lime gardenias

Christmas at Chez Bedell!

2011-12-22T10:41:00.001-08:00

Welcome to our house! Around here we LOVE Christmas! We like to have lots of Christmas in all the nooks and crannies. We love a BIG tree that has not been trimmed- I like it to look wild and old fashioned.

Take another look at that gorgeous quilt on my couch! We had a Secret Santa this year with my friends and my Secret Santa was Elizabeth! I was so touched when I opened this gorgeous quilt and she told me that she was inspired by our house at Christmas! She calls the pattern "Sparkle Punch" which is perfect. I think she got it spot on and I absolutely love it!! It will be out all year and not just during the Christmas season that inspired it because it is just too gorgeous to be put away. Nobody puts Sparkle Punch in a closet.

Ahhhh the tree! I love this tree. The garlands are vintage glass garlands I have collected over the years.

The kids and I made this sparkly garland out of painted egg cartons years ago when they were so little. It is one of my most prized possesions. It makes me happy to look at it and remember all the great times we spent together before they were school aged and I had to share them with the world. We still do a lot of fun things together- I especially love school breaks when we can hang out all day long.

This is a little nook at the end of our fireplace wall. I love this little nook with it's thrift store cabinet and embroideries. I love the little Christmas punches. I put some of my husbands treasures from his childhood Christmases over here so they are safe from getting knocked by errant dog tails or wayward nerf bullets.

This is on the buffet in our dining room. I love the silver tree and vintage ornaments. The artwork hanging above is from my Granny. She had a dear friend, Corita Kent who was an incredible artist. She has a whole series of letters based on nautical code flags that are just beautiful. If you don't know about her, you should read a little on her and her life. An amazing woman and beautiful artist. When we were kids my sister and I would help out at her art shows that were held locally. She came to our house for Thanksgiving one year and I remember being so smitten by her. She had quite a presence of generosity and kindness.

This little nativity came from a rummage sale for $2. Such a steal. So sweet.

The mantle. Lots of goodies here!

This bell came from my friend Laurie also known as Magpie Ethel. She is a wizard with the re fashioned vintage Christmas. If you like vintage hoiliday stuff do yourself a favor and check her out. I got this bell just this year and I adore it!

I hope you enjoyed all the Christmas goodies! Now just imagine the Carpenters Christmas album playing and the smell of cookies baking and that about rounds it out!

So there's this contest...

2011-12-16T22:53:00.001-08:00

So recently I entered a contest over at All People Quilt. They have some really fun contests and this one looked like so much fun that I decided to enter. I love these little bags as party favors- it's such a great pattern for that. I found out last week that I was lucky enough to make it to the finals! The way the contest works is they chose 10 bags to go to the final round and the one winner is determined by voting. The voting continues to the end of the month and I was so excited to be in second place for a few days but I am now in fourth place! If you wouldn't mind, and if you like my entry, I would be so thankful if you would vote for my bag by going here:

Click here for bag voting!!

Everybody gets one vote per day so you can go back each day if you are so inclined. Thanks for indulging my shameless plea for your support!

Winner!!

2011-12-16T17:14:00.000-08:00

I really need to figure out how to number the comments! I used the random number generator and it always seems to pick a number right in the middle and then I need to go count very carefully. At any rate, I have counted and the winner for the fabric is...Jamie from Terrabyte Farm! One thing I love about giveaway day is getting to visit new blogs and Jamie's is no exception. You should check it out- she has some fantastic things going on at her farm. I hope everyone had an enjoyable giveaway week! Thanks so much to Sew Mama Sew for coordinating this!

GIVEAWAY DAY!!

2011-12-12T11:04:00.000-08:00

It's that time again! This year I have just enough small pieces of my new line Mechanical Genius to share! Leave me a comment and I will pick one winner to win a some fat quarters of this new line! Head over to sewmamasew.com to check out all of the fantastic giveaways!!

Christmas goodies!

2011-11-30T21:15:00.001-08:00

I absolutely adore this time of year. All the lights on the houses and the super cheesy holiday movies and all of the fun family times around warm fireplaces. We are going to go get our tree this weekend. I feel so fortunate to have this family of mine and feel the closeness with them in such a sweet time of year. It gives me a twinge of sadness though when I think of kids who don't have families that they can look forward to these things with. That is why when I saw the project Lyanna put together over at Purple Panda Quilts, I got on board right away. She has coordinated an effort to get folks to make stockings that will be given to Foster kids. She even made it good and easy by putting lots of really great stocking tutorials on her blog. This is the stocking I made- I love that print. I hope the kid that receives it loves it too!

