Saying Goodbye

Because of health issues, I will no longer be updating this blog. I am currently catching up on the quilts I've comitted to complete and then beginning July 1, I will no longer be machine quilting for customers. I hope to be able to quilt for myself and perhaps enter show quilts. Thanks for the memories...
10 years of longarm machine quilting for others and now it's time to retire. :)

If you would like to contact me, my email is: quiltswithlove @ sbcglobal.net <----no spaces, of course.

Visit me on my new blog:  http://regardsmrslove.blogspot.com/   I wish a celebrity a happy birthday every day!

New Years Resolution: Get Back To Blogging!

So many stories to tell...so many quilts to share! But I'm back and will be blogging about once a week. First, you must see the latest picture of my grandson.  He just celebrated his first birthday! Is it just me, or is this the cutest baby you've ever seen?

And here's a preview of an quilt to show you soon!

Vivian's back to blogging! See you soon!

Introducing...The Quilts With Love Studio on Etsy

Looking for high quality, beautiful quilts? Check out the new QUILTS WITH LOVE STUDIO on Etsy.  Follow this link---> quiltswithlove.etsy.com  Go to the link to check out these quilts for sale!

Please.

Please do not copy or take images or content from this site without my explicit permission.
Thank you.

Vivian Love

Attention Twilight Eclipse Fans!

Please take a moment to hop over to the Twilight Quilters Coven blog and see what the talented ladies have made this time! Make a donation and you could win this one-of-a-kind Eclipse quilt! If you are a Twilight fan, you'll love it! If you are a quilter, you'll love it! Not only does it include some amazing paper-pieced blocks throughout, but there are also 3 autographs from some of the actors. Hurry! Donations accepted June 4-August 1, 2010!

(photograph property of Twilight Quilters Coven)

Follow my friend/TQC member Elizabeth's link to see details and info about this wonderful quilt--->

http://emsewandsew.blogspot.com/2010/06/eclipse-give-to-win-quilt.html

Give us a break and take one!

"Give us a break and take one" is what my friends and I would yell out to rock bands at concerts if we didn't like them. Well, it's time for me to give you all a break and take one.

If you have followed my blog for the last few years, you have noticed that I haven't been keeping up with it for quite a while. I was diagnosed with Lyme disease in July 2007. I now have it under control, but it triggered Fibromyalgia. I am currently part of a chronic pain program through a hospital near my home. It's a wonderful program, however I'm learning to make some temporary life changes. I'm learning to pace myself better and slow down as I get my pain under control. Once I have it under control, I will slowly add more activities to my life. Blogging is an activity that I need to slow down on for now. I am still quilting, however just not as much right now.

Soon I'll be back to the 'ol Vivian and do more blogging and quilting, but for now I'm taking a break. Take care and I'll be back before you know it!

If Life Gives You Lemons...

You know the saying, "If life gives you lemons, make lemonade." Well that's what I did. Except I would have to say, "If your neighbor brings you lemons, make lemonade...and lots of it."

Here's a great recipe I got from an episode of Barefoot Contessa with Ina Garten:

1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (5 to 6 lemons)
3/4 cup superfine sugar
1 cup crushed ice

Place all the ingredients in a blender and process until completely smooth on "puree." Add to 4 cups cold water. Serve over ice. (I made the lemonade base and froze it for future lemonade.)

