Settling down

Alright!!  We are starting week 5 of school this year (I can't believe it!!) and I think I'm settling down into a routine again.  Yes, things pop up and life gets in the way, but a routine is again beginning to develop and for that I am grateful.

This routine has brought me 2 finishes in the last 2 days!  And I thought I'd take a minute to show them off. You know, so I don't forget what it's like to finish something.  

First up is the baby quilt I made for some sweet friends having their second little girl any day now.  It's a simple raw-edge applique where I sewed the squares down and got the quilting done all in one shot.  Yay for easy!  I'm considering going back and adding a little hand-quilting in some of the squares...we shall see.  It probably depends on when baby Sydney comes!  This baby is in process of being washed, dried, and then having all of those yucky strings that come with the first washing cut off. 

This was during a 5-minute break in the monsoon...sorry for the fuzziness, I had to work with what I got!

 Here is Miss Sydney's name up close and personal.  It's the first thing I've satin stitched in about 100 million years, so I'm just glad it's readable!  I was going to outline it in a pink perle cotton when I got done with the brown, but decided to leave well enough alone and not mess it up.  ;)

Second up--I finished a knitted project!!!  Over the summer we went to a family reunion in Alabama.  It was about an 8 hour drive, so I grabbed my GAP-tastic cowl that I'd gotten halfway through and then frogged completely (ripped it all out to start over--get it frog rip-it!!!) and started over.  Y'all know me and my on-again, off-again affair with knitting, so the fact I even started this project when temps were in the 90s is amazing, but even more so that I finished it.

It is not without flaws--first off, even with as careful as I tried to be in the car, I somehow managed to twist my stitches on the needles to make this straight cowl into an infinity style...I'm calling it a style choice although it would fit much better if it were straight like intended...  And there were some holes where my focus was apparently lacking.  And I think my seed stitch (knit 1, purl 1 consistently) took on a more ribbed look where I must have got off track in places.  BUT, aside from all of those mistakes, I am proud to have this project done and off of my needles.

I'm calling this my far-away and dreamy look, but really it's just that I felt dumb looking into the mirror to take a picture of myself! 

The weather is absolutely awful today!  It's been storming, and I'm talking house-rattling thunder and lightning, for hours, so my pics aren't great.  And for the sake of blog honesty, it is supposed to be 88 degrees today, so I am totally wearing shorts and a t-shirt with this cowl!  

Is Barbizon Modeling still open??  Maybe I should give them a call...I've got that bored model look down!  ;)

As you can see, I got my hair cut last week, cutting off quite a bit.  Toni asked if I was was going to show it on here, so here ya go, girl.  You know I love you to put 2 pictures of me up for you.  I could never make it as a What I Wore blogger because taking pictures of myself each day/week would be torture!

And as far as the hair goes, I usually wear it straight, but today it's just scrunched it up, which wasn't a bad idea with all of this rain and humidity we've got going on today...I'm telling you, have you ever sat through more than 6 hours of thunder and rain?  I can say I have after today....

And since I do have a finish and all...head over to check out Megan's Sew Modern Monday link party.  I'm linking up!

WIP Wednesday

  I've got a new work in progress!  I think instead of overloading myself with all of the many projects I have in various stages of done-ness, from now on, I will concentrate my WIP posts on my current WIP with a list at the bottom of other in-progress projects for my own records...it sure will feel nice to check some of those off!

But for today, I've got this to show you:

We have some dear friends who are expecting their second little girl any day.  It has been a long and slow process to have both girls, and they weren't sure they'd ever have more than one.  I think the Momma had just about given up hope on ever having a second child when they found out they were pregnant with number 2.

So... I wanted to give them something special from us.  I haven't been able to get it done ahead of time because they hadn't chosen a name and I love to include that on special baby quilts.  But, they're ready with the first name and still unsure about the middle, so I'm going with what they'be got and cranking this quilt out.

I wanted something simple for me so I can get it done quickly in case Baby decides to come early, so I'm going with a raw-edge applique squares design with baby's name hand-embroidered near the bottom.  See the paper there, I'm going to trace one of the versions of Sydney onto the fabric for embroidering.  What do you think?  Top or bottom?

