Moving On.

I've been gone for a while.  So much has happened over the past months, I'm not sure where to begin!  I have laid a quick summary out for you below.

First, I'm sad to say that we no longer live in New Mexico.  We packed up our little ranch house, livestock, and kiddos and drove halfway across the country to Washington State.  It was a bit of a sudden decision, but here we are.  If you have been following me for a while, you know that all of our family live here in Washington, and it was just time to be closer to them.

My little ones have never seen the ocean, or any kind of large body of water before.  Now that we are in Washington, we thought it necessary.  So, one day we bundled up and took a ferry boat trip to Vashon Island.  It was wet and cold, but absolutely wonderful!

Our heifer we brought along with us from New Mexico, had a little heifer of her own.  She is a couple of hours old in this photo and has already grown so much since then! 

I ran the Seattle Rock and Roll Marathon - photo taken at the start line.

I reopened Fresh Picked Patchwork here in Washington and survived my first craft show!  I will be at the Puyallup Farmers Market this Fall - so if you're from the area stop by!



 

 I will have more on sewing and other matters, but for now thank you.  I appreciate all of you readers and have truly missed this aspect of the sewing community. 

 

A Little Selling

Things have been crazy around here.  School is in full swing so between chauffeuring kiddos to school and back, homework assignments (my little Logan is now in kindergarten,) and my everyday jobs of ranch work, mom, wife, cook, etc. keeps me plenty busy on their own.

Between all of that, I have decided to get the wheels in motion on starting my own sewing business.  It's something I've been wanting to do for a while.  I have a name and logo:

 

And have set up a little space at the preschool.  This is actually my second set,  as the first set pretty much sold out after the 3rd day of school (Yippee!)

There are lunch boxes, fabric folders, zippered snack bags, sandwich wraps, and crayon rolls.

I am starting out slowly, obviously selling a few things here and there while working on inventory for an Etsy shop and a craft fair.

 

I'll be sure to have updates as things go along.  It's all so exciting!!

 

Last Minute Party GIft

Well hello!  Do you remember how I was invited to a baby shower 3 days before the event?  I whipped this quilt up for it.

Anyhow, we were invited to the now one year old little girl's birthday party on Thursday evening with the party being held that Saturday.  That gave me roughly one day to come up with a gift!  Aack!!

So what did I come up with?  My thoughts - on overdrive - began running through things that a one year old could enjoy but that I could finish in time.  Bibs, a handmade puppet, until finally it hit me!  I cut  48 5x5 inch squares in yellows and pinks.  The letters of her name in a chocolate wool felt.  And wallah!!  Fabric blocks!

They were quite the hit with my little ones, as well as at the party.

Summer Days

These lazy summer days are going by way to fast!  Okay, so ours aren't really lazy.  We've just finished up artificial inseminating 50+ head of cattle, transferred roughly 25 embryos into our recipient cows, I ultra sounded 20+ head of cattle, and have had 66 calves born thus far.

Both kiddos are in the preschool summer school program and are having a blast.  Yesterday they "visited" Italy on their train tour of Europe.  It's exciting to hear what they learn and eat at each stop.  The teachers joke that they are "eating their way through Europe" as at each "stop" they make a food from that place.  In Wales they had welsh cake, in Italy pasta, etc.

Since Aslyn is going much more regularly now, I made her  a lunchbox just like her brothers.  Instead of trains, I used a couple of the Puppy Park prints I had won at Sewing Summit last year, as well as pieces from my stash.

Finished these kitchen towels from Patchwork, Please! 

Well, I'm off to chaufer kids to school!  Have a happy Thursday!

Randomness

Hi!  Are you all getting ready for the long weekend?  We have cattle work to do on our end here, so there will be that and sewing!

Today is my kiddo's preschool graduation.  Logan is officially going to be in Kindergarten.  Little Pea is so small that even the smallest robe swam on her!  So, it got sent home with me to do a lot of hemming!

