Swanky Easter Dresses

I picked up some fabric for Easter Dresses in the clearance section of my Local Quilt Store.

Swanky,

adjective;

elegant or ostentatious

Yes, a little early, but with 4 dresses to make so I figure I can't have too big of a head start.

Do You See What I See? And A Quirky House

Look closely and you will see...

...a chicken. Crazy bird.

Our house has some quirks:

1. You have to lift the lever after flushing or else the toilet will keep running.
2. The washing machine leaks slightly. I just put a towel against the left edge to soak it up as it leaks.
3. If any water goes into the overflow drain in the upstairs bathroom it will drain downstairs through the molding.
4. The far garage door opener is broken. If it is used it mangles and jams the door. I just lift the doors up by hand to avoid accidentally pushing the wrong button.

It's That Time of The Year!

Uber clearance time!

I love shopping in January and early February. All of the winter stuff is priced to go and I stock up on clothing for the following year. Yesterday at Target I got:

4 pair one size fits all kid mittens

4 sweaters

3 pairs of kakhi pants for Brian

a pair of kid pants

a robe

a pair of pajama pants

and a tee shirt

for $46!

Have you seen any good deals?

WIP Wednesday

Hi there! Progress has been made this week, projects started and finished even. Here we go...

1. Ticker-tape Quilt - Aleah wanted to make a quilt for her 100th day of school project. We followed the instructions from the Old Red Barn Co. Quilt Along. It was a fun project to do together.

2. Colleen's Skirt - I bought this fabric at JoAnn's in September. I liked it because it has a bunch of colors and should go with almost any of her shirts. She was not cooperating so this is as good of a picture as you are going to get. :)

Good Progress

3. Civil War Quilt - I am caught up and finished making block #4 - Texas Tears

4. Grandmother's Flower Garden - I'm getting hexagons based and ready to take on my trip next week!

5. Crazy Quilt Blocks - I made 6 more blocks!

6. Pink and Yellow Diamond Quilt - This quilt for my niece-to-be has been laid out on my living room rug for almost a week, but half of it is sewn together now. I think it is coming together well. I love pink and yellow!

Stalled

7. Big Tree Quilt - needs to be quilted

8. Cousin Sacks

Stats

Started - 2

Finished - 2

In Progress -6

The Daily Grind

My mom is coming to watch the kids next week while I go with Brian to Mexico. He will be working and I will be lounging by the pool reading. I started to type out some basic "this is our day" stuff for my mom and realized it would be cool to have a record of it. So here you go: The Daily Grind

The Morning Rush

6:45 - get Emily and Aleah up. Collen usually wakes up too but she doesn't need to.

6:50-7:15

• Get dressed (it will speed things up if you grab Aleah's clothes)
• Eat (we usually eat cold cereal because it is the fastest, but whatever you want to make is fine)
• Hair, teeth potty (this takes Much Longer than it should so keep that in mind)

7:15 Start putting on winter gear

7:20 Out the door (7:25 latest) If Aleah is having a really hard time and if you feel like it you can offer to give her a ride to school. You should leave by 7:45 to get there in good time.

Morning: 7:30 -11:30

• Kate will usually wake up on her own between 7 and 8, let her sleep as long as she needs
• Eat, dress, etc
• Feed chickens, give them scraps from the day before and check for eggs
• Errands
• Play - Colleen likes playing with dolls and play food right now. Play dough is also a favorite (I think ours is dried up, but you guys could make some)
• Snack - Colleen often asks for a snack mid morning and I am ok with that. Sometimes we even eat "lunch" at 10 and have a snack at noon.

Lunch

• favorites include mac&cheese, tortillas and cheese, apple slices, pb&j or anything that you feel like.