The goodness that is Fat Quarterly

2011-11-16T10:56:00.001-08:00

It's that time again! Time for another gorgeous issue of Fat Quarterly to hit our inboxes. I got a good look through this issue and, as usual, there are so many gorgeous patterns. My biggest issue with Fat Quarterly is after I look at it I don't know where to start as there is always more than one project that really grabs me. I participated in this issue with a Designer Challenge which was lots of fun and really did make me think a bit. Go and grab your copy here!

Samples!!

2011-10-31T10:35:00.001-07:00

Wow! What a good time we had sewing these samples! I am so ridiculously lucky to be blessed with a fantastic group of friends who are not only amazing people, but really fantastic sewists. All I had to do was give a holler out to my Yams and we spent a couple of days sewing these up.

I got the fabric just a week before it had to be shipped back so it was a quick turnaround. Even better than all these gorgeous samples was the fun days I got to spend sewing with them. We had a ball! I love that pillow up there- I kept thinking it looked like the window that Darth Vader stands in front of in Star Wars. (at least I think that is what it reminds me of. My 12 year old son is shaking my head in shame at my obvious lack of recollection where all the many little details of Star Wars that he keeps in his brain quite intact are concerned- all I know is there is something really cool and Star Wars about it!) Monica kept joking that copyright laws being what they are we would have to call it something like "Flaming Orb Conflict Pillow"! Heather designed this beauty!

I love these! Elizabeth set to work working her magic and I just love these. I love the selvages!
She is amazing- I asked if she would mind making some pillows and she just went to town doing her thing. Fun to watch her work.

Proof that Mechanical Genius is not just for boys! The blues in this print are just gorgeous. The photo really doesn't do it justice. The dress pattern is one of my favorites done by our own Violet Craft and you can get your copy here! There is a short sleeve version too and I swear this dress looks great in any combination of fabrics!

Monica's bag! She whipped this out and you can whip one out too- her pattern is here. I love this bag. Perfect size and I love how she put the prints together! She kept us in stitches literally and figuratively that day!!

Here is the Easy Linen Shirt from the amazing book "Sewing for Boys". The Jammies below are also from the book and Shelly herself whipped those up . Both of these patterns are fantastic. The easy linen shirt is such a great all purpose cute style for boys and it sews up so nice and easy. I can see this being one of those staple shirts where you make a few.The jammies are so handsome and dapper while being so adorable. I hadn't cuffed them yet when I took the photo but they look cute cuffed or not. Seriously good patterns for boys in that book!

My lovely friend Traci sewed this up. It was the third one she had made in the last month or so and I am so thankful she didn't laugh at me when I asked if she would make one more! I love how it turned out and her sewing is impeccable! I want to make one of these for my husband!

There are a few other things I didn't get photos of and there is still a quilt to show that I will have photos of soon. It will be the free pattern on the Timeless Treasures website so I will keep you posted when that is up. I can't wait to see what everyone sews up with this line! The hand is so nice on it and the colors are clean and saturated and gorgeous. I am thrilled with how it turned out and I hope you are too!

I picked a winner finally for the Project Linus Quilt Kit giveaway! Comment #19 Grandma June! Pop me an email and I will get that fabric in the mail for you!

Make this!

2011-10-28T09:31:00.001-07:00

Hop on over to Sew Mama Sew today and check out my tutorial for this Lego Tote! All of the directions are there and with the Holidays coming it is a great gift to make for the Lego lovers in your life! And who doesn't love Legos?!

My nephew gets this one- if you ask him what his favorite color is he says "Golden" so the bright yellow orange hexes are right up his alley!

I made the blue one first for my 12 year old son. I waited to give it to him until after they were all made so I could photograph them together and he kept asking when he could have it. He hasn't pestered me for something I have sewn in awhile! As soon as I gave it to him he disapeared with it to fill it up and he is using it and loving it! It made me happy because that was the whole idea of the fabric line- fabric that an older boy would enjoy. His sister wanted one too and couldn't wait to pick out the fabrics she wanted for it out of the line. I like a good practical gift!

I have been off making samples to get out the door for Market so not only does my house look like a fabric explosion went off , I have neglected my blog. I will be back on monday with the winner of the Project Linus Quilt Kit and photos of the samples. Have a great weekend!!

100 Quilts for Kids

2011-10-06T09:28:00.000-07:00

Read to the end for a great story and for a giveaway !