 

 

Other than that, I've just been sewing a few random things here and there.  Just whatever strikes me to sew at the time.

 

 

Another one of Ayumi's lunch boxes.  These are so easy and quick to make.  You might remember I made two of them for the preschool teachers.  I had one of those mini charm packs of Vintage Modern and some Essex Linen.  The handles and inside cover are a piece of a small hounds tooth, aqua print I had lying around.  I don't know the maker/manufacturer - sorry.

 

  

 

Another little project I threw together, just because.  I wanted to make a journal cover; so, I took some of my batiks I had leftover from this project, and put one together.

 

 

 



Oh, and recently I received a sewing machine from a woman cleaning out her sewing room.  Mine has been acting up a bit, so it will be nice to have a spare.  I haven't tried it out yet, perhaps that will be a good weekend project.

Have a safe and restful Memorial weekend!

WIP - Recuperating

Well, Logan's Birthday party was a hit!  We ended up with 20 kids and 18 adults.  Honestly, I wasn't expecting such a turn out with the three day weekend!

I finished Logan's lunch bag...

amongst all these crayon rolls.

I have a plan for these selvages.

There's still time to enter my giveaway!  I will close it tonight at 6 PM MST.

Quilt/Bind:

Log cabin quilt

No progress:
Beatrix Potter quilt (fabric hunting)
Barn quilt
Husband's shirt
Felt Christmas ornaments
Colorbrick quilt
Baby quilt for Susan (triangle quilt)
Logan's wall hanging
Summer skirt - just need to hem!
Zakka nesting boxes
Community quilt with preschool (waiting on hands to be completed.)
Neutral quilt

In progress:


Stats:
New projects:1
Completed projects: 2 (crayon rolls and Logan's lunch bag)
No progress: 11
In progress: 0

Linking up to Freshly Pieced.

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!

Every time!

I always do this.  Every time I make something with ties on it, I sew them wrong so that when I turn the item right side out, the ties are stuck inside.

Out comes the trusty seam ripper...again.

2013 - A Lovely Year of Finishes

Have you heard of Fiber of All Sorts and Sew Bitter Sweet Design's 2013 challenge?

It's called "A Lovely Year of Finishes."  At the beginning of each month you link up your goal project.  In other words, a project that you want to finish by the end of that month. 



So for January, I chose my triangle quilt.  Yeah, you guys have seen this one quite a bit.  But I want need to get it done!

At the end of the month, you link your finished project back up to the linky party to show all you accomplished your goal!

I have many WIP's (works in progress) that have been hanging around; and me needing a push to get them done.  The encouragement from the others participating is just the ticket!

Sewing Again!

Tomorrow is the Albuquerque Modern Quilt Guild holiday potluck and ornament exchange.  I took out my bin of green and brown scraps and started stitching them together.  Not sure what this will become - maybe a tree?  With small colored scraps for lights?

Whatever these scraps decide to become, it's great to be sewing again!

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!

Busy Little Bees

Things have been pretty crazy around here.  School started back up,  Logan is now in Pre-K.  We are just getting used to the school year schedule again.

My little Aslyn turned 2 years old!  Where does the time go?  Since one of Logan's teacher's birthday is the day before Aslyn's, we all took the tram in Albuquerque up to the top of the Sandia Mountains and had dinner.

 

 

Lots and lots of cattle work being done.  Ultra sounding (I am the ultrasound tech), breeding, embryo flush and transferring. 

We spent most of Labor Day weekend working, but managed to get away on Monday.  We drove up to Nambe and played in the water holes.

 

I did manage to squeeze in one little project.  After being asked for a business card and not having any on me, I decided I needed a business card holder.  After searching the web for a few tutorials, I got the general gist of it and put this one together.  This little project is great for those lingering scraps.

Lastly, my iron died on me.  Luckily, I had just finished reading the iron reviews in the debut issue of Generation Q magazine.  An order to Amazon and now I am impatiently waiting for my new iron to arrive.

Hope all has been well with you!