When I asked what nursery theme they were going with, my friend told me they were re-using their first child's bedding.  She'd wanted to go with a pink and brown set, but decided to save money and just use the bedding they already had.  So, I knew what my color scheme would be--her desired pink and brown!

For the back, I'm not sure if I have a big enough piece of pink, so I'm going to supplement with some strips of pink and brown to fill in.

Today I'm planning on getting the name embroidered and the top, batting and backing pinned together.  Then I'll just sew the squares down and it'll count for both assembly and quilting in one fell swoop.  Then a binding and this gift will be ready to give.

The kids are going to Grandma's this afternoon, so I'm hoping to have a few hours today to make serious progress with this quilt.  That is, after I tackle Mount Laundry and try to find my kitchen counters under all of the school papers and STUFF that seems to mulitply overnight on them!!

As to those other WIP's lurking in the basket...here's a list:
--do. Good Stitches quilt for May--yikes!  I've still got to piece the rows, find a backing and quilt this baby!
--Carrie's secret project--yes, my sister's Christmas present from last year.  Almost done, one good workday and this baby should be nearing completion.  Just got to find that day to do it!
--Summer Sampler quilt--I HATED the red sashing I chose for it.  Well, not the red, just the way I sashed them, so it's all coming off and I've got to order more red and go back to work on getting this top done.

We're going to stop there as I've got some other things in mind and probably a few other things buried in my WIP basket, but why ruin a great day with too much baggage, right?

Make sure to head over to Lee's for a link up of all kinds of great WIP posts.  The inspiration is staggering.  There are so many creative people in this blogging community.

Wow!

So, I got a package in the mail Saturday afternoon that made me smile.  It had been a long day and we were headed out to the second birthday party of the day (during the Gator game which I had missed the first half of at party #1).

This beauty was staring at me when I opened the package.

Turns out, while I was kinda on a blog posting/reading hiatus I'd won a giveaway at Jennifer's blog.  But I didn't see the notice on the blog and the email she sent me went to my junk folder so I didn't know and she drew a new winner.  :(

I saw the email like an hour later!  Boo!  But I don't blame her one bit, she waited a week!  And I emailed her back to tell her that I completely understood and just wanted her to know that I had eventually gotten the email and I was sorry I hadn't answered earlier.

Well, being the sweet person that she is, she asked for my address so she could send me something anyway.  I told her that wasn't necessary at all, but if she felt compelled to send me something small.  It wasn't her fault I didn't answer in time.

And she outdid herself--this is her something small--a hand-quilted mini quilt which happens to be in my favorite colors!

Check out the back--it's so cute!!!

And not only that, but she sent these cute fabrics too.

If you haven't ever been over to Ellison Lane Quilts, you are missing out.  Jennifer is incredibly talented and so giving too.  :)

I love being a part of this special community where we come together to celebrate each other in so many ways.   I want to thank Jennifer for making my day and to thank each one of you who comes here and reads my rambles.  It means a lot to know I have friends all over who get what I get.  :)

I actually finished something!!

Aaah...it feels so good to actually have a finish to brag about!!!  And by brag I mean that I actually finished something and not that it is so great.  Let's just clarify that right off the bat....  ;)

I mentioned last week that I was designing and making a big doggy pillow for our sweet girl, Belle.  Well, as I have also mentioned MANY times in the past, I am very aware that one of my strengths in life is not spatial reasoning or designing how something comes together.  I just don't see it.  Now, following a pattern I can usually do--but making up my own, not so much.

BUT, I persevered and DIY'ed this baby up!  But let's back up.  Last week, I left you with this:



Since then, I sewed all of those squares into 8" blocks (finished size) leaving me with 15 total including the 10 I already had.  I knew I wanted this pillow to be roughly 3 feet by 4 feet since Belle is a big dog so I decided on a 2-foot wide section of patchwork along the top.  But I didn't want to put anything together until I got the foam insert.

And while I was in the big city shopping with my sister, inspiration struck--instead of buying that EXPENSIVE foam, I could use cheap pillows from JC Penney!  I bought 3 king-sized "firm for side sleepers" pillows and hand-stitched them together when I got home.  So I got the comfort of a soft pillow with some firmness to make it easier to get up and down for Belle.  Then I took an old mattress cover we had with a plastic lining (since she has incontinence issues...) and covered all 3 pillows with it.  I just handstitched this along the bottom to keep it in place.  Sorry, I forgot to take a picture...