I was roaming my favorite blogs one day when I came across this post. I think it is a brilliant idea and it was just the nudge I needed to get a Project Linus quilt made. It is something that has been on my list for sometime and I am so happy to have finally made one to give to them. When my sweet girl was a baby, she was diagnosed with a heart defect that she had fixed with open heart surgery at 22 months. It was such a scary time for us but I will say that it gave me a perspective of gratitude that I find so valuable to this day. I think often of how scared we were that morning we had to report for surgery. Thanks goodness she was so little- she had no idea what was going on. The time we spent there we met other parents whose children had things going on that made us feel like the lucky ones. And we were- they fixed her and we brought her home. But in the midst of that scary morning, a nurse brought Maya a quilt and gave it to her. It was her quilt that someone- a total stranger-made for a child just like her. I can't tell you the comfort it gave to us as her parents that in some way, someone had thought about this and done something so heartfelt for a child they didn't even know. It is an eye spy quilt- made beautifully, obviously by hands who knew what they were doing. She still has and loves her quilt. There was a tag on the quilt with the maker's name and I sent a thank you note to her via Project Linus as I didn't have her address. Somehow that got me on their mailing list and shortly after, I received a newsletter and in it was a list of the top donators for our Portland cahpter. I looked at the list and at the very top was the name of the woman who made Maya's quilt. And next to her name the number 768. As in she has made and donated 768 quilts. I can't tell you how that blew my mind!!

And the universe being what it is, I went into a local fabric store yesterday and started chatting to the lady cutting my fabric for me. I found a really sweet print and was buying some to make another PL quilt. She asked me what I was going to do with it and I said it was for a Project Linus quilt. She said, "Oh that's so nice- the kids really appreciate it". I then told her that my daughter had received one once and it made such an impact on us as parents too and then I told her about the woman who made the quilt and how I had read that she had made over 700 quilts. She looked at me with a big smile on her face and said, "Oh you must mean Miss Margaret!" And that is her name! Then she tells me that at this point she has made over 4000 quilts. FOUR THOUSAND!!! I couldn't get my mind around how anyone could make over 700 and here, 7 years later, she is at 4000. And then think about it- 4000 quilts is going to cost some money! The woman at the fabric store said that she comes in pretty often and that the employees bring fabric in for her. I asked if I could put some fabric together for her and she said of course so this whole thing sort of comes full circle now as I am taking in a nice big bundle of fabric for her. And a photo of Maya with her quilt that she made 7 years ago. The whole story just gets me happy and so in awe of this woman who has done so much for so many.

So I hope that puts a smile on your face today and makes you think if she can make 4000, I bet we can all make 1 (or a few!) quilts for a kid who needs it too.

So you might remember the quilt below- I made it for a sample for my first line, Party Dress. It is a cheater print so it sews up nice and quick. You just quilt around the hexagons. Leave a comment and I will draw a name in the next few days for a kit of the fabric to make this quilt. I am going to make one for Project Linus (because once you start it gets sort of addictive!) and so I will cut out another kit for someone else who wants to make it and give it locally to a place who accepts quilts for kids.

Fall Fat Quarterly project!

2011-10-04T09:49:00.000-07:00

Recently I was asked by the lovely people over at Fat Quarterly if I wanted to do a project for their Fall issue. Of course I said yes because that is a beautiful publication and the people behind it are fantastic!

I got a chance to preview the issue the other day and it is great! There were three projects right away that I saw that went straight on my holiday gift making list! They really did a beautiful job putting the issue together and there is something for everyone. Hop on over here and get yourself a copy! The release date for the issue is October 7 so just a few more days until it is available for viewing. It really is so good!

This project is something I have had in mind for awhile and it was well suited for fall. Once I finally sat down to make these I just couldn't stop! I love the way they look grouped together and they are so quick and easy and really work for so many different occasions/themes.
I think they are the perfect hostess gift idea for the upcoming holiday party season.

All of the directions and tutorial are in the issue. They have set up a flickr group so if you do make these, please share your work on there so I can see what you have come up with!

Mechanical Genius revealed!

2011-09-26T09:44:00.000-07:00

I am so excited to finally get to share this! It has been a long time coming and now that it is here, I am just thrilled! I have a now 12 year old son. He likes to sew and I love to sew for him but the older he gets, the harder it is to find age apropriate prints that he likes and is excited about. I started thinking about the things he likes and the things we like to do together. Then I sat down with him and he sketched me some robots and we talked about colors and then I went to work.

This collection is all inspired by him. He has been on a Robotics team for a couple of years that I helped out with. He loves math and science so I included a stripe based on Fibonacci's number. We spend a good amount of time (a very good amount of time!) playing with legos around here so I did a print inspired by those. When it was all designed I asked him what it should be called and he suggested Mechanical Genius so that is how the name came about.

I consulted with him along the way and I think this is a great group of prints that will work well for lots of boys- toddlers, older boys and even Dads. I can't wait to make him a pair of pajamas out of the Fibonacci stripe and a fussy cut robot patch pocket.

I am designing a quilt pattern for these as well. My husband will likely get a laptop bag lined in the blue circuit boards. He works in tech- maybe I should make him a collared shirt out of that print too!

