Needles and a Pen » Knitting, Sewing, and Nursing School

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  • Welcome to my blog!

    Hi! I'm Traci. I'm a Registered Nurse who loves quilting, knitting, cross stitch, and the great outdoors. In my pre-scrubs life, I owned Real Photography, and you can still see my old wedding and portrait photography site here .

    I've created a map that shows links to our camping/hiking/general family fun review posts that you can find here. It's pretty much the coolest thing on this site. Thanks, Google!

    I great big puffy heart *love* comments, so please let me know you visited! I try to always reply!

Ellie looks so grown up today in her jeans and sweater!

Ellie looks so grown up today in her jeans and sweater!

I had a blast with Will tonight. I took him out after bedtime to run a few errands and we closed Cold Stone Creamery.  I love that kid so much.

times, they are a’changin’

I finished Will’s car quilt today.  I took it to him and said “Look—your car quilt is finished!”

And he said with Wii controller in hand “Cool.  Cool.  I like it a lot, Mom.”  His eyes never left the television screen. 

I knew I didn’t have much longer to enjoy the little boy who was thrilled and awed with everything I made…but I thought I had another year or two! 

And perhaps his biggest recent ‘growing up’—we make it through the night without seeing him these days.  We actually put away his ‘special bed’ this weekend—the feather bed at the foot of our bed that he would move to in the middle of the night—because he hadn’t used it in about a week.  He hasn’t even mentioned its absence. It finally happened.  Which I guess means we only have 4 years left before we’ll be free of Ellie, too.  😛

zoom quilt photos

I love Riley Blake fabric.  It’s pretty much the only fabric around that appeals to me even while being geared toward little boys.  I love love love the Wheels fabric line, and had this fabric stack on my desk for a long time before it got pieced this summer.

I used a big piece of my favorite print in this line for the back–a perfect play mat.  Will requested that it have ‘lots of colors’ so we pulled out a bunch of kona solids for this one.

The pattern is adapted from the Avalon quilt in the Material Obsession book.  I cut out the fourth row so that it’s a square.

The quilt is big–each of the squares is HUGE.

He likes it.

susanne - Love it! Material Obsession is great!

Mom - Love it! And your quilting is also amazing!! I’m jealous!

Featured on Gen X Quilters | It’s a Hoot Give-Away » Stolen Moments - […] I am the featured quilter on Gen X Quilters!   To any new readers–welcome!  Please leave a note–I love them, and always try to […]

Edith - I am partial to car fabric from having boys, My little one would love this.

WIP: distactions

Ellie was not in the best mood this afternoon and since I wasn’t able to do anything productive, I figured we could at least play with some fabric stacks.  Am loving this combo and know EXACTLY what I want to do with it.

But first I have to make Ellie’s Halloween costume.  One kid’s down, one to go.  And that one is one I’m sooo not looking forward to.

Owls from Robert Kaufman, as well as the yellow polka dots and Kona solids (from bottom- snow, coffee, lagoon, green grass, tangerine and buttercup).  The green dots are monaluna, the green circles are riley blake.

Mom - The owls are to die for! And all of it…
May steal.

a hooty place : my first finished mug rug! » Stolen Moments - […] this gorgeous stack of fabric?  Today it turned into […]