Thanks Hotomom!

Last week, we got in the mail the last bit of our wins from the great May Sew Mama Sew Giveaway – a headband!

Elena LOVED it &  insisted I put it on her right away.  And she was more than happy to style it for the camera.

Ack!  Picture is sideways!  I’d correct it, but I *really* need to get go — going on vacation today (Colorado here we come!) and don’t have time to fix that all up.

BUT, Thanks again Hotomom!  I am sure it will get plenty of use here!

My Texan Cowgirls

About 6 weeks ago Elena’s Mother’s Day Out (MDO) program had a Western Day. I brought Julia and volunteered with “Western Dance,” which, um, was going round in a circle with the kids and whatever else I could think of (‘okay, Kick! Turn around! Hold hands! and Kick – sure, Kick again!’).

Anyway, the kids were also all able to take a picture on a pony. (Maybe a bit more exciting than my dance?) I didn’t see the picture until they gave us a scrapbook of Elena’s schoolyear on the last day. And isn’t it a stunning picture?

I think Elena was working on her America’s Next Top Model portfolio!

Meanwhile, Julia got stuck taking a picture with her goofy Mommy:

Maybe I should photoshop myself out?

Carina’s Quilt

One of my husband’s cousins just had her 3rd baby girl, and while I planned on making her a quilt, I hadn’t even really thought about starting.  That is, I didn’t think about starting until my mother-in-law requested I make the baby a quilt so my mother-in-law could give it. Ummm, okay.

So, here is baby Carina’s quilt, made completely by me but from my mother-in-law!  Heh.

I wanted to use stash fabrics, and I kinda wanted to join the frenzy going on over at the Old Red Barn quilt-along.  (Um, hello, new sewing machine as a prize!) 

I searched my stash and found a stack of old Robyn Pandolph fabrics.  My mom gave these to me several years ago, after she made me a shirt out of them, and I LOVED them.  Robyn Pandolph’s designs make such soft and feminine-looking projects.  But, after sitting on my shelf for several years, the fabrics just don’t do much of anything for me anymore.  LESSON:  USE that favorite fabric that you just bought NOW before you tire of it!

I must admit I like the back of this quilt better than the front:

That heart is *not* a Robyn Pandolph fabric and is in fact the quilt label.  I used a fabric pen after these photos were taken to write down baby Carina’s information: date of birth, weight, length, etc.  Here’s a close-up where you can see the quilting — it was a stipple with random flowers throughout to kind of match the feel of the flowers in the fabric:

I didn’t have enough to do the whole Old Red Barn quilt-along as she designed, but I went ahead and still did a rail fence, finished size 40×48.  EASY.  The whole quilt was done in less than 2 weeks.  The part that took the longest to finish?  Binding, of course.  Just not my thing!  The binding is scrappy (although all pinks so hard to tell) b/c I didn’t have enough fabric to do otherwise and I was determined not to buy anything.

The above picture is a better representation of the colors.  I need to avoid taking pictures so early in the morning on that fence b/c the sun glare messes up my colors.

Anyway, long story short: the fabric was perfect to give away to someone, and although I’m not digging the fabrics now, I know I once did and that they should still make a pretty feminine quilt for a little baby girl!

And the best part for me?  Making my mother-in-law happy, a baby and her mama happy, AND getting that fabric out of my stash!  YIPPEE!

The “Princess” Pillow

Ahh yes, I do indulge my oldest’s Princess obsession some.  When we were recently at a quilt shop, she decided that she *needed* some Princess fabric.  Luckily, we were at a real quilt shop and not Joann’s, so I wasn’t too worried about her finding a bolt of Disney Princesses.

But she did find a bolt of ballerinas.

And being the good Mommy that I am, I bought some for her.  We have stopped random Princess purchases for her, but I find my child’s request for fabric hard to resist.  (This was actually a couple days before the Princess ban.)  So I made her a pillow.  Fully quilted it and did another (my second!) pocket back.  Totally digging the pocket pillows!

Also added some ball fringe.  My husband was not a fan of that.  Says it makes it too 70s, but boo on him!

Elena cracked me up before it was done.  She had found some button and told me, “Mommy, you can put this on my new woogie!”  I asked her which woogie she was talking about.  “I know you’re making me a new woogie out of my dancing girl fabric Mommy!  I saw it in your sewing room!”

Elena’s response at receipt of the pillow, though, was less than enthusiastic.  She had seen some *real* Disney Princess fabric at Hobby Lobby the day before I finished the pillow, and the ballerinas no longer passed muster.  However, when Julia tried to run away with the pillow (Julia loved it!), Elena of course became very possessive!

(Please note, I did not dress my child.  She dressed herself!)  But she did redeem herself some: she insisted on sleeping with it that 1st night, and every night since.  (4 nights and counting so far!)

(don’t you love how Elena is posing for her “I sleep with my pillow” shot, but MUST pet the kitty who joined her?)

Thanks again Naptime Quilter!

Look!  My new fabric has arrived!