Working with Timeless Treasures has been a dream and they did such a great job with these. The colors are so beautiful and they got all the tiny details I wanted.

I love that group above. Can't wait to fussy cut those robots!

Thanks for scrolling all the way down! I hope you love this collection as much as I do. There will be samples of this in the booth at Market this fall and the collection should be in stores by early 2012 though some stores may have it in December. As soon as I know where you can find it I will put a list up on the side bar. The people at Timeless Treasures will have a good idea who will have this in December by early December so feel free to contact them if you have a boy on your holiday list who needs a quilt made out of this.

It's almost the holidays!

2011-09-23T11:57:00.000-07:00

A few (or four or five? Don't really remember when!) years ago I started making these little stockings for an advent calendar. I thought I would make 24 and we could hang one up each day and put little notes to each other or tiny candy canes in them. I got all the way up to 11 and then stopped. I figured that I should do one more and we could have the 12 days of Christmas but that never happened either! The thing is they are small and fun to make but I just haven't made the time. I am publicly declaring that these will be finished and used for the holiday season this year!!
Come back on Monday and I will have photos of my newest line! I am so excited to share them but I have to take some photos first. I will give you a hint though- I consulted with my 12 year old son on this one...

Monday!

2011-09-19T10:41:00.000-07:00

I am finally feeling settled into our school time groove. This is the third week of school and I think the kids are finally into the groove as well and I think the dog has finally accepted it that he is stuck with me all day now. The first few days he wandered around the house looking for them.
I have been working on several different projects and hope to have something to show very soon! I got my strike offs for my next line and am thrilled with how they turned out. I don't have the go ahead to share yet but soon I hope! I have had this quilt up on the board for a looooong time now and I think I am actually going to sew it together in the next few days. I also have a Project Linus quilt to stitch up out of the same fabrics. The weather cooling just makes me want to curl up and stitch binding!
I was looking through old photos this morning and I found this cupcake photo from my daughter's 7th birthday. I love these cupcakes! So totally cute.
What are you working on?

Sluggish re-entry

2011-08-08T19:30:00.001-07:00

We were on vacation. It was awesome. 11 days of family time on a tropical island. It was good on so many levels and I am not that excited to be home though I think if the sun would shine more here I might be less grumpy. Loooong time ago I lived in Maui and it was such a nice place to live. After a trip like that I want to move back- especially when the re-entry to day to day life has been a bit tough this time. My girl and I did manage to have dinner with our pal Monica and her family last night and that was fun! My daughter just adores her (as do i!) and the whole ride home was Monica! Monica! Monica! We also had a particularly fun sewing group last thursday so I need to complain less and focus on the great things here! We hit a garage sale this weekend and I found that chair for $10. It is more turquoise than it looks in the photo and the curves make it all kinds of comfy. Love it. Next post I will show vacation photos. Ahhhhhhhhhh such a beautiful place and such nice people.

Happy news to share!!

2011-07-21T15:03:00.001-07:00

I have been so excited to share this and now the time is right! I have recently signed on to design fabric for Timeless Treasures! Oh my gosh there I am right here! I am so thrilled as I am a huge fan of the gorgeous fabric they put out and, after meeting some of them in May at Market, I knew it would be such a great fabric home! The people are fantastic and I couldn't be more pleased to be with them. My first line with them is in the works and will show at Market in October! Pinch me! I cannot wait to show you this line!! I hope you like it as much as I do!

I love plants

2011-07-20T17:40:00.001-07:00

I love plants. When we found this house seven years ago we walked through it and could see the potential beyond the darkest dark wood paneling that sucked all the light out of the room, the 40 plus year old shag carpeting- everything in the house was original to the day it was built in 1962, pink toilets and all. (our neighbor had lavender toilets! Ah the 60's!) As soon as I hit the backyard though I knew we would buy the house. It is a nice big yard with all kinds of old plants and trees that wrap around the yard and gives us privacy from the neighbors. I spend a lot of time out there now getting it just so and enjoying the quiet outdoor space.

Here are some of my favorites. Looking at my garden I realize how much I like foliage. I am a leaf girl. I loooove flowers but I think a gorgeous leaf is as lovely as the most beautiful flower.

But these flowers are pretty spectacular too...

My favorite geranium- Ann Folkard.

I love this little patch with the bugbane and the purple sage. That crocosmia (the really bright red flower)is the best for getting the hummingbirds to hang out at our house. Could you imagine how sweet to be a creature who eats from beautiful flowers all day?

I look at this and marvel (in not a good way!) at how behind the garden is from the cool and rainy spring and summer we are having.

I found this ornamental basil at my favorite local nursery. You can eat it but the flowers are so lovely and the plant itself is beautiful so I just admire it.

