La Belle

This is also a first for me, machine quilting. Well, machine quilting anything bigger than about a foot big. I tried the straight lines, it wasn’t working for me. So, I did the the swiggley, wiggly, no real pattern lines. I had so much fun. That part I really loved. I actually was a little disppointed that it ended. I guess that means, another quilt is a must in the near future. Practice makes perfect, and I think practice with this is really the only way to learn and become better at it. I can see myself freehand machine quilting anything and everything for a while. Now, I really want to get my hands on one of these! The part I had the most trouble with, was keeping the speed of the needle correct with the speed I was moving the fabric. I wanted to move the fabric to fast and the peddle not fast enough. I ended up with loose threads at times. I did have to do some seam ripping to fix it, but not nearly as much as when I was working on the quilt top.  This post also help me out a lot when it came to the best way to handle the bulky quilt while quilting it. Rolling it made it a lot easier to handle. As soon as the sun comes out I will take a picture of the whole thing. It is quite glummy, rainy and gray right now. I was lucky to get this one picture to turn out.

Oh, and if your wondering. It’s a king size quilt. I had to find an over-sized king flat sheet to fit the back. Now, that part I did not like doing at all! Lining and smoothing out the 3 layers. I’m guessing because it was so big but it took me several tries to get it. And since I have other quilt planned for the future, I’m going to go out and get me some of these pins so that they don’t bunch up the fabric as easy as the straight ones will.  I also used Amy’s suggestion in her book as flannel for the linning. I liked the idea. Thin but snuggly warm. My kids, as well as myself like to curl up under a heavy quilt.  It reminds me of grandma’s hugs as a child.

And this little guy has came into our care. He was found in a family members garage/barn. If I understand right, he was somehow in the wall. The only thing we can guess is, a wild mommy cat was moving her kitten and accidently dropped him. Then she couldn’t reach him?? We never could find a mommy cat or the rest of the little ones.  So, I was called and ask if I would take him. The kids of course were excited about it. I couldn’t say no, to such a tiny fluffy little thing. My daughter had been wanting one for sometime, as her other cat had passed away due to the neighbors dog. He was a sweet dog in all other ways, but he hated cats with a passion and had chased it into the road.

Soon to be baby birds.  I do love birds and eggs. 

And what about that cute little mouse that Jen has given away. And she was worried about people not knowing since she is new to the blog world. WOW Jen!  Because she had such a huge amount of people stop by, she has decided to do another giveaway. Go take a look.

Drum roll please….. The quilt.

Sincere apologizes for not getting this post up sooner. What’s the old saying  “Life happens”?

Wow…the thrill of finishing a quilt is wonderful, expecially it being my first quilt ever. Thank you everyone for adding your little bit of love into it. I have cherished this crafting experience that you have given me. I did learn alot about quilting, considering I had zero know-how when I started. (Reminder to self: schedule quilting class) Most of what I learnt was from mistakes and boy did I have them. I can’t decided which I did more of cut, iron, sew or rip? The biggest challenge I seem to have was getting all the squares to line up. It would start out good, but as the blocks grew so did the mistakes. In the end, I had to admit defeat on some of them and claim it gave a handmade feel to it. Sounded good any, Right?  Just when I thought I was close to being done, I would spend the next day ripping and fixing. I do think I was crazy for attempting such small squares for a first time. It’s just that, I fell so in love with the postage stamp quilt.  I don’t know if another quilt would have grabbed my fancy so much that I would have be really inspired to started one. Knowing that I made a quilt and one of this patchwork size, I won’t be so intimidated to start another. My son has already put in an order for one.  A red and white one to be exact. All in all, I am very pleased at how cheerful and colorful it looks. Just makes me want to smile and hug myself with happiness.  What do you guys think?

Part 2…….Back and Binding 

I sincerely apologize for being away for awhile but anyone with a family of small children and a large extented family know there are times when you’re needed. Balancing life and my blog to where I can have them both meet happily in the middle is something I need to work harder on.  We have had another sad turn of events this past week ,there was a death in our family.  So please bear with me as we take care of everything.

Here is a picture of part of the quilt. Next week, I will give you the full story of how I ran around with pins sticking out of my mouth and a seam ripper strapped to my side.  And show all the pics of it. Have a safe weekend.

