Triangle Quilt Complete

I can hardly believe it myself!  After almost a year of putting this little quilt off, I finally sat down and completed it!

The quilt came out okay.  Not quite how I had first imagined it to be.  But I think the little girl it is going to will still love it!

On the back, I put some of the extra blocks and utilized one of the natural triangles as my quilt label.

 Feels great to finally be able to check this off my WIP list!  Now to pack it up and mail it off!

Lunch Bag Finish!

I finished Logan's train lunch bag today!  Here it is all lovely with the train fabric he picked out!

 

 

 

I purchased the pattern from Gingercake Patterns and Design.  Instead of the Velcro that the pattern called for, I used a magnetic snap.  Mainly because I despise Velcro.

 

 

 

The inside is just a yellow striped cotton print that I laminated with iron on vinyl. 

 

 

 



 The pattern was easy to follow, I misread where to leave one of the two openings at for turning the lunch bag right side out; which I discovered after everything was turned out and ironed nicely.  So, I improvised. I don't think anyone would be able to tell unless they were looking for it. And I'm not going to say anything!

 

He's ready for a fun filled day at school!

 

 

 



WIP - Planning the Big Birthday Bash & A Giveaway

My little guy's 5th Birthday is tomorrow, so Saturday is his big birthday bash.  I'm calling it this for several reasons:

1. This is his first "real" birthday party with friends.  All of his other parties have been just us as a family. 
2. I haven't thrown a party this big before.  We sent out 17 invitations and so far 15 kids are coming.

Speaking of invitations.  Are these not the cutest invites ever!  I've gotten lots of compliments on them.  I purchased them through an Etsy shop called onlysunshinedesigns.

 

Lots of sewing going on to get ready for the party.

 

 

 

When I made the last crayon roll, I said that I wanted to make them again - say for a Birthday party.  So here I am, whipping up 20 of these puppies.  These ones are a bit different in that I made them to fit 8 crayons and added a place for a small pad of drawing paper.

 

 

Besides crayon rolls, there are wooden train whistles, train puzzles, train bubbles, lots and lots of train cups, plates, an engine pinata...

 

 

 

And of course, we have to have a train cake!  I'm going to make 2 of them - one chocolate and one vanilla.

 



 

Still on my to do list - bunting!

 

So, how about a Happy Birthday Logan giveaway?  I let Logan help pick out a little something for you guys.

 

Five La Femme by Melissa Crowley for Robert Kaufman fat quarters. 

 

 

 

 

To enter leave a comment on what Birthday activities you like to do (no matter if it's for you or a kids' party.) International entries welcome! 

 

Giveaway will close January 23rd at 6pm MST.  I will pick a random number, make sure that I have an e-mail address for you!

If It's Not the Kids...

I 've showed pictures before of my little ones crawling all over a quilt I was trying to baste.  If they aren't on it, then I have this...

Look at my Biscuit there, nice and comfy.  Sheesh.

Last Minute Holiday Making

On Saturday, I had the crazy notion that I needed to battle the mall in order to get my 2 year old daughter, Aslyn, something for Christmas. I had yet to get or make her anything and time was running low. 

Upon this "quest" I realized that the mall has absolutely nothing for a 2 year old girl.  With my 4 year old son in tow, we frantically searched three stores only to come out with a pair of pajamas my son picked out for her from him (it has trains on it,) and a few beaded necklaces.

I think I have mentioned before that every time I have my kids with me at my local quilt shops, they pick out a fabric for their own little stash.  So yesterday, I decided to whip a couple of things up for Aslyn with some of her stash fabric.

 

First was a little purse; she loves getting into mine.  I found this tutorial here.  The outer fabric is Urban Zoologie, handle and lining is A Stitch in Color Little Dot Clementine.

 

Second, a doll quilt.  Currently, she takes her little stuffed animals and tries to wrap them in twin to queen size blankets.  I received the hexagons from my swap partner in the Post-Summit Swap.  