I have three big pots of hydrangeas right out the back door. I love to look out the door and see all that gorgeousness.

Banana plant...

Pineapple sage- if you rub the leaves it smells just like pineapple!

This is Ligularia. I loooove the leaves- Giant gorgeous leaves. This is the bud which I also love. It opens up to a cluster of bright yellow flowers.

I love it when...

2011-07-11T12:57:00.001-07:00

you have an idea and then when you try to actually make it, it actually works! I bought these beautiful candle holders last week. They were $14.99 each (I bought two ). I also bought some aviation tin snips and carefully cut a hole in the bottom of each and tiny snips in the top to feed wires through so that they could be lamps. I bought these lamp cords, fed them through and hung them from the ceiling one on each side of our bed. They are hanging there now and we love them. The cords have switches on them so you just have to reach over and switch them on and off. I love the way they look and ,as I have zero electrical skills, they were nice and easy! I need to hang curtains and do a few other things and then I will put a photo of them in action. I don't even think you would really need to cut the hole in the bottom as there is a lot of decorative holes for the light to come through. And I love the color!

Summer Reading!

2011-06-20T09:14:00.001-07:00

I have a tutorial for this bag over on Sew Mama Sew today! Here is the link. In answer to some of the comments I am getting, the apple print and blue floral are both from the Farmdale line from Alexander Henry. I found some of the apples fabric here at Hip Fabric.
My daughter has already been using this bag and it is working just as I hoped it would. She usually misplaces her tally sheet by the first week of summer reading and it is in the pocket of her bag still! She has also been keeping the receipts she gets that list all the books she has checked out all folded up in her library card pocket with her card so that is helpful too. Let me know if you make one, I would love to see it!

Pillows and pups

2011-06-14T21:37:00.001-07:00

My sweet friend Jill just had a birthday and loves the Matroyska dolls and I scooped up a scrap of this at the last swap we had at sewing group. I have been saving it just for this project so it was fun to finally use it. I need to make some new pillows for our couch but can't decide what fabrics I want to use.

This is home improvement Bedell style. My husband is moderately handy around the house and if he doesn't know how to do something he will figure it out. We moved into this house 7 years ago and we were long overdue to do some deck maintenance. It is a very large deck that runs the length of the house in the backyard. It is flush with the yard except one section that is raise a foot or so off the ground. He cleaned it off (that took a whole day to get it un slimy!) and has been replacing the rotten boards. The other day he pulled up a few boards, turned his back to cut the new boards to length, came back and nailed them in place. A few minutes later he comes inside and asks if the dog is inside. I say, nope, I thought he was out there with you. You know where this is heading...thank God the dog sneezed because that is how David realized the dog was trapped under the deck. He had crawled in there and David nailed those boards in and poor Dusty was underneath with no way out! David had to pry up one of the boards and that photo is Dusty peering out waiting to be rescued! We were laughing so hard! I was so thankful that we found him. He wasn't barking and when we were out there calling for him he sat there silent. He was a muddy filthy mess! On a good note the deck is looking much better. Now if it would just be sunny for more than half a day so we could stain it

Quilt Market Spring 2011

2011-06-12T15:11:00.001-07:00

Ahhhh. Another Market come and gone. I have to say that it was a stressful time of year so it felt like it took a lot of effort to get myself there but boy did I have some fun! One of the highlights was seeing My girl Violet (in the middle) show off her new collection with Michael Miller, Peacock Lane. We Yams are so proud of our girl! I wish all of the Yams could have come to Market!

This is Bari's booth. It was so pretty- her husband made her some beautiful shelves to go in there and it complemented her fabric so well. The collection looks great online but is a real stunner in person.

My sweet Monica! That little coat is made from a pattern designed by our pal and fellow Yam Shelly. Her patterns are so sweet and like a breath of fresh air!

Here is a peek at Shelly's booth at Market. I am not kidding- look at how cute those are! Sweet and tailored and such great little details.

Monica being demure with her gorgeous Happy Mochi Yum Yum! Put out by Lecien. Can't wait to make Maya something cute out of this!!

The best thing about Market is getting to see all of the friends I've made in this biz. I don't have photos of everyone but I also finally got to meet Heather, Rashida, Paula and Jennifer face to face and it was so nice! Oh and Aneela who was such a doll! Her Little Apples is so cute! Just so nice to connect with folks face to face after getting to know each other on line.

One more photo of me and Vi. I met Violet awhile back and got to go through her whole shopping around her collection phase into it getting picked up and printed and I can't tell you how great it was to see it all come to fruition for her. We get to hang out here in Portland and she is one heck of a nice girl.

Who doesn't love Kona solids? I loved this little display.