Afternoon

• Kate goes down for a nap between 12:30 and 1. You might want to read a few stories and then carry her upstairs and put her in bed. She should only cry for 5-10 minutes before falling asleep.
• I usually let Collen watch a video while Kate takes a nap. Dora and Angelina Ballerina on Netflix are her current favorites.
• Emily and Aleah get home at 3:30
• Check for homework, practice piano/trombone
• Snack if desired
• Send one of them out to check for eggs
• Kate should wake up by4:30 - yes, she will still be able to fall asleep at night so let her sleep until she wakes up by herself

Evening

• Dinner between 5-6pm
• Chores: Aleah usually clears and wipes the table, Emily unloads the dishwasher and Colleen feeds National and helps set the table. Sometimes they like to trade and of course whatever chores you want to assign them in addition.
• 6pm start getting ready for bed
• Teeth, Pajamas, Potty!
• Scriptures & Prayer (if we had an early dinner or if I am feeling nice we will sometimes have dessert/snack during scripture time)
• Read a few book upstairs.
• Personal prayers
• Lights out 7-7:15pm
• After the Big Girls' lights are out carry Kate to her room, snuggle her in her blanket, rock her for awhile and lay her down. Hopefully, she will go to sleep. (I usually nurse her first, eek!) If she doesn't settle down well, keep her up until she is super tired and try again.
• Kate is pretty good about sleeping through the night. She will occasionally wake up and cry for a few minutes and then fall back asleep. If she doesn't settle down you can try rocking her and laying her back down or she usually will fall right back asleep if she can snuggle next to you in bed.
• If Kate wakes up and, after all your attempts to put her back to sleep, is bright and chipper she will stay awake for a good two hours before falling back asleep - seriously, it is like clockwork, so you might as well get up and pop in a movie.

My Family and Other Animals

Have you seen that movie? Love it!

Emily

• Needs to practice the piano and trombone at least 5 times a week.
• She has piano practice at 4:30 at the neighbor's house. Send her out the door with her books at 4:25.
• Needs to take her trombone to school every other day. She keeps track of this well herself.
• Spelling test is on Friday. Practice her words with her throughout the week.

Aleah

• Hates waking up in the morning. We find carrying her downstairs and helping her dress makes the morning go more smoothly, but maybe she will behave for you.

Colleen

• Likes to do almost everything by herself. If she doesn't cooperate when you ask her to to something, wait a few minutes and she will usually decide to do it herself.
• She takes care of her bathroom needs herself and rarely if ever has an accident. All you have to do is empty the potty. If she says she doesn't have to go she really doesn't -- forcing her before bedtime does not work. If she has gone within two hours before bed she will be fine.

Kate

• We are working on getting her up off the ground and on her feet - i.e. putting play things on the couch where she stands to play with them or taking her on "walks" while holding on to her hands.
• She love to sit up on the counter while I am making dinner and has never (ok, only once) fallen off.
• She eats by herself, insists on have a spoon or fork, but still needs a sippy cup.

The Chickens

• AM: Check their water and food. Bring in any eggs.
• Afternoon: Check for eggs. Eggs need to be gathered twice a day or they will freeze and crack.
• Scraps: Feed them scraps in the morning so they don't become a frozen clump overnight. They enjoy eating: greens, rice, bread, pasta, beans and cooked fruits and veggies. They do not like: onions, peels, apple cores and citrus.

National the Cat

• Colleen is in charge of keeping her fed and watered and gets upset if anyone else does it.
• National does her business outside and is very good about letting you know if she wants out.
• She can force the back door open from the outside, so if you are leaving to run errands make sure she is in or the top of the door is latched.
• She can claw the fabric couch but don't let her use her nails on the leather couch - give her a good hard whack if she does.
• She sleeps inside.

Keeping the Sabbath Day Quilty: or I think I am now an over the top Mom

Friday, Aleah our Kindergartener came home with a note saying their class was going to celebrate the 100th day of school and asking that each child bring a collection/display of 100 things (100 Cherrios, marbles, pennies, whatever). I was working on a quilt at the table when Aleah came home and she grabbed some of my scraps and said, "100 little pieces of fabric!" How could I say no?