“A women was found. She was alive but very out of sorts. She was found wandering around mumbling craft words, supplies and blog names. She was safely brought home. To help with her withdrawl symptoms, a new laptop was ordered, the roof of her to soon be craft room was fixed, she was given the cutest cupcake to eat with a hot cup of cocoa and wrapped up in her quilt. She seems to be much recovered and ready to be in the saddle again. Everything should be back to normal in a couple days”

The sun came out the other day and this is where I found my little guy. Sitting on the super soft lining of my coat by the back door waiting for me to take him out. I guess he was longing for the sun rays as well. Do you notice, his head is turned? I can’t tell you how many pictures I have tried to take of him and as soon as he hears my camera focusing, He turns his head! Are we a bit shy, Ollie? 

And these plates remind me of sunny spring days. I can just imagine the most darling little lunch set with them. A green crisp salad with a fresh garden tomato. A chunk of watermelon, a slice a blueberry cheesecake, maybe a little piece of special cheese that I got from the farmers market down the road. Fresh squeezed lemonade. Yum.  I bought these plates back in the summer at a yard sale for five bucks and I think it’s time to bring them out and Use them.  A couple people have seen little birds building their nests. It’s a little early I think, as we’ve just had several inches of snow fall and ice with it. But it must mean spring is just around the corner if they’ve come back to there northern summer homes. Spring ~ My favorite season.  

And then I just had to show these pictures.  Look at that sink! And the big deep tub. I know it’s suppose to be a kids bathroom, as these are pictures from Pottery Barn Kids Room, but I guess I’m just a kid at heart because I want it for myself.

She’s out enjoying a stroll through the woods with not one big bad wolf in sight!  She’s thinking about heading home, to grab her basket to take it to Grandma’s. What do you think? Basket or at least little hands?

It’s not exactly a cape. To be honest, I’m not sure what it was originally suppose to be. A dress, jacket, light coat, robe?  It’s handmade and I bought it to cut up and craft with.  While on the hanger, it’s doesn’t look to great. It really looked like something little red riding hoods grandma would have on. But when I got home and tried it on just for kicks, I loved it. It’s actually slightly tapered around the waist and hang almost to your ankles.  It would look so cute over a simple white sundress. (Reminder:Look for white sundress at thrift store)

Hopefully my last quilt update before you get to see it. I’ve change how the finished quilt will look. I got to the part where I was adding the white. And, well, I didn’t want to cut all those tiny little squares and so that got me to thinking. Then I thought, maybe I will change things up from the picture, sort of make it all my own, so that’s what I did. It still has white, just not in the same way as the picture out of the magazine does.

Are you curious!!!!

I want it back.

It has been unseasonably warm these last few days, which I am so loving. But it has covered the sky in thick grey cloudd that have dropped rain almost non stop. Not so great for taking pictures. I was hoping to get some pictures for listing on Etsy but I guess it will have to wait so I’m going to list what I already have pictures of.

I just couldn’t resist taking this old stuffed pigs picture. It’s one of those things you see that remind you of why you love your kids plus it’s a toy that I like and don’t mind seeing it lay around on the couch. She has seen better days but still, I like it.

And I am really pleased with how this tree painting turned out. I was originally planning on added some other things into the image but after I sat back and looked at it. I liked it. Simple. I like simple. Do you? My mom says the opposite, she love lots of things. Thats OK too. Its whatever make you want to smile and hum. Even one of my kids said she liked it and told me I had better leave it. My favorite part beside the shape of the little tree is the texture and the circles in the sky.

I’m really wanting to update my blog. It’s been the same in forever. The same old thing gets kind of boring, don’t you think? I also need to go and organize my flickr pictures and guess what I found? I spelled “children” wrong on my profile!! How embarrassing. Well, I didn’t actually spelling it wrong as I didn’t type a letter in.  Speaking of spelling, I’m so so tickled to find out that the new wordpress has a spell check in it. I don’t have one right now. And from the looks of things, I guess I really need one.

Well today, we painted.  We painted boxes, we painted a valentines. More about that in a moment. And we painted animals. This was actually on my to do list and one of those ideas that have been swimming in my head for sometime. Do you realize what a relief it is to get something like that out. It almost makes my head feel a little lighter. Maybe I should do that more often? 

Paintbrush (that’s what we use these for) pencil, knitting needle holders. They are made out of canvas, one of my favorite fabric. I don’t know why I like canvas so much but I do.  I loved doing this. I could paint a box full of these. I will be putting these up for sale next week, hopefully with a few other things.