Valori's booth was gorgeous. So many great colors and layers. Just really beautiful.

I aodre this photo of Lizzy! How cute does she look?! Her booth was great.

So that is the very condensed version of what went on those few days. Salt Lake was gorgeous. So clean and pretty with the mountains. The flight back was really bouncy but luckily I had Kristin there to hold my hand. As I type I keep thinking of other fun things that went on but if I don't stop now I will be here al lnight and I have a messy house to clean and a baseball party to go to!

Winner(s)!!

2011-05-31T17:42:00.000-07:00

Here is a little bird I made from the Spool Sewing pattern and gave to my pal Monica. She made me an awesome bag with floating goat heads (photo later) so I think I got the sweet end of that deal!! So on to the winners! The first winner randomly selected is Leila from Where the Orchids Grow. I have to say I am glad I found her blog because you can get lost over there. Lots of good stuff! I read all the comments and have checked out many a new blog. In doing so I stumbled across a blog , Sweeter Than Cupcakes, and started reading and found this lovely dress she made. I love that pattern- it is from Jennifer Paganelli's new book . I picked up a copy from her at Quilt Market and it is such a gorgeous book. That dress pattern happened to be my favorite and I love it in my Party Dress print so I was so happy to find the photo. So because I love her dress so much Courtney wins 2 half yard cuts of some Party Dress too.
Leila and Courtney email me and I will get your addresses and send out your fabric!!
Thanks to eveyone for entering!!

Giveaway Day!!!

2011-05-22T20:33:00.001-07:00

It's that time again! I love giveaway day- I love giving stuff away and I love to check out all the new blogs I find during giveaway day! I get a lot of people looking for these Pearls dots from my Party Dress line so my giveaway today is a half yard of each colorway- pink, blue and green. I might even throw in another half yard of a surprise fabric. My stores of this line are dwindling so get it while there is still some to get! Enjoy giveaway day and thanks for stopping by! I will draw a name friday and I am happy to ship internationally so everyone is welcome to enter. Next post will be my photos from Quilt Market!!

It's almost here...

2011-03-14T16:10:00.000-07:00

I am so antsy for spring I feel like I am going to burst! I look forward to tonight having extra daylight hours after dinner. If it doesn't rain maybe we can take a walk. I love walking with the family after dinner. This weekend we had some nice quiet crafting time together, the kids and I. We occasionally buy Frapacinos and when we do I save the bottles. This is a craft we have done a few times- every one can do it and it is so relaxing because you have to take your time so you don't tear the wet tissue paper. All it is is small squares of tissue paper and origami paper stuck to the bottle with a good coat of modge podge. We have candle holders we have done this way too.

So much going on these days it is always nice to take a break and make something like this together. Next up I need to book my tickets for Spring Quilt Market. It is right around the corner!

Design Board re-purpose

2011-03-05T12:16:00.000-08:00

We have a house full of kids today- ours and 4 extra. I had my design board in the living room and my daughter and her friends wanted to play with it so we put it horizontally on the ground and I gave them my plastic tub full of scraps. An hour and a half later they are finally taking a break. They made a back drop and took photos of each other in front of it and just had a really good time playing with the scraps and magically having them stick to the board. I love that they were so inspired by all the fabric and putting them all together. Going to eat a quick lunch and get back to playing with it!

Right on time...

2011-02-25T08:43:00.000-08:00

I finished this baby quilt last night just in time for a shower tomorrow. I am so excited to give it to them. I recently cleaned out my stash and I found two one yard cuts of Echino that I forgot I had (!). How you forget about two yards of gorgeous Echino I just don't know. The Mom works in Design and Dad is a professor of Enviromental Sciences so this felt perfect on both counts.
The pattern is Charm Squares from Elizabeth. I was bummed because we were supposed to sew together last night but we all flaked out for one reason or another. I wanted to show her but it will be gifted tomorrow. That's ok- I have another one of her patterns cut out. Her patterns are really so usable and they make good looking quilts. I like how the binding print looks on the front and I like how it sort of disapears on the back. I typically love binding to show but I like that it makes it look clean and modern to have it blend on the back. I don't remember what the Echino prints are but the back is Michael Miller Dumb Dot (grey/aqua) and the solid is Kona Sage.
This baby took it's sweet time coming to them and making this quilt I spent a lot of time thinking about how exciting this is and how really truly wanted and loved this baby is. I was getting all sentimental about it and thinking about how it is so much nicer to give a handmade gift than a storebought one (in my opinion). My 11 year old son was playing on the computer right by where I was sewing and at one point, in all of my happiness thinking about this sweet baby and the gift I was making for him I looked at him and announced, "I'm makin' love!" This is the part where the record player needle would have screeched off the record. What? I knew what I meant. Making a gift of love. Thankfully he didn't seem too phased (thank you Lego Universe for keeping him distracted) but it made me feel like that dorky parent that we all don't want to be but probably are from time to time.
I hope they love it. I can't wait to get my hands on that baby and give him a big snuggle.