Thanks again Naptime Quilter, I love them all!  I know several who will be jealous of my bounty!  I really don’t know what I’m going to do with them — they might live in my stash for a little while to let an idea perculate.  With these great fabrics, and my girly girls, I’m sure they’ll come in handy real soon.

In fact, as soon as I turned my back on the open package, Elena took the fabrics and had them spread out all over the living room floor and was playing with them.  She also approves!

And did you see the cool notecards Naptime Quilter also threw in?  I *know* those will come to good use!  Oh, and my fave fabric of the bunch?  I love the one on top of the stack below:

Fire and Water

Finally, my last Spring to Finish finish!

Two years ago my quilt guild had a batik charm square exchange, and I was *all* over that!  I had fun cutting out my batiks, but then had a bunch of left-over scraps – a lot of them 5″ crooked strips from the ends of rows.

My batiks looked great together, so I decided right then and there to make a quilt top out of all my scraps.  I knew it wouldn’t be big, but figured a doll quilt for my girls was great.  I’ve seen all these “improv” blocks and decided to just go with the crookedness of the scraps.  And I love it!

The quilt is made entirely of scraps, except for the backing fabric:

I did the quilting on it this past August as practice for this spiral quilt.  I was trying to determine what threads and what design to use on the spiral quilt, and this was the perfect quilt on which to test!  Here you can see the beautiful swirlies that I ended up doing on the spiral quilt (and you can see when looking at this whole quilt how they definitely weren’t that good to begin with, but did improve!).  And for the pink squares and border I did a straight-line spiky design:

I don’t think I’ll use that thread – Superior Rainbows – in both the bobbin and top thread again.  Or at least try a differnt needle – I’ve heard I might have needed a Top Stitch needle.  At any rate, it was painful.  But I did use it in just the bobbin in the spiral quilt and it behaved.

The binding took me forever to get off my butt and do because it also needed to be made of the leftovers AND I wanted to make it change colors at the color transitions in the quilt.  I’d never been so fussy with a binding and was avoiding it.  But it looks great done!

And although my girls would love to take this quilt as their own, I’m hanging it right next to my sewing table in my sewing/guest/weight room because it makes me happy.  In the meantime, they did get a moment to happily play with the ‘woogie!’

OH, thinking of naming it Fire and Water, but not really sold on that name.  Any other ideas???

And what happened to the batik charm squares that started this whole thing?  Um, they’re still a UFO.  I still need to figure out what to do with them.  (Taking ideas!)  But aren’t they pretty?

Just Ducky

I have finally made this blog known to some of my family members, so HI MOM!  Thought I’d show them some pictures of this past Friday morning’s activity: feeding the ducks!

It was GREAT weather — surprisingly not that hot with a great wind, and the girls had a blast feeding the ducks from their perch up on a big rock.  (Thank goodness for the big rocks!  Some of the geese are fairly aggressive, so the girls needed to be up high.  Or else I would have been trying to hold them both AND hand out bread!)

Julia had been a bit under the weather, so we couldn’t meet up with friends like we wanted, but figured her germs shouldn’t hurt the ducks much.

Where are the ducks girls?

I think next time before I take them to feed the ducks I’ll tear up all the bread first. Instead I spent the first several minutes tearing it up so they then could throw with abandon.

Bye-bye ducks!

Remember how I waxed poetic about sisterly love?  Ahh, yes, here’s the perfect example with a wonderful . . . hug?

 

And a nice peaceful picture of Elena at the water’s edge looking for fish.  What you don’t see is the not-so-peaceful struggles of a 17-month-old trying to run away from her mother’s clutches!  Julia was desperate to dive in!

So Much Great News!

I’m over here doing the happy dance! I won 2 – yes 2 – giveaways from the Sew Mama Sew’s May Giveaway Day/Week!

First, I won 6 fat quarters from Naptime Quilter!

Naptime Quilter's Giveaway

Now, I read through a LOT of giveaways and only added about 6 of them to my google reader (since it is already about to explode), and she’s one of the ones I added! She does great work and is giving (me!) such a great prize! Eek – Can’t wait!  I chose the pink/yellow colorway and she’s already e-mailed me that she’s chosen the fabrics.  I will certainly share pictures when I get them!

Second, I won a great hairbow that looks just perfect to tame Elena’s c-r-a-z-y hair from hotomom!

Great Hairband giveaway!

Elena’s going to LOVE it!  I will also have to get a picture of Elena wearing it — let’s all hope for our viewing pleasure that she doesn’t act a stinker and give an expression full of attitude like she’s been doing everytime the camera is out.

I’m guessing next time Giveaway Day comes around I better offer something and share the excitement!

Other news, I joined Rosey Little Thing’s Vintage Sheet Fat Quarter Swap.

I have been adoring from afar some of the other sheet swaps and the resulting quilts all across blog land (so nice and feminine!), so can’t wait to get some of my own to play with. As luck has it, I just picked up a sheet on Friday from the Salvation Army store that I went into just to check out.  JOIN US!  The more the merrier for the swap!

Then, there’s the Spring to Finish news.

I had been hoping to finish up the binding on one more quilt by Sunday night, but as luck would have it I didn’t have the time. Maybe sometime else this week…