   



 

 

This quilt will more than likely get lots of use, lots of dragging around the house and outside, lots of washing; therefore I quilted it rather densely with straight lines.  I had quilted around the outer edge of each hexagon and skipped over those with my straight lines, so the hexagons kind of pop out a bit.

 

 

 

I had some trouble with the fabric feeding through my machine.  For some reason my feed dogs weren't catching it.  So, it's not the best quality work.  But I don't think Aslyn or her "bebes" will mind.

 









Photo Friday - 2012

 

 

Community Quilt

Logan's preschool has a program called "Community Elder."  Basically, someone from the community comes in and teaches or talks to the class about something.  There have been lots of music, paper making from recycled egg cartons and paper tubes, as well as potion making (for Halloween.)

Yesterday was "part 1" of my community elder project.  My job is to teach the kids how a quilt is made.  The idea is to have each kid sew a block and then I quilt it for the school.

These are some of the fabrics I chose to use.  Silly me, I didn't take a picture of all of the fabric before I set the kids on them!  The reds were the first to go.

My example block.  In my haste (I decided to do an example block right before I was to leave to teach the class) I used my sewing machine to go around my hand - the kids are all hand stitching theirs on.

Each child wrote his name on his block; I think I'm going to embroider the names.  One little girl was so excited about this project - I'm sure if I showed her how, she could probably embroider her own name.

They are all doing such a great job on their blocks!  In fact, Logan's teachers told me that instead of resting at rest time, all the kids were sitting around stitching away!

Photo Friday - 2012

A Visit from the Tooth Fairy

I mentioned a while back that my oldest, Logan had a loose tooth.  Well last night it finally fell out (with a bit of help from Dad.)  After the tears slowed, w gave Logan his caboose pillow, the pockets ready to hold his precious first tooth.  Though we have talked about it before, we gave another explanation on how the tooth fairy will come, leave a token for him, and bless him with sweet dreams and good luck.

It's funny - I remember losing my teeth as a child.  The excitement of the tooth fairy bringing me a little something in my elephant pillow.  Logan seemed to care less!  He was more concerned about his tooth falling out than anything else.

As of tonight, here is his pillow.  Laying there, untouched.

In this pocket you will find
A teensy, tiny tooth of mine.
So while I sleep where
dreams are made,
Let’s see if you
can make a trade.

In this pocket I will lay,
the little tooth I lost today.
Please, dear fairy,
tonight as I sleep
leave me a coin.
My tooth you can keep.

- Author Unknown

This Weekend

Boy this weekend sure flew by!  And I have so much to do still before I leave on Wednesday for Sewing Summit! 

Remember those pieces of fabric I wrote about in my last WIP post?  Well, they are now blocks ready to go to Utah for a Quilt of Valor.

 

Saturday was spent working on the house we are trying to move into.  Logan's teachers came out and helped.  Seriously, we probably wouldn't be as far as we are if not for them!  Speaking of Logan, my little guy has a loose tooth.  Already?!  He is growing up way too fast! 

 

 

That means a tooth fairy pillow was in order!  And since it is pretty loose and can fall out at any time, a tooth fairy pillow needed to be made ASAP!  So, I dropped everything and went off to create.

 

While growing up, mine was a green plaid elephant with a little pocket on it's body.  I love that little pillow.  All of my siblings used it as well.  I think one of my brother's got it as they had kids before I did.

 

 

Okay, done reminiscing.  On to Logan's pillow.  He LOVES his trains, so I figured a train pillow was in order.  I ended up making a caboose, with the windows as pockets to hold the tooth and coins the tooth fairy brings.

 

The back is some leftover fabric I had from the I spy quilt I made his class. The fabric is The Little Engine that Could.

 

 



Logan was so excited, he brought his pillow to school today to show all his friends, as well as his loose tooth!

It's Finally Framed!

A while back I finished this little project for my daughter's room.  I just received it back from the framers last week!

All that is left to do is hang it on the wall!

