Needles and a Pen » Knitting, Sewing, and Nursing School

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  • Welcome to my blog!

    Hi! I'm Traci. I'm a Registered Nurse who loves quilting, knitting, cross stitch, and the great outdoors. In my pre-scrubs life, I owned Real Photography, and you can still see my old wedding and portrait photography site here .

    I've created a map that shows links to our camping/hiking/general family fun review posts that you can find here. It's pretty much the coolest thing on this site. Thanks, Google!

    I great big puffy heart *love* comments, so please let me know you visited! I try to always reply!

Category Archives: quilts

Heather’s quilt

I have been wanting to make my famously cold sister-in-law a quilt for a long time, but couldn’t decide on a pattern or fabrics.  I wanted something that would fit in with the style of their home, but struggled to think of something modern enough.  I decided that the FRMQG solids challenge (use at least […]

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castle peeps quilt update

My Castle Peeps quilt top has been done for a few weeks and is patiently awaiting its backing.  We will be headed to the renaissance fair soon so I need to get cracking on this one!  (Or accept defeat.  Either way.)  These giant pluses have 7″ finished squares at the top and bottom and 7×21″ […]

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a headband, a quilt top, and a fabric stack

The kids and I are back from 15 days in Seattle, and settling back into our summer routine.  I’m not working very much this summer, and trying to compensate for that by doing lots of Good Mommy things like walks and tea parties and craft projects and picnics in the backyard. Here are some random […]

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growing up crafty: part one, my momma’s quilts

I was lucky to grow up surrounded by crafty goodness, and while visiting my Mom and Dad I grabbed some pictures.  Today’s installment of the crafts of my younger years is devoted to my momma’s quilts. When I went to round up her quilts, I found Buckeye Beauty on the sofa.  You can just barely […]

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diamonds progress

My diamond quilt is progressing, even if I failed miserably to finish even ONE piece of clothing in the alloted 7 hours for kid’s clothing week and feel like a sewing loser this week.  My sister-in-law and brother-in-law came to visit this weekend (hi Erik!), and I kept my diamonds on hand for sewing while […]

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it’s a hoot charm pack quilt

It’s done, and it’s super fun.  I really do love simple patchwork–sitting underneath it or on it, it always looks so nice and quilt-ish! This will be heavily used for shoots, so Ellie volunteered to test it out. And then it dissolved into a tickle fest of giggles.

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