While we were in the painting mood, my toddler wanted to paint a heart and add “sprinkles”, glitter. So, I pulled out a brand new tall bottle of glitter, we painted, we glittered, we left it on the table for a moment to let it dry. That is when the phone rang and I answered it. You know where this is going, don’t ya?  Yeap, she had poured pretty much, most of the glitter on the table. I ask her why she poured it on the table?  And she said with the most seriousness, “because I just had to.”  I just couldn’t help but smile. If I was only a couple years old, with no cares, no clue about clean up, just the curious, innocent and wondering mind.  Yeah, I would want to dump glitter, watching it sparkle and twinkle as it cascaded out of the bottle but I would have did even better than her. If I had no cares, I would have ran my hand thru it like sand and threw it up in the air, watching it fall like glass snowflakes, pretending it was fairy dust. I am so glad that those thoughts didn’t run in her mind and if they did. I’m sure glad she stopped at dumping it all on the table.

Have a great weekend Everyone.

When I take a vacation, I take it seriously…hee hee.. I can’t apologize for being away for so long,  I have really enjoyed my time. I love the feeling that a new year sends through me. The feelings of a fresh start, dreams seem easier to grasp, clean closets and removing cobwebs from inside my head.  The last few weeks have been spent doing nothing that feeling like everything. Playing a lot of sticker books my little one, learning her abc’s, going through all my old magazine and putting my favorite pages and articles in a journal, filing away that huge pile of paper that had built up through the year, painting and playing with little wooden people, making homemade bubble gum,

Learning how to do Latch hook rugs with my daughter, and reading a huge pile of books. Is there a career out there where you can just sit all day and read your favorite books? Helped the kids make and painted cardboard bedrooms complete with bed, comforter and pillows for the little stuffed animals of our house.

Been proud of my little fur ball pooch who is finally learning to behave been someone comes in the door instead of acting like a love starved creature whose never seen a human before, People who don’t like animals don’t take to kindly to a dog running a hundred mile an hour around their legs and then go rubbing on them similar to a cat. Had a surprised visit from my mom and grandma who hasn’t been able to travel to my home for several years due to health and transporation. Thank you sis, for the wonderful gift.  Let the love of my childrens laughter relax my mind,(the power had been out for 10 hours and it was below freezing outside) as they played in a dark house by candle light and flash lights, supported my husband as some huge changes have entered our lives both scary and exciting, been thankful for my health,  let the kids make faces on the eggs as I made breakfast, made pancakes and sandwiches in the shapes of horses, hearts, and snowmen,  smiled when I realized my leather boots where starting to soften up to fit me like a glove, I so love boots. Finally started sewing clothing which is something I have wanted to do forever.

You know alot of nothing that felt like everything to me.

I was wanting to do that so bad but it’s not quite done. I’m almost done with it, Girls.  I have been trying to set aside a little time each day for it. There are a few days, I woke up and that was the first thing I did, sew a few minutes on the quilt.  I know if you look close you will see mistakes. I’ve actually noticed a lot of improvement in my patchworking skills since I began. At first it really bothered me when things were a little off and I became frustrated. Debating whether to rip everything out and start over?  I knew if I did that to all of them, I would lose heart and never start back so I worked with what I had. Only fixing the really bad ones.  Hand sewing would have hidden my patchworking errors a lot better but ……  I’ve not only accepted that the quilt was made with love and friendship and a bit of flaws. It is my first quilt and true patchwork piece. So the best quality will be for my next quilt.     I’ve also learned a lot while working on it.   I was also surprised about how I felt working on the quilt. I really wanted to do it from the beginning but I will be honest with you I thought half way through I would almost get sick of all those teeny tiny squares. Dont’ get me wrong I did take breaks from it and didn’t  work much on it during summer vacation but now that the quilt is coming close to being done. I feel almost like going down the big hill on the roller coaster. Very exciting and going faster to reach the end.

Another little crafting I did the other day was this simple little bird. My little one asked for a bird. I told her Santa wouldn’t be bring her a bird. He does do real animals. She come back saying she wanted a small fake bird. And has repeated it several times. So here she is, Henriette. She is just missing her white pipe cleaner legs. That can be used to stand up on or wrap around her wrist so that little Henriette can perch on Little Roses arm.

And the holiday isn’t the same with out making sugar cookies and letting the kids spend the day decorating them. So here is what they did, well what is left of what they did. These are the only ones that survived long enough for the sun to come out so I could snap a shot of them.

And I caught this little one eating one this morning right after breakfast!

I hope each and everyone of you have a wonderful weekend and holidays. Where every you live and however you spend it.