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So our amazing friend, Katherine, took these beautiful pictures of Lucy. . . it's going to be hard to choose which to use for a birth announcement! She really has a good eye and gave us plenty to choose from. Check out her blog to see more of us and all the other beautiful photography she does! Lucy is still so little, she doesn't fit any of the 0-3 month clothing and have you noticed they just don't make dresses in newborn or preemie sizes? So I made this little dress for her to wear for her big photo shoot. I made it entirely from one Michael Miller fat quarter, that's how small it is!

I was supposed to go up to Seattle for my mom's 60th birthday right in the middle of blackberry season and then I ended up in the hospital on bedrest. I was heartbroken to miss the party. . . my family called to ask my favorite recipe, a to-die-for blackberry cobbler, and let me know they were thinking about me as they ate it. . . so of course, it was the first thing I wanted to make when (and eat) when I got out of the hospital. It was sooo tasty. . . and we made a vanilla soy milk ice cream to serve it with. Chinook’s in Seattle has a blackberry cobbler that is hands-down my favorite dessert in the world. . . I would crawl through broken glass to get some. A couple of years ago, someone had posted this recipe for it on the web and I’ve had pretty good success with it. It may not be Chinook’s exactly, but its pretty darn good AND it’s a good excuse to use my cute little ramekins: Wannabe Chinook’s Blackberry Cobbler 4 Cups wild mountain blackberries ½ Cup gra...

Did I mention that Hubby is crazy about our little Lucy? He can't get enough of her. . . he can hardly leave her alone when he's home and it drives him crazy if she's sleeping. He just wants to wake her up and play with her all the time. He ordered this plush hippo in orange and it arrived the other day. It's huge, three times as big as Lucy is right now, but darling. He showed me the site where he found it, babygeared .com , which has all kinds of fun plushies and softies and great ideas. . . He loves modern design and all things minimalist and contemporary. He often finds fab baby items and plenty of honest reviews on daddytypes .com , his new favorite blog.

So another fun project I did while on bed rest was to embellish these little bibs from Ikea . . . they come in a 5-pack (I still have one to finish, a robin) for a very reasonable price and they were just screaming for a little something personal to be added to them. This actually started as a project to do with my friend Kate who was on bed rest at home a couple weeks before me. . . I went over to her place to keep her company and brought bags of embroidery floss and fleece (fleece edges won't fray so you don't have to worry about turning the edges under) and we went about doing some free-style appliqué, as I call it. We didn't get too far that day, we each finished only one, but the good thing is it was all bagged up with the needed materials so when I ended up in the hospital unexpectedly, it wasn't hard for hubby to assemble and bring in for me to work on. P.S. Kate ended up having her little Norah just down the hall from me in the hospital two weeks before I had Lu...

So while I was on bed rest at the hospital I was able to finish up the quilt I'd started for the baby. I hand quilted it on a 14" hoop which was easily manageable. Here's how it washed up. . .

Here is our little Lucy Kate Law. . . she was born on August 18 at 2:07 pm and weighed a whoppin' 5 lbs 10 oz (not bad for being 6 weeks early!) She's still in the NICU, but hopefully we'll get to bring her home in the next couple of days if she keeps progressing like she has been. I'm home and can't tell you how good it feels to be up and moving around again after those four weeks of bedrest. . .

So, you wouldn't believe it, but the day after my last post I was admitted to the hospital. . . and no, I didn't remember to bring the cute receiving blanket. I didn't bring anything! I really thought I'd go in for a quick check and be right back out. To make a long story short, my water broke on Saturday, July 21st when I was exactly 30 weeks along (10 weeks too soon for those of you not used to counting and calendaring in weeks) and they put me on immediate hospital bed rest for 4 weeks hoping to keep the baby exactly where she is as long as possible by not letting me go into preterm labor or develop any infections, etc. Time has gone by quicker than I thought it would. . . so far, we're two weeks down and two to go. Not bad. So many friends and family have called or come to visit and help me pass the time. They've brought good treats and healthy dinners so I don't have to eat hospital meals 3 times a day. . . they've brought how-to books and Harry Pot...

I just made a simple receiving blanket for Baby Law. . . I'll take it to the hospital with me if I remember! I've been so forgetful lately. Maybe you can see just from the picture, but it is just one layer of white flannel cut 36 x 36" and then ironed in one inch on all sides. I mitered the edges as I went and the covered the edge with a ribbon. I can imagine a lot of variations using this simple formula. . .

This one is for my own baby! I can't tell you how much fun this was to make. . . Now I just have to quilt and bind it by September 29!

Here are some new baby quilts I've been working on. The first one is for my old buddy Sarah Lyle and her new little baby boy, Jonas. The backing fabric is a Michael Miller disco dot that I've been dying to use. And yes, that's a real Herman Miller rocker, straight off of eBay for our baby nursery! The next quilt gets its fun puckered texture from the hand quilting. The center square fabric is from an old 70's shirt I found at a second-hand store. . . a good way to find some amazing retro fabric.

I made these oven mitts from the pattern in Denyse Schmidts' book and happen to think they turned out pretty darn cute. So proud. . .

For the last couple years, my family has been exchanging hand-made gifts. It's been a wonderful tradition . . . both make the gifts and see what my talented family comes up with. The top pic is of Wind Chimes mad from old silverware by my sister, Missy. In the middle, is a fun "Date Night Kit" from my sister, Shannon. (Also notice the Date Night Mix CD from her husband, Matt.) And then on bottom, a Jingle Bell wreath made by my sister, Jenn. It was fun to be able to spend time with my family in Seattle this Christmas. I think at one point there were 18 people staying at my mom's and dad's house! Yikes! But again, it was just neat to be able to be there all together. My brother even made it from Guam for a couple weeks vacation. My sweet Gramma Gwen was there and all five of the Luke grandsons. They are constant entertainment, they're the ones pictured on the title page I posted a couple entries ago. Anyhow, I love them all.

My mom made each of us a beautiful Christmas Quilt, each one is slightly different. See how I developed my love of quilting? I inherited it!

Title Originally uploaded by juliannmarie . This is the title page for the book we put together for my family for Christmas. Hubby wrote it and I illustrated it. It was a fun project and took us about a week from start to finish under a tight deadline. It had to be ordered by the 17th in order to be printed, bound, shipped and received by Christmas . . . we made it, but just barely. Now why couldn't I have done that months ago and saved myself some stress? Maybe next year. I also vow to have Christmas cards and labels printed and ready by sometime next October. Visit flickr to see other images from the book. I'm really pleased with how it turned out. We printed it through Snapfish and the printing quality and resolution were terrific. It printed a little darker than I expected so I'll take that into account next time and the cover has a cut out square to reveal the image of the title page. It printed maybe a 1/4 or 1/8th of an inch closer to the binding than the preview ima...

We weren't very good about getting Christmas cards out this year, but we at least got them made! About half our list actually received them, oh well. My hubby actually designed these this year. I think they turned out fantastic . . . good job, Sweetie!

I had fun designing the posters and the invitations for church ladies' annual Christmas dinner. It's fairly formal the enrichment committee makes and serves a nice dinner to all the ladies. Different women sign up to decorate a table complete with centerpiece and linens and place settings for 8. They bring in stemware and china to make it feel nice and formal. Should be fun. . .

babyAddison , originally uploaded by juliannmarie .

babyAddisonCU , originally uploaded by juliannmarie .

babyRodriguez , originally uploaded by juliannmarie .

babySmith , originally uploaded by juliannmarie .