The Princess and the Pea Quilt

Here I thought I had this glorious idea; we call my 17 month old daughter Princess Pea, so I thought - "Wow, a Princess Pea quilt would be awesome to make her for her first quilt!"  The wheels turned.  I had it almost all planned out.  I googled it - - and found it.  Yep.  Somebody had already been there and done that.  And guess where it was?  On the Moda Bakeshop site.

The nice thing with finding the quilt done before, is it took all my guesswork out of making my princess.  Oh, I figured I would applique her on, but I didn't know how she would look.  Done!

I hand stitched a face on her.

The Moda Bakeshop version has ruffles all along the edge and the princess is without a face.  So after the applique portion was done I pretty much broke away from the Bakeshop tutorial and did my own thing.

I knew right away I wanted to put Hans Christian Andersen's story of the Princess and the Pea on the back.  I pieced a frame with some scraps into the backing so I would know where to put the story as I didn't want to quilt over it.  Printed the story onto fabric off my computer - and WALLAH! 

This quilt was not without it's frustrations. I don't know how many times I broke out my seam ripper. And I'm not all that crazy about the quilting job on it either;  I must not have had the layers tight enough while basting. I have always pinned basted but am thinking about trying spray basting on my next quilt. 

The pea


As I hand stitched the binding, story, label and pea on, my little pea would cuddle up next to me and drape the portions I was not working on over herself.  She usually isn't very cuddly, so these were precious moments.

Size: 44" x 50"
Fabrics: Strawberry Fields by Fig Tree Quilts for Moda, scraps I had for the applique.  Face and hands are felt.
Quilting: Stitch in the ditch for the mattresses and free motion clouds in the open space at the top - all done by me on my home machine.
Completed: February 2012

Four Years Ago....

I welcomed this little guy into the world, four years ago.

I could go on and on about the type of boy he is and becoming, but instead I'm going to get right down to the celebration he had at school.

Logan's teachers had asked him last week what he was planning on bringing to school to share with the other kids.  He told them, "Tractor cookies."  From there the expectations rose.  Regular readers of this blog might remember that for his 3rd Birthday, we sent him to school with boxes of chocolate cow cookies we found (I don't even remember where now.)

I searched everywhere in Albuquerque for tractor cookie cutters, until finally realizing that my mission was a total failure.

Onto plan B...

On a piece of paper I drew a tractor shape and placed that on my dough, cutting around my template with a knife.  It.took.for.ever.

But seeing his face light up and then all the other kids' in the class - - totally worth it!

Sleeping Angels

I interrupt our regurlaly scheduled program to give you this....

The picture didn't turn out so well, but you get the idea.

Here are my two little munchkins, curled up on the couch next to our Christmas tree.  {See the quilt they are under?  That's the first quilt I ever made, a Spiderman quilt for my husband.}  There is just something magical about sleeping next to the glow of a Christmas tree!

Happy Halloween!

A week of costume and trick-or-treat bag making, and still my sister - who came to visit - and I were up this Halloween morning putting the finishing touches on costumes.

As we were getting the costumes together, I wondered what did we do all week?  It seemed like we were working in every spare moment on it all and still we weren't done?  We went out Sunday, searching stores to purchase some pumpkins for my kiddos to carve; finally finding a few (and expensive) ones at the fourth store we drove by, a feed store close to home.  All the years before my little family has gone to the local pumpkin  patch, but somehow time got away from us this year and I realized while running errands on Sunday that we didn't have anything to carve into jack-o-lanterns.

My son's preschool party was at noon this year so we needed everything done by 11:15 am. I really think that if I didn't have my sister here visiting and willing to help with Halloween costumes, that I would not have had them done.

So thank you, thank you my little sis!!

I did get one out of two trick-or-treat bags done...

And my sister even made a Halloween dinner...

Mummys

And had Logan decorate cupcakes...

Spider cupcakes

Without further delay, this year, with a lot of duct tape, some bolts, felt, a sewing machine, cardboard boxes, paint - I present (drum roll please!)

A rancher in his John Deere Tractor and...
             

his little Wagyu calf.

Happy Halloween!!