Sweet Violet Dream Archives - Gray Barn Designs

I have seen so many wonderful family pictures and fun spring-time rituals from my blogging tribe this week. Your happiness has inspired me to share my own.

My roommate’s daughter and son-in-law arrived from South Carolina by way of Connecticut and brought the youngest grandson for his first trip to NY this past weekend. What fun to have a baby in the house once more! My mother even jumped into the party and she volunteered to babysit so that the four of us could enjoy an evening out. With a face like this, how could she resist?

Baby Jackson is adorbs!

Good Friday is our traditional day to spend at the Broadway Market in Buffalo, NY, so we packed up our guests and brought them along to share in the excitement. The kids loved it and Jackson seemed to be energized by the crowds. We snagged some painted eggs to add to our collection, and we made sure that Jackson’s mom and dad started theirs!

Hand-painted eggs are an Easter tradition. Our collection is getting quite large!

Chocolate enrobed Peeps are another Easter tradition from the Market! Some of these may or may not have also been added to our “collection”.

Finally, the big bunny came and we loaded up on cute pics of Jackson.

Jackson spent hours on this quilt, exploring the patterns. He’s a quilt lover in the making!

On the quilting front, Cindy did a wonderful job of machine quilting my violet mini. She even sent it back to me express mail. She is the best.

I’ll pack these little bunnies away and then finish the binding for the big (mini) reveal on Thursday.

Bye-bye bunnies! Until next year.

We are, of course in the throes of summer, but just a few weeks ago I snapped this picture of one of the early harbingers of spring. I was thinking about a new quilt project and I remembered a gorgeous poinsettia pillow from the Crafty Quilter. Inspiration struck — what if I could make a wildflower pillow?

A wild violet before it goes back to sleep.

Did you know that violets are edible? Here are few more violet facts.

I have to confess once again to my love of the color purple. This project gave me an excuse to find just the right hue of purple — not blueish, not pinkish, not mauvy –my fabric had to be just the perfect vibrant purple. I found a beautiful dotted Swiss for the flower and then stumbled upon an understated purple and green paisley to use for the background.

Love this fabric purchased from the charming Barefoot Quilter shop in Rushford, NY. It is so mesmerizing that I had to buy it twice ~~not~~ because I a made a cutting error…

I drew the pattern on freezer paper first, then decided to use fusible applique as the foundation. So I traced, labeled and cut out the pieces again.

Next I ironed the pattern pieces onto the wrong side of the fabric, using scraps for the stem and anther? stamen? I wish I knew more about flowers…

Sometimes I love my fabric so much I really hate to cut it. Does that ever happen to you?

Cut out the center of applique shapes to lighten the finished product.

Then I placed all the cut-out pieces on my 10.5″ background square, peeled off the paper back, and ironed the first layer of the flower into place.

This may look upside down, but it’s really not. It’s purposefully positioned as if you were standing above the violet in the forest. Or I can’t figure out how to make this picture rotate. One of these is the correct answer.

I used a zig-zag stitch to set them in the quilt. I added a few simple borders and now I’m ready to quilt.