My brother: Joel Auge

Hi everyone,

I thought I would introduce you to my little brother,

 Joel Auge.

He is a Christian recording artist.

He is only a year and a half younger than me.

I just love listening to him sing.

He has an unbelievably beautiful voice.

He has recorded several Christian music albums.

He writes all his own music.

Today, I was listening to his latest solo album.

I love it.

My favorite songs on it are:

Here to love,

Save me,

and

Addison.

The song Addison was written for his daughter that was born a year ago.

If you want to listen to some of these songs, you can stream them for free on his My Space page found here.

This is his second solo album.

His first album is called In the blue.

Love that album too.

He also was the lead singer and guitar player in a band called Six Days.

My favorite song from them is Listening.

It is just gorgeous!!!

You can stream a few songs for free on their my space page found here.

He also played with a band called Hewit.

This was a more main stream band. He was the singer of this band too.

You can listen to a few of their song here for free.

The first Christian albums he recorded were with a band called Capstone.

They released a few albums with this band.

You can stream a few of their best songs here.

My favorite one that you can listen to is Better.

It's just so beautiful. Another favorite is You are my rock.

 Of coarse he sings and plays guitar on all these songs.

You may have seen him in concerts somewhere in the U.S. or Canada.

He has travelled to Europe as well.

If you have seen him perform, let me know.

I miss him so much.

We don't see each other as often as I would like.

He is just one of those people that can really inspire you.

He is just a genuine, good person.

He is so loving.

The first months after I had my first born son, he was always there for me.

 We were very close when we were teenagers.

 When I got married at 18, he stayed around for a little while then went off on his own.

He left home at 17.

We didn't see a lot of him for a lot of years as he was trying to make a life for himself in music.

Every time we see each other, he sings for us.

It just makes me cry when I here him sing. I miss him.

It's bringing me to tears just thinking about him.

He has know idea I'm blogging about him. LOL!!

Well, I just thought I should let you all here his music. It is meant to be shared.

So go check out these links and listen to his inspiring songs of worship.

It will touch your heart.

Hugs

Ariane



November is my month for the Maple Leaf Bee!

Hi everyone,

I joined the Maple Leaf Bee in August, when one of the other members had to drop out.

 I volunteered to take her place.

So, my month came fast and I had to decide what to ask the girls to make.

I wanted it to be a stash busting project, and a modern project.

So, I took out a bunch of my modern fabric and started cutting.

I decided to use my GO! Dresden Die since I love it so much.

I cut out all the petals for the girls.

I used 20 different fabrics, in aqua's, pinks,  and greens.

This is the test block that I made.

I thought I would do a little tutorial for the girls, in case they had never made a dresden block before.

Here it is.

First you want to fold the petal right side together at the wide end and stitch it across.

As you can see above, just chain stitch all the petals. It goes pretty quick this way.

Once you have all the tops stitched, then cut them apart and trim the point to about an eighth of an inch from the seam you just made. This just helps in turning the tip of the petal.

Turn all the petal tips right side out. You may have to use a tool to get the tip out all the way. I used the tip of my scissor just to push it out a bit. Then, iron the tips of the petals. I have the petals all layed out the way I want to sew them. See below:

Now, I will start to sew the petals together in pairs. You can chain stitch them to make it quicker.

I use my 1/4 inch foot to sew the petals together. I started sewing from the edge of the petals. I find that this makes for a nicer finish. You just match up the top corners of both petals and start stitching. Once all your pairs are sewn together, you want to iron the seam open.

Once all your pair seams are ironed, keep sewing the pairs together, and ironing your seams open, until you have your dresden sewn together as below.

This is what the back should look like.

Now, you can see that mine isn't perfect. Just do your best when sewing them together.

It's time to get the circle ready for the middle. I cut a five inch circle of fabric using the GO! Circle die and included a 4 inch cardstock circle cut using the GO! Dresden die circle, to help you turn the edges for the circle.

I like to stitch this with the sewing machine. So, set your stitch length to the longest setting and with your 1/4 inch foot, start stitching all around the circle as shown below.

You are going to leave the starting and ending threads long enough so that you can sinch the fabric around the cardstock circle.

See how I sinched the fabric around the cardstock. Now you want to iron it well on both sides. I used a bit of spray starch on it before I removed the cardstock circle.

See how nice the edges are turned, and it's a perfect circle.

You now want to sew this circle onto your dresden using a blanket stitch or zigzag.

Once you have it sewn on you can pin your dresden to your background fabric and stitch it on using a blanket stitch or a zigzag stitch.

And you are done.

Isn't is nice?

Well, I hope this little tutorial is helpful.

Wishing all of you a Happy Hallowe'en.

Hugs

Ariane

Blogger Quilt Festival - Fall 2010

Hi everyone,

I thought I would share one of the quilts I made at the beginning of my quilting journey.

This quilt was completed in February of 2009.

It's my Jacob's Ladder quilt.

I made it for my second oldest son.

I used scraps of fabric from my other two beds quilts that I had made for my oldest son and my daughter. You can find them here.

Even though, this was not that difficult a block pattern, 

it took me a long time to finish it. 

It was very time consuming trying to make sure that I didn't have the same colors close to each other.

I had just started quilting that year.

So, even though this is a scrappy quilt, I only had so many scraps.

I didn't have much of a stash. All my stash fit into an under bed storage bin.

One bin. LOL!!!

This was the fourth quilt that I made, and the third bed quilt.

This quilt is a twin size quilt.

The border on it was very difficult for me.

I cut all the pieces for the border with a scissor.

And well, my cuts weren't exact.

My seams weren't exact.

I was just a beginner, doing a difficult border.

It was really tough to get it to fit.

I ended up making an adjusted piece to make the border fit.

I quilted it myself.

It is very simply quilted.

But you know what?

I still love it.

It is an everyday quilt.

So, my son has it on his bed as we speak.

It's been washed many times.

It is still beautiful.

Thanks to Amy for giving us the opportunity to share our quilts with others.

Go, check out the rest of the quilts in the blogger quilt festival.

Hugs

Ariane

Some stitchery's that others have made with my pattern.

Hi everyone,

I'm still not feeling that great.

But, I'm going to keep this post positive. Since I've been sick, I have been going over a bunch a blogs and just roaming around blog land for inspiration. I really love seeing what everyone is up to. It's just so inspiring.

Then, I came across of few people who posted pictures of projects they made using my free stitchery pattern: A touch of Autumn.

So, I thought I would share those with you today.

The first one is made by Sara. Her blog is called "Joy in Everything"

Didn't she do an amazing job with it? I love it!!!

The next one is by Di. Her blog is called "Quilting is Blissful".

She also made it into a little wall hanging. Isn't it cute? Love it!!!!

The next one is by Phyllis. Her blog is called "Crumbs of Happiness"

She made a wonderful little cushion with hers. It's just gorgeous!! I love it!!

If you have made a project using any of my tutorials or patterns. Please let me know. I would love to see them.

It really makes my day.

Hugs

Ariane