The 3 pillows together ended up measuring in at 32" x 48" which was perfect because I could use my 8" squares without any modification.  So--I sewed the squares into 4 rows of 3 squares each.  That made a patchwork column of 24" x 32".  So I sewed a 12" rectangle to either side and I had my top done.  Then I made a zipper strip to act as the side of the pillow.  The biggest zipper I could get at Walmart yesterday was 30" which made for some interesting times getting the finished product around these pillows but I said a bad word and threw it at the wall persevered.

Since I had 3 patchwork squares left over and some black strips left over from the top, I used these randomly to make the side strip long enough.  Once I got that baby sewn to the top, I realized I was out of black fabric...

But I wasn't going to give up this close to victory so I dug around in my stash for something ugly enough I didn't mind losing it to the bottom of a doggy bed and came up with a big piece of mottled lime green fabric that I think may have once been curtains in my sister's old classroom..  Anyway, it was the perfect size for what I needed and I quickly pinned and it sewed it together.

Now...as I mentioned before, I'm not the best at designing.  Somewhere along the way my math got a little hazy and the side strip ended up WAY too big for the bottom piece and I had to add some creative folds and tucks (i.e. cramming the fabric neatly into the necessary space) along the back where I figured no one would notice.   And you can see that it doesn't fit exactly snug around the edges of the pillow form, but I'm down with that.  It is for a dog after all!

But, Belle doesn't seem to mind.  She was so funny when Chris called her over to the pillow and told her to lay down because she didn't seem to want to get on it and mess it up.  She kinda put her front paws on it and left her back end hanging off the side.  Well, her back end (and the incontinence) is the whole reason we want her to have a special place to lay, so we had to convince her to get all the way on.  But, once she got the hang of it, she looked pretty comfortable... what do you think?

Oh, on a side note--I sprayed both the inner pillow section and the outer cover repeatedly with ScotchGuard for fabric in hopes of keeping the pee that she will drip out of the pillows.  I am hopeful that this along with regular washing of the outer layer will prevent any pee and dirt from creeping into the pillows and stinking them up.

Belle says "How can you not love this face???"

WIP Wednesday

I think the hardest part of taking a blogging break is getting back on track when you return!  I have things to show y'all, tell y'all and bore you to tears with, but I just can't seem to get to this computer long enough to type it out...

Oh well, we're only in week 2 of school and I've got time to get a new schedule worked out before next summer...  ;)

Since I took such a long summer break from sewing, I decided to jump back in with some new projects before tackling that evil-eyed WIP basket that keeps trying to intimidate me into digging into it.  So far I have  resisted the intimidation, but it was getting dicey...

So I made Oren new shorts, Emma a new lunchbox (still got that to show you) and some bee blocks to get the sewing juices flowing before starting this:

What?  You can't tell exactly what that is... oh, that's because I got as far as cutting some squares before taking a break...man this getting back into sewing can be rough!

Actually, it's going to be a doggie bed for our sweet girl, Belle.  Our black lab is 12 years old and starting to show her age.  Her beard is going from silver to white and she's slower to move around lately.  She's mostly an outside dog (because she has some issues with pee-leakage and can't help it when she has accidents EVERYWHERE), but more and more often this summer she spent her days inside on the cool tile floor.  But, anyone who knows labs knows they get arthritis in their joints, especially their hips as they age, so watching her struggle to get up and down on that tile is sad.

So, Kelli to the rescue!  I'm planning on making her a jam-up awesome bed, not just a blanket folded over a few times.  Since she's black (and an outside dog = dirty) the bed's going to be mostly black with some patchwork down the middle because why not?  Plus our sweet dog deserves some sweet color and design, right??

And...wait for it, here's where that evil-eyed WIP basket gets pacified as well!  A while back (let's not count how many months) I did a postage stamp swap where I received 10 postage stamp blocks with all different fabrics in exactly the same size I was planning on using for this!  So...since they've just been patiently waiting on me from inside the basket, I decided to reward them by being part of this project.  They get to be used, I have to cut and sew less 2.5" squares...WIN, WIN!

