Spring is Finally Here!

by Featured

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It was a long, long winter here in central Nebraska! Everyone that knows me, knows that I love my snow. When I say that, I usually get plenty of boos and hisses, but a few kindred souls agree with me. There is nothing I enjoy more than staying inside the sewing room for days at a time working on my quilting projects while the snow flies outside. However, this winter was a real let down. We really only had one “big” snow here in Central City, and even that one was only a minor 6 or 7 inches. The rest of the winter was pretty much just miserably cold and lots of promises of snows that went around us. I was as happy as everyone else to see the grass turn green and the trees begin to show their leaves. It was a long time coming.

So, now that spring is here, what do I love to do? I still love to spend days at a time in my sewing room without leaving the house! Lol! I’m currently working on finishing up my version of Welcome to the North Pole by Becky Goldsmith and Linda Jenkins. I started out following the pattern, as you can see by the bottom row, but it wasn’t long before I went rogue! Another thing that people who know me know about me is that I never met a pattern that I didn’t want to modify to make my own:)

As I have been doing this project for a “Sew Along” on my Facebook page, Sewing with Sandi

I did start out with the pattern, and a schedule that I found online. I gave everyone two weeks to make each block or set of blocks, just in case someone was doing needle-turn applique. I also encouraged them to do some of their blanket stitching as they went along.

It still needs sewn together and needs a sky, but the building are almost finished. The video building needs a door. I’m waiting on a couple of embroidered signs first.

I decided on my quilt to use just one single background. That was all well and good, except it is a batik that I bought on vacation last summer on one of the many shops I visited on a trip to Yellowstone. I am now out of that fabric…so, my village is nearly done. My Reindeer Barn is a Reindeer Pavilion, complete with a polar bear wrangler. I also added a coffee shop because my family (with a couple of exceptions) is coffee crazy! My daughter in law, especially, is a coffee drinking fiend, and a darn good barista. The theater/costume shop is in honor of my daughter who is a Theater Production major at UNO and will be a senior this next year. She is extremely talented and has been a part of many productions around Omaha in the past several years. Of course, the sewing machine and quilt shop are there to represent how important sewing and quilting have been in my life and in my family. The video production building is there to honor my son who has been making videos since the day we gave him his first video camera, and now makes it his career. He is a very talented videographer and photographer, and works as both a full-time video production manager at Lincoln Berean. He also does a lot of videography freelance work on the side. If I hadn’t run out of fabric, I was going to make a church to represent my son in law who works with Youth for Christ, and even put out some orange construction cones and a street for my husband, who is always out there making better roads for all of us to drive 🙂 I guess I could put an airplane in my sky to represent him since he is currently working on the oversight of construction on an addition to the Lincoln airport for the Air Force. Mmmmm….maybe not. The North Pole is better off staying a secret!

Sandi Griepenstroh

Sandi Griepenstroh

Founder

I started quilting in the early 90's as a young mom while I was still teaching high school social sciences and English. Now it is my full time job, and I love sharing the joy that quilting has brought into my life through lecturing, trunk shows, teaching everything from piecing to machine quilting, and longarm quilting the pieced quilt tops that others have made. I am a maker through and through, and I can't wait to meet my fellow makers and talk quilting!

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