More Auction Goodies!

2011-02-21T11:51:00.001-08:00

Every year I make skirts for the Auction. Every year it seems the school needs more money so I made three skirts this year in addition to the pillow. We are lucky to have a great school. It is a nice community and I know it must be near impossible to do such a good job with all of the constant budgetary issues schools have to face. This skirt above I really like and so did my model so I may have to make another for her. I made another that day in that style(but a diff fabric) for one of her friends for her birthday. It was a four skirt day. Thankfully the skirts below are the easiest quickest little A line skirts ever.

Lets hope all this sewing brings in some good cash for the school.

Pretty pillows for auction season!

2011-02-17T17:02:00.000-08:00

It is that time again! School auction time so I spent the weekend sewing my heart out. Here is the pillow I made that I want to keep. I may have to bid on it myself. I love that dark purple Kona. I love all those fabrics!

Edited: I have been getting some inquiries so here are the fabrics I used:

center block and side strip- Jennifer Paganelli. Not sure which collection but it was probably two collections ago

Solid is Kona

Medallion looking one on the yellowy background is Anna Maria Horner Innocent Crush

Two other prints are from Tula Pink Parisville

Whoa!

2011-02-14T12:37:00.000-08:00

Wow. Long time no blog!! But here I am to wish a big Happy Valentines Day! I love Valentines Day. I see it as a time to appreciate your friends and loved ones and just let folks know that you love them. I am so very lucky to have the best group of sewing friends to hang out with so I brought them all these sewing choclates when we all got together to sew (o.k. only Gabrien sewed, the rest of us talked and laughed and did maybe 20 minutes of actual sewing related work...) At any rate, my Sweet Hot Yams are the best so they deserved special chocolates.

I saw the absolute cutest cameo molded chocolates in Country Living Magazine and I have a friend who loves cameos so I went to buy the molds to make them for her. While looking for that mold I found this one with the little sewing machine and thimble and thread etc. I couldn't get over how cute they were so I bought the mold and made the chocolates. Oh and they had a button mold too. I used edible luster dust to make them look sparkly. So cute!

Hope everyone has a really great Valentines Day!

I don't want it to be over!

2010-12-30T12:57:00.001-08:00

I came into the livingroom last night and found Dusty all curled up under the tree. All the gifts have been opened so there is a nice spot just for him. He looked so sweet curled up under the tree. I love this tree. This photo is sort of blurry but I like the glowy quality of all those lights. Ahhhhhhh!

I think it all went too quickly this year. We got our tree early enough but we aren't really done enjoying it yet. Plus it seems like the kids just got out of school and now they have to go back. I am keeping fingers crossed that we get a snow day Monday so they can stay and play with me a day or two more. Legend has it if you sleep with a spoon under your pillow and put ice cubes in your toilet the snow will come. It is worth a shot! On the flip side, once they go back to school I can finish up my next fabric collection and I am ready to get that one out the door. I am excited for it! I hope everyone had a really nice holiday break.

Gift idea...

2010-12-20T10:59:00.000-08:00

I really had to pick my brain this year on what to make for my 11 year old son. He is at that age where I have sewn just about everything he would want and is in that sort of a kid sort of older place in his life but I still wanted to make something for him. I always make something for the kids at Christmas- and they like to make things for us as well. We are big believers in the handmade gift here! One thing he loves to do pretty much all of the time is Legos. After much thought I came up with this:

I found this box full of smaller boxes and I lined each one with fun paper. Then I hot glue gunned the ribbon on to hang it. The idea is that he hang it on the wall to display some of the lego figures in his collection. I am happy with how it turned out and I hope he loves it! And with that, I may actually be done with the gift part of Christmas! Now if the kids would just get healthy so we could go do some fun winter break activities!! I am itching to go ice skating!

WINNERS!