Over at the Old Red Barn Co. Quilt Along group they are making ticker-tape quilts. Basically, you glue your scraps of fabric onto your top piece of fabric, layer and sew around each piece about 1/4 inch in from the edge. The perfect project for Aleah's 100 pieces of fabric.

Friday night and Saturday morning, using the scraps from my hexagon quilt, we counted out 10 sets of 10 (you would think this would be easy, but it was the most painful part of the process). Life happened and we didn't work on it any more on Saturday.

Sunday morning our 10 year old asked if the quilt was going to be ready for school on Monday. I said the party wasn't on Monday (who would give parents only a few days warning?). I checked the note. They were suppose to bring them in on Monday. Augh!!

Now, I know this might seem silly, but we try to keep Sundays low key around here - a day for Church and family. As part of that I made the decision long ago that I wouldn't sew on Sunday (except for handwork, a girl has to have something!). But yesterday I broke down.

The morning was spent gluing. My husband worried that this was going to turn into "my" project, but Aleah glued over half of the fabric pieces and I only moved ones that strayed too close to the edge or where there were three of the same fabric really close together.

After dinner Aleah sat on my lap and we free motion quilted around each piece.

(I love that little face in the corner!)

Even Dad took a turn.

After the kids were in bed I bound the edge. It is sooo cute. I was going to take a picture of Aleah and her quilt this morning, but someone decided she was going to have a meltdown because her black sweater wasn't clean and it wasn't a photo shoot moment. You'll have to take my word for now, because it is still at school.

I was so proud of Aleah - for making the quilt, Not for screaming about her sweater for a half hour - and am glad she is taking an interest in sewing.

WIP Wednesday and First 3 Civil War Blocks

It seems like the fates have conspired against me and the sewing machine this week, but I was able to work on my Civil War blocks.

1. Civil War Quilt - I am all caught up on the blocks that have been posted so far. Yea! But I think making all of these blocks will be a learning experience in fabric choice and placement.

Block #1 - Catch Me If You Can (tutorial) I love these fabrics, but I don't think there was quite enough contrast.

Block #2 - North Star (tutorial) Again, I love the floral, but I think I would rather have had the points be the darker color.

Block #3 - Seven Sisters (tutorial) This was suppose to be straight applique, but I "cheated" and used fuse-able web and blanket stitched around them. I have appliqued before, but my points aren't very good and these were tiny stars. I figured better safe than sorry.
I have really enjoyed this project and can't wait until Saturday when the next block is posted.

2. Grandmother's Flower Garden - it's a'comin' 'long

Stalled
3. Big Tree Quilt - supper stalled!

4. Pink and Yellow Diamond Quilt

5. Cousin Sacks

6. Crazy Quilt Blocks

This week:

Completed: 0

Added: 0

Total: 6

WIP Wednesday

This has been a slow week on every front. Our 18 month old has been sooo sick that I spent most of the last week and a half snuggling with her on the couch, listening to Harry Potter on CD. She has improved to stuffy and I was able to finish these January bee blocks yesterday while she napped and played (yes!) with her sister.

For the Twist on Tradition Bee I made these pinwheel/log cabin blocks Emily requested. I think they will look really good all together.

For Megan in Bee Improvisational: house blocks. I. Am. In. Love. with these florals. She sent tons of fabric and I am sorely tempted to keep the leftovers. JK, Megan. :)

The Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt got placed on the back burner in December, but since Christmas I joined 23 flowers together. Slow and steady wins the race.

Join the WIP link-up with Lee at Freshly Pieced and see what everyone has been up to.

Civil War Blocks Enter the 21st Century

One of my favorite blogs is Barbara Brackman's Material Culture. Barbara is a quilt historian and fabric designer who shares regular posts about quilts, quilt dating and fabric. Some of my favorite posts are ones where she shows pictures of quilts gone wrong (Sunbonnet Sue, Lone Stars and More)

Do you ever feel a little out of whack?

Because 2011 is the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, Barbara started a new blog: Civil War Quilts. Each Saturday, she will share pictures and stories from people who lived during the Civil War (she has an amazing collection of antique pictures) and a pattern for an 8 inch quilt block.

