get to some sewing!
So, I am going to show you the end product – see what you think?! Maybe we can do another tutorial? More about that soon, together with a little surprise…:)
Here is a cheerful runner, made all out of Bow tie blocks:

Bow tie blocks are really cute and easy to make – no odd shapes or Y seams here! – only squares! Have you ever tried it?

And then there is another summer-happy, “flying” quilt, made all from those easy, one-seam, 3D Flying Geese:

Let me know what you think!
Time to say good night now, but I will be back tomorrow morning with some great news! 🙂
Marija