Oh My!

I have a confession:

I haven't been reading blogs. Much at all.

At first I blamed this on my "woe is me"-ness ... reading about other people's lives that haven't fallen apart is hard. While this is true it isn't the only thing holding me back. I was introduced to silly games on facebook, like farmville, cafe world, etc. and spend far too much of my time playing inane games that have no value whatsoever in the real world (but my cafe is really really cute). Of course, my life is also busy, especially with the holidays and the kids, and that does keep me away from the computer - it's rare that I hop onto the computer during the day because that means the kids aren't supervised and that doesn't work at all.

And recently I determined that a large part of my problem keeping up with the blog world is that I haven't been crafting and sewing as much as I'd like to. And reading about craftiness elsewhere is a reminder of that little fact.

But the thing is ... I'm missing so much. This weekend I began catching up and was blown away by the great sewing that was done for the holidays. Blown away.

That's where the "oh my!" comes in! My list of "must try items" is now a mile and a half long and I'm only up to the blogs that I follow that begin with D.

Here are just a few of the wow's I've happened upon:

from A Stitch in Dye - dying my own fabric is now on my list
Apple Cyder - make a cool belt ... this one isn't a new post, but so worth trying
Artsy-Crafty Babe - I HAVE to make this pillow ... it makes me drool
Artsy-Crafty Babe - and these handbags ... more drooling
Betz White - from her book ... a bag printed with bubble wrap! love
Celebrate Creativity in all it's Forms - beautiful quilt pattern with tutorial
Crazy Mom Quilts - color wheel quilt - so awesome, check out her quilting stitch detail here
Creative Little Daisy - more "must make" pillows, with tutorial

I'd love to hear what's on your to do list as the new year begins.

500

posts old is my blog!

I don't know how that happened, really, but I guess after a few years of posting the posts add up (and even with this last year of being a complete slacker!).


So it's time for a give-away, of course. Nothing complicated. Comment on this post sometime before New Year's Eve (yeah, it's a long way away ... note paragraph above - I'm a complete slacker) and you're entered. My heart will skip a beat if you tweet, post, facebook, my space, etc. about it but I'm going to keep the entries to one per person, because my old brain is too holiday-ed out to track all the other ways of entering.

Oh the prize ...it's going to be a small (crib, wall hanging, toddler bed size) quilt that I will make for you ... for either a boy or a girl, and you can give me color choices ... I'm picking the fabrics and pattern so you can be surprised, but I want your input before I begin.


Good luck!

(And while you're entering enjoy the pictures of my big one year old boy. Yeah, like I'd ever pass up an excuse to show pictures of one of my kids!).

Bits of Color ... Confetti Maybe?

Available in the shop.

Questions? Comments? Would love to hear and will try to respond!

Pretty Preppy Girl Quilt

Available in the shop.

Please ask if you have any questions at all ... I'll be more than happy to share the dimentions or quilting info if you'd like it.

Stars and Scraps

River is back in the pictures. :) He's good company, and a top notch hand model.



I've said it before ... I love scrap quilts. I love the colors and the cheeriness. I love the comfort they exude. There are moments when I think I should take all my fabric, cut it into small pieces, toss it all in a paper bag, and make nothing but scrap quilts. I'd be in heaven. Fortunately the voice of reason steps in and reminds me that I might not want to make EVERY quilt a scrap quilt, so cutting up all my fabric might not be the best idea. Darn that voice of reason!

His Second Trip Around the Sun Has Begun

Carrot Cake Mommy??? What the ?

Oh, Carrot Cake isn't so bad! (Doing his best "Yea Me" pose)

The other partiers included his siblings, Mama, and Grandparents

What a great toy!

Packaging! Another great toy.

This was the first of his three, yes three, birthday celebrations. #2 was lunch at Chick-Fil-A so he and the other kids could play on the playground and #3 was with his father and other set of grandparents. Not a bad way to ring in the next year!

The big 1 year old is not yet walking but crawling with lightening speed. He's beginning to talk and is at the stage where a word will be a big hit one day and out of circulation the next. To date he has six teeth. R. is still nursing, having made it through the entire year without a bottle ... no small feat given the issues of shared parenting and the need for time with both parents, but we were able to work out a plan that made this possible. R. eats like a stinking pig (yes, we tell him that) but remains skinny ... why I can't be blessed with that metabolism is beyond me! R. loves his brothers and sisters and lights up whenever he sees them ... and they all love him and are just wonderful with him ... I couldn't feel more blessed. Right now he's quite attached to Mama, I think because of the arrival of the teeth, a growth spurt, and a little cold he picked up (I don't mind at all though ... he can love on me all he wants).

Happy Birthday Wonderful Boy!

The Bees ... and the flowers and the trees ...

Sweet simplicity!

The quilt consists of bands of a wonderful bee and flower fabric and stripes of pieced greens and yellows.


(the quilt is a rectangle ... not all wonky like the photographer)

The quilting is done with free-motion stippling on the tan fabric and lots of straight lines on the greens and yellows. Tan thread was used throughout the top, pale green on the backside.



The backside is a super soft yellow stripe (amazingly soft), a bit of the bee fabric, and green daisy cotton.

Blue and Green Tree Love

The above image is the back of the quilt. I love both sides of this one, but the back just makes my heart skip a beat. The tree fabric and the two-toned blue fabric are from Ikea. They were sitting on the shelf just begging, truly begging to be used in a quilt.

Here's the front. Lots of white with blue squares and rectangles thrown in for spots of pattern and color.



The quilting is done with horizontal and vertical straight lines, added randomly, sometimes alone and sometimes in groups of two or three
.




I really like the tree fabric!

Pink Snails ... of course!

One week I went nuts and made 10 small quilt tops, all crib/lap size. Since that week I've been trying to make all the tops into quilts and I'm s-l-o-w-l-y getting them completed. Very, very s--l--o--w--l--y.



But at least I have a good helper, making sure the quilts are comfy enough for a sweet baby. If you can't tell, those are some really kissable feet.



The front of this quilt uses an Amy Schimler Creatures and Critters print, which I absolutely love, with a green polka dot (from a sheet) and an Amy Schimler coordinating stripe. The white is a Kona cotton.



The back is green polka dot.

The quilting is done with a pale pink thread with meandering free-motion stitches. I wasn't sure how the pink would work on the white fabric but in the end I was really happy with it.



More baby feet. He tried his hardest to be in every picture I took!