I squeezed enough lemons the other night to make about 9 pitchers of lemonade! We're all set for summer! :)

~~~~~

And if someone brings you a quilt, feather it! This is one I worked on a few months ago and forgot to share with you.

Now get back to work Vivian! What will you feather next!

A Country Baby

The other day I made another fleece blanket for Baby Jay--my grandson. He's 3 months old now and weighs over 12 lbs! Don't you just want to pinch these cheeks?
And check out those blue eyes too! He reminds me so much of his mom when she was this age.

I'm headed up to the "country" aka Utah to see this cute little "country" baby soon. So this is fleece blanket #3 for him. Can a baby have too many blankets? I found this darling John Deere fleece at JoAnn's and it made me think of him. I did some freehand clouds on it...similar to the pantograph pattern by Keryn Emerson, "Oriental Cloud." My freehand version went way faster and didn't turn out so bad. So...it's a "country" blanket for a "country" baby!


Now, get back to work Grandma! Lots of quilting to do!

The Mystery Object

Here in the town I live in, Yorba Linda, we don't have snow...but we do have rain. Occasionally it does get cold enough for the rain to freeze! During this past December, I experienced such a morning. I leave every morning at 5:30am. One morning my windshield was covered with ice. I didn't know what to do. The windshield wipers were no good, so I tried to wait for the defroster to work. That took too long. I thought about using something like this...

...but figured that would be a little dangerous. Next I considered using a credit card or a spatula. No time. So I took of driving and eventually the ice began to melt and I made it to my destination safe and sound.

Later that day I put a comment on my Facebook 'wall' about the experience with ice I had had that morning. I received many comments from friends giving me suggestions about what to do next time. Later that evening, at a ladies dinner at my church, a friend (who read what I had written on Facebook) told me she had a gift for me. It looked something like this one...

Do you know what this is?

We had a good laugh about it. Later, I returned to my seat at the dinner. With a big smile on my face I showed the ladies at my table the gift I had just received. I held it up for all to see it. I expected them to laugh about it too. But their reactions surprised me. With puzzled looks they asked, "What is that?" I said, "It's an ice scraper!" One said, "Oh is that what one looks like?" I forgot that I was sitting with California natives, who had never even one!

Well, on Christmas morning, look at the gift I got from Daughter #2....Another ice scraper. But this was is fancy one! It's from Brookstone. I think my daughter gave it to me as kind of a gag gift, never thinking I would actually ever use it. Unless of course, I found ice on my windshield here in Yorba Linda again! But guess where I got to use it?

In Utah in January, when I got to visit my grandson! Here I am scraping the windshield. (Actually this picture was posed. My DH did the scraping for me while I waited in the car with the heater running! But he really did use my ice scraper!)

And this is my grandson with his mom, Daughter #1, in Utah in his new snowsuit. Poor little guy lives in the freezing snow. The snowsuit's a little big, but I'm sure he'll grow into it soon enough!

That's right, in Yorba Linda we don't have snow, but we do have rain (and ice)! Here's a cute little wallhanging I worked on a customer of mine. She did all the piecing and applique. I did the maching quilting.

She requested that I make the raindrops and umbrella really stand out. So I added a little extra batting. I call it "faux trapunto."

When she came to pick it up, she was very happy with it. I loved it too!

Now get back to work, Vivian!

An Unexpected Package

Last year I had the opportunity to do the machine quilting on an awesome quilt that was eventually presented to Twilight author, Stephenie Meyer. Read all about it here: I Was Dazzled. Last week, this is what came in the mail as a thank you gift from Stephenie Meyer! Stephenie Meyer surprised me and the other quilters with signed copies of the New Moon Special Edition book. This was such a lovely gift!

A New Member of the Club

...which club? The "Grandma Club"!

On Dec. 30, 2009 I became a grandmother for the first time! Jay William Barnes entered the world at 2:22 am, weighing in at 7 lbs 4 oz.

Below is the first picture I saw of Jay. It came over on my cell phone (via text) from my son-in-law. It was love at first sight! (check out that blonde hair!)

Jay was born a few weeks early. He had a little bit of a rough start and had to be under the bili lights in the NICU. I called them his "disco dancing" lights!

Daughter #1 and her Sweetheart, Jay's parents, live in Utah, near the Idaho border. As soon as we heard the great news that our grandbaby had arrived, we jumped into our car and drove as quickly as we could. 12 hours later...the picture below is my husband meeting his grandson for the first time. Notice Jay holding is grandpa's finger!

Here he is looking at his mom. "Are you my mother?"

Two new happy parents with their little baby, ready to leave the hospital.

I returned to Utah 3 weeks later to spend a week with the little family. Here they are with Jay. Look how much he's already grown!

He's now almost a month and half old! He weighs over 11 lbs! (yes, I'm one of those grandma's, who shows everyone pictures of the cutest baby ever! I show everyone...the people at the grocery store, the bank tellers, the ladies at the quilt shops...everyone!

And what kind of quilt did his grandma make for him? A fleece blanket to keep him warm up there in the snow. I chose a fleece with surfboards...to remind him of his grandma down here in sunny California!

Now back to quilting! Lots of little boy quilts to make for my grandson!

Busy, Busy, Busy

My life is busy, busy, busy! I'm just passing through. Not much time to visit "blogland."

Thanksgiving was a blur! I baked and baked, just like Olivia The Pig...We enjoyed a nice dinner with family and friends.After all that delicious food, I should have exercised like Olivia. Here she is jumping rope (although it's a little hard to see...there's a jumprope there!) I didn't have any time like Olivia. My expanded waistline would have benefitted from it though.
Any time for soccer with Olivia The Pig? Sorry, no way!

Olivia The Pig and I have both been busy working though. So many quilts to do and so little time!

Sometimes I feel like Olivia and just want to fly away!But no time!

Get back to work, Vivian! Remember you're just passing through!

Sharing

"A smile is the light in your window that tells others that there is a caring, sharing person inside." --Denis Waitley

Quilters love to share. This beautiful quilt, which now hangs in a friends home, was the result of a fabric exhange. (I did the machine quilting for her.) Each student in the quilt class brought 6" squares of brown-toned fabrics to exhange with one another. The result gave each student a good number of fabrics to create the centers of these sunflowers.

Hope you all enjoyed a lovely Thanksgiving day. The weather was beautiful here in southern California. It was 80-degrees.

Now back to work, Vivian!

Special Things

Recently I had the opportunity to machine quilt a darling dinosaur quilt. This special quilt is from a grandmother for her 3 year old grandson. It's from the Kansas City Star book, "Dinosaurs-Stomp, Chomp and Roar" by Pam Manning. I know the little boy will treasure it always.

I look forward to becoming a grandmother for the first time in Jan. Daughter #1 is due Jan. 20th and is expecting a little boy. I bought the Dinosaur book to make a quilt for my grandson someday. "When a child is born, so are grandmothers." ~Judith Levy

And here's something else that's special. It's very special to me. I see this on my front porch every time I enter my home. It's a plaque that my sister made for me while she was in Louisiana serving a church mission. It's actually made from a slate roof tile. She painted our name on it. I love it and treasure it always. This week she would have been 48, but to me she'll always be 32. That's how old she was when she left this mortal existence. I treasure these special little things that remind me of her...

Now get back to work, Vivian! This is your busy season!

WE HAVE A WINNER!

Asked to pick a number between 1 and 28, my daughter Stacy picked NUMBER 27...the winner is Jodi! I'll be sending your Scrabble Tile pendant soon! Thanks to everyone for helping me celebrate 300 posts! Now to do 300 more!!!