Spring IS back and so am I...

...can you believe it? Ha ha!

For a while now, winter in the Northeast seemed to be here to stay...forever? And similarly, I seem to be fallen of the face of the Earth...?  Well, of course not!

TA-DAAH!! We have BLOOMS!! (and pardon for my slightly blurry photo - when you walk with a 120lb pup, you move fast!). These just started blooming in our front yard, they put such a smile on my face! :)
Morning walks are not so bundled-up any more and it is so beautiful to walk with sushine in your face and feel its warmth.

Last night, a beautiful baby-moon was gracing the skies, adding such a special touch to the sunset...

So much inspiration!
This morning, I was even inspired to pull out some fancy clothes, some cute shoes and dress up a bit for work! Hey, why not? At this age, I am done with "saving it for special occasion", every day IS special, right? So what do you think?

 This skirt was knit by my amazing mother-in-law - she did it just by looking at the photo in the magazine! And then she made me this beautiful coat to go with it:

 Also just by looking at the photo I found - can you believe it? So here I am, all dressed-up and ready for work this morning:

 For the record - I felt incredibly silly taking photos of myself this morning, but that's what you get when you have unexpected few minutes of time waiting for a hubby to be ready...and it was fun! :)

Do you get inspired to dress-up when sun shines, birds sing beautifully and spring is finally here?
I hope you do!

Sew...what about quilting, you may ask?
OOH I have been quilting, sewing, quilting again... trying my best in-between a flu and bad back and all other craziness of life, which is why good blogging fell by the wayside...but lets not talk about bad, lets talk about good!
Babies! What can be better than that?
Remember I told you I will be first time grandma in May? So, baby shower was one big fun, beautiful, emotional experience! I sewed and sewed, made decorations, party favors and all that fun stuff - all in the company of my beautiful girls - mommy to be, my daughter-in-law Lauren, aunties-to-be, my daughter Jelena and Lauren's sister-in-law Michelle, Lauren's mom, Sue... Just spending time with them and having fun was such a gift in itself. Few action shots from the baby shower:
Isn't Lauren just a beautiful mommy-to-be? 

Girls getting ready...

 A present from uncle and grandpa, Belle - the rocking pink elephant that sings too! Just too cute:

 Auntie Jelena made sure this baby girl is well dressed (multiple dresses in different sizes!):

Of course, I have many more but let's get to some quilty stuff!

This grandma made the quilt of course!
The idea came from Pinterest, the fact that new mom loves elephants and pale pinks and purples are the colors in the nursery. Oh fear not - the making of this quilt will take a whole new blog post, but here are few peeks:
Started from a great pile of soft grays, pinks, purples and a touch of sunshine...(all picked by mommy-to-be!)

 I immediately pulled my palette of Aurifil 50wt, to make sure I have what I need...but some yellows and pale purples were missing! Color card to the rescue...

 And "note to self" what colors I need to stock-up

And then some half-square triangles went up on the wall...

...and daddy, mommy and baby elephants were drawn and cut...

And journey was just so, so special to me - I can hardly find words to describe it. But I WILL find them and report back here in a day or two. :) 

For now, here is a little peek of that baby elephant - little miss Peaches:

Mommy and auntie went on to make their own quilt for this lucky baby - here is their progress:

This will be a play-quilt and yes, it will be plenty big too! :)

Oliver, future furry brother, approves!

I am certainly partial, but isn't he just too cute for words?

To end this little update, here is a photo of some baby-shower sewing I did - I made these flower shaped table toppers, to go underneath the flower center-pieces that were at the tables. Who won the centerpiece, also got the table topper to go with it - they were quite popular! :)

I had soooo much fun making these (made total of 10) and quilting each one differently! They were easy to make and no real pattern needed. You can imagine making them in all different flower colors, right?

Hmmm...maybe a tutorial is in order? What do you think?

With a promise to be back now for good and regularly, wishing you some wonderful cheerful days of spring,

Marija