I’m so excited to present my newest free pattern – Springtime Coasters! This project is especially fun because the largest required cuts of fabric are 5″ squares (fourteen 5″ squares, to be exact, to make four coasters), so you can use all your colorful scraps!

Tie it up with a ribbon for a lovely hostess gift… or Mother’s Day gift. (Mom, if you are reading this, this doesn’t NECESSARILY refer to your gift – so you will have to wait and see!)

While I’m at it, I’d like to share a recipe for Raspberry Lemonade, which we made especially for these photos, because it is so pretty and it’s delicious too.

Rasberry Lemonade
This lemonade is very tart. Add more sugar if you prefer a sweet taste!

Ingredients
• 1/2 cup frozen raspberries
• 8 large lemons
• 2/4 cup sugar
• 8 cups water

Directions Pour frozen raspberries into the bottom of a big pitcher. Cut 6 of your lemons in half and squeeze out the juice with a lemon squeezer. Combine lemon juice and sugar in a saucepan and cook over medium heat until sugar dissolves. Pour the lemon/sugar mixture into your pitcher. Add water and stir. Chill overnight or until cold. Slice the remaining lemons for garnish. Serve your beautiful raspberry lemonade over ice with a slice of lemon!
And now for some close-ups of the coasters. I chose to quilt around the flowers by hand, with really thick Pearl Cotton, but you can also do it by machine.

Happy sewing!
Amanda

This past week we visted Old Salem, a restored Moravian village right in the heart of Winston Salem, North Carolina. (It has a fabulous Decorative Arts Museum and Toy Museum as well.) The weather was beautiful and the colors were amazing. I thought I would share…

Top row: door knob, cookie cutters, flowering vines
Middle row: merchant’s house, clock/portico, coffee-making equipment
Bottom row: more flowers, town water supply, yellow house that I loved!

Hope everyone is enjoying spring!

I was working on a set of springtime coasters (pattern to be posted here soon) using my leftover eggs fabrics when I looked down at my applique squares and thought, “These would make a great quilt!” I MUST CONFESS… I really, really covet a quilt like this – one with colorful squares set in really wide, solid sashing, like little jewels. I’ve never sewn anything like this. The wide sashing would look beautiful filled with traditional feather quilting – more beautiful quilting than I am capable of at this point. Or maybe a accented along their borders by hand quilting in pearl cotton? What do you think?

Our oldest got braces this week and I ALSO MUST CONFESS that I go into shock each time I look at her sweet face. It seems only yesterday she was toddling around holding her dolly and singing her ABCs. WHERE DID TIME GO?

And tonight my fantastic mother, who is visiting, and my spectacular children made my husband and I dinner – butternut squash ravioli with walnuts and spinach. They even made the ravioli from scratch. It was delicious! And so, of course, I MUST CONFESS that I love having a delicious and very fancy (we even had candles!) dinner made for us. How decadent!