So, I'll be working on getting these squares all sewn together and then I've got to take a trip to JoAnn to buy some of that EXPENSIVE nice foam.  Anybody know of a place online that sells that stuff cheaper?  I'm talking about the green foam used for the inside of pillows, seats, etc...

And don't forget to head over to Lee's to check out WIP Wednesday where lots of awesome bloggers link up their works in progress each week.

Boy Shorts

It's true that I'm a girly sew-er.  I usually pick clothing projects that will best suit me or Emma or some sweet little baby that's being born to a friend or relative.  I'm not one to tackle a collared shirt or pleated pants, and t-shirts are just way too cheap to even pretend to make for my little guy.

BUT, when my sweet friend Jenny put out the word that she needed pattern testers for her new "Classically Cool Cargo Shorts" pattern for boys, I was on it!  I let her know I'd make a pair for Oren if she'd like me to try out the pattern.

He's grown quite a bit this summer, so he's somewhere between a size 6 and a 7.  His old clothes in size 6 are all a little too short, but in his new school clothes we bought a mix of 6 and 7.  Jenny asked me to try the size 7 pattern and it fit him perfectly.

Of course I had no fabric in my stash that was both an appropriate design (what's wrong with flowers and polka dots for a boy I want to know????) or in a big enough piece, so we headed to Walmart in hopes they'd have something, ANYTHING appropriate. He's getting a little too self-conscious to sport shorts with a novelty print on them and he's got like 3 pairs of khaki shorts... (For those of you that know us personally--yes, he is his Daddy made over!)

We found a nice blue and orange-ish plaid, which is actually great since that just happens to be our favorite team's (the Gators) colors.  Oren, Daddy and I all agreed on it, so home we went to make some shorts.

I have to say Jenny's pattern was great!  I thought her side pocket construction and detailing was smart.  The side pockets are slanted for easy access for little hands, plus it looks good too.  I did have a problem with the waistband originally, but she's made a tweak to the pattern that makes them look even better and makes the pockets big and roomy for all that stuff boys "need" to collect in there during the day.

The pattern does include directions for a cover flap for these cargo pockets but I royally mis-read the directions and messed them all up, so I left them off.  Next time...

So, here's my little man in something Momma made for him.  It doesn't happen very often.  And he gave them a complete stamp of approval.  Usually if he's home longer than 5 minutes, the kid is naked or close to it.  I swear, you'd think we ran a nudist colony or something--but when I asked him to wear these shorts to let me get some pictures in them, he wore them the rest of the day and tried to wear them the next.

That's a genuine stamp of approval.  And that makes this Momma awful happy.  :)

Fresh Start

Hey y'all!  Look who's back among the land of the blogging!

I had every intention of being back sooner, but between the back-to-school rush, taking over as co-chair of the PTO, AND Emma finally taking an interest in crafty stuff and wanting to finish the beginning embroidery we started a year and a half ago and needing my attention every time I sat down, I just plum ran out of hours in the day to blog!  ;)

But the kids went back to school yesterday and had a great first day, so I can breathe again and find my own routine again too.

I have gotten a few things done in the meantime.  I had some bee blocks to finish up, I made a pair of shorts based on my friend Jenny's new pattern (she's awesome!  I'd recommend any of her patterns!) and I even made Em a new lunchbox.

And now that school is in, I'd like to make a dent in my WIP basket that is overflowing with goodies that range from projects I've picked out fabrics for all the way to need quilting or just binding...

Today I'll leave you with the pics I took yesterday of the first day of school, but I promise I'll be back tomorrow or the next with pictures of the adorable shorts for Oren and Em's new lunchbox which looks pretty good (no bragging from me--she's got good taste in fabric!  haha)

Emma was excited and ready to start school!  You can see a peek of her new lunchbox behind her backpack there...

 

Oren was a nervous wreck when he woke up as you can see in the pictures.  Once we got to school he was absolutely fine and sent me on my way thank goodness!

I am truly blessed to know that when I drop them off at school they are safe with ladies who care for them greatly and want to see them grow and succeed.  I couldn't ask for more...

I hope you have a great day today and I'll see ya soon!