I LOVE history and antique stuff (one of my dreams is to work at a living history center) but don't have any Civil War reproduction prints and I don't really know if I want to buy any. (Although I must say there are some pretty coral pinks, reds and browns out there). But I still want to participate in Barbara's quilt along, so this is what I have decided to do:

• I will make a goodly number of the blocks out of my stash of Meadowsweet.

From Sandi Henderson's webpage.

• Add a two inch sashing in white to make them 12 inch blocks.
• When my month comes around in A Twist on Tradition Bee I will ask for 12 inch star themed blocks.
• Put the Bee blocks on point and alternate with my Civil War blocks.

I think I am in love with the quilt already! Now I just have to get sewing!

Books I've Read in 2010

Last year my friend Heather (private blog, only really-cool-special-friends-are-allowed-to-read-it or else I would link) posted a list of the books she had read in 2009. I thought it was a great idea and kept track of what I read this year. A lot of Young Adult fiction.

1. May Amalia
2. Sarah Plain and Tall
3. The Thief and the Beanstalk
4. Charlie Bone #3
5. A Statue for America (Statue of Liberty nonfiction)
6. Scandinavian Humor and Other Myths
7. Number the Stars
8. Pebble in the Sky, Asimov
9. The Magician's Elephant, DiCamillo
10. Artemis Fowl, #1, 2, 3, 4 & 6
11. Crinoline to Calico by Nan Heacock
12. Hang a Thousand Trees with Ribbons, the story of Phillis Wheatley (1st African American Poet) by Ann Rinaldi
13. Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools by Mortensen
14. A Canticle for Leibniz
15. Little House in Brookfield, Little House by the Crossroads
16. Beekeepers Apprentice and O, Jerusalem by Laurie King
17. Enola Holmes Mysteries 1-4
18. Papa Married a Mormon
19. Water Horse by Dick King-Smith
20. The Wheel on the School by Meindert DeJong
21. The Book of Fred
22. Girl in Blue, A Stitch in Time, The Broken Days, The Blue Door and the Education of Mary by Ann Rinaldi
23. Choose Your Own Adventure #1
24. A Dumb Sci-Fi Dragon Back Warrior book #2

Books on Tape

1. Empire by Card
2. Harry Potter #2, #3, #4, #5, #6
3. Great Brain at the Academy

Some of my great finds:

1. The Enola Holmes series. The much younger sister of Sherlock Holmes runs away after her mother leaves and she is going to be put into boarding school to turn her into a lady. Enola goes to London and starts solving mysteries on her own. Love them!

2. Ann Rinaldi: She writes historical fiction books and while many of them are fluff, the ones that are based on real people (Phylis Wheatley and The Education of Mary) are thought provoking and engaging.

3. Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools by Greg Mortensen are certainly not the best written books, but have given me another favorite charity and are a must read.

What great books did you find this year?

Happy New Year!

We had a great time visiting my mother in law in Washington DC this Christmas. It was our first time there and we had a good time (minus when the children were screaming) visiting the sites.

Everything was just beautiful. We saw these beautiful tiles in the Capitol building. My husband says I can make a quilt like them... humm...maybe in 2012. :)

Aren't they beautiful though? I thought about going to the Textile Museum, but they didn't have a specific exhibit on quilts going on and ... did I mention trying to go places with kids?

Anyway, we are back and I am trying to get back into the swing of things. I finished these blocks for Deb in our Bee Improvisational bee and need to get going on January's blocks.

I also have played around making crazy quilt blocks out of my girls' old clothes. These blocks are soooo fun to make. More exciting news and info on crazy quilts will be coming later in the year!!!!


And, because I know you have been dying to see them ;), the potholders my mom got for Christmas. I really like how they turned out - very cheery.

One of my New Year's Resolutions: Don't make handmade presents in December - let's get those all finished up in the summer. :)

Hope you are all having a great New Year!