2010-12-17T16:03:00.001-08:00

Here is a picture of a couple of Christmas presents I finished yesterday. That hexagon quilt has taken a good long time- I tend to go overboard stitching the hexagons and it takes more time than it needs to . I will also say that at 2.5", the hexagons were a little trickier than the little ones I usually make. I am very happy with how it turned out though and I know my daughter will be happy to have it for her dolls. I also made a potholder for my sister. She is a tough person to give/make gifts for. Hey Sis, if you are reading I don't want to see this in your next garage sale! I want to make more potholders- like making tiny quilts in a tiny amount of time! Now that I have made you listen to me blather on let's get to the good stuff!
The first winner (chosen with a random number generator) of a set of ten fat quarters of my Party Dress line is...Val from A Day in the Life of Val ! Now I did say winners even though I had initially only mentioned one prize. Honestly I was pretty wowed by the numbers of comments and yesterday, when I popped on to check things out there were around 450 ish. I said to myself that if we hit 500 then I am giving another set to the 500th person. And 500 came and went so Hungry Crafter Joanna, you are #500 so you get a set too! I found her blog the other day and I was the hungry crafter after seeing all the photos of the yummy food she makes.
Thanks everyone for the wonderful Christmas comments. Even the person who commented she just can't wait for Christmas to be over. I appreciate the honesty! Thanks also to the always amazing Kristin at Sew Mama Sew for facillitating this party for all of us!
Have a fantastic weekend! And Val and Joanna, email me your addresses so I can get your goodies in the mail to you!

Giveaway Day!

2010-12-12T22:34:00.001-08:00

Welcome to Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day!! Should be a really great day of giveaways with lots of fun blogs to check out! My giveaway for today is a set of 10 fat quarters from my Party Dress line. I am happy to ship internationally so everyone is welcome to enter. All you have to do is leave a comment telling me what you most look forward to during the holidays. For me it is the lights on all the houses, all the home made cookies but mostly it is time with my family. Especially time making Christmas crafts with my kids. Paper snowflakes, little felt creations and gingerbread houses. That is the best! Happy Giveaway Day!!

Swappin time!

2010-12-10T11:01:00.001-08:00

When I first started blogging many many moons ago, I used to participate in swaps pretty often. Anyone remember the Back Tack swaps? Those were the BEST! At any rate, Heather is a buddy of mine and all of her swaps were looking pretty fun so I finally made the time and got in on one. The flickr group alone for this swap will knock your socks off! I received a beautiful pillow in the mail the other day and I need to get a pillow insert the correct size so I can photograph it. The one up above I amde for my partner. All this rain made it a record breaking mushroom year in these parts so I had mushrooms on the brain. Plus if the sun could actually get through this clous cover and it weren't so gosh darn dark, it would make photography a whole lot easier. Violet, Monica, Heather and Traci came over yesterday for a day in of chatting and eating and getting our craft on and it poured all day. Crazy amounts of rain- streets were flooded, it looked like dusk pretty much all day. So cozy inside though with part of my tribe. Thanks girls for such a fun day!!

Free holiday printables for you!

2010-12-06T09:20:00.001-08:00

It was sort of hard to photograph these so you could see the sparkle but it's there! These are some tags I did a few years ago but I still like and use them so I thought I would share them with you! I print these on card stock paper with a shlight sparkly sheen so the overall effect is soft and sparkly. Then I add tiny bits of glitter on the dots the stars hang from. I hope you enjoy them!
These are for your personal use only- just a little something from me to you.
tags are here!
cards are here!

Here is a link to the post with my peppermint tags printable from last year in case you missed it and want more printables!

Green Bag Challenge!

2010-12-03T10:14:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks back my lovely friend Kristin from Sew Mama Sew spoke at our local Modern Quilt Guild Meeting about the Green Bag Challenge. Inspired by Teresa, The Green Bag Lady, she proposed that we all wrap our Christmas gifts this year in fabric bags and fabric wrapping. Of course I love this idea because if someone gives me a gift all wrapped in fabric that is like getting two gifts!! But there are some really great reasons to wrap in fabric. Here are some very eye opening things to think about from Kristin:

Fact 1: US consumers generate 4 million tons of wrapping paper and shopping bag waste during the holiday season alone.
Fact 2: The US alone goes through 100 billion single-use plastic grocery bags every year.
Fact 3: This year, you can make a difference!
The Green Grocery Bag Challenge is a project to encourage sewists to wrap their holiday gifts in reusable cloth grocery bags, thus reducing the amount of wrapping paper entering the waste stream, while simultaneously getting multi-use bags into the hands of consumers (gift recipients.)
Our goal is to challenge the sewing community to include Mother Earth in their holiday plans.
Get Involved!

The idea that 4 MILLION TONS of waste that is primarily made up of paper and other lightweight items like ribbons boggled my mind. I can't even imagine what sort of volume that would be if you were to spread out even 1 ton of lightweight wrapping waste , let alone 4 Million tons of it. A woman at our guild had the great idea to purchase a set of winter themed king sized flannel sheets on sale at Target for around $15.99 on sale. She was able to make 20 bags out of the one set of sheets and the winter theme insure their future use. I wrapped that little gift above for a friend and the fabric and ribbon are re usable and it took no time to wrap it and it looks adorable. Kristin has been wrapping her gifts in fabric for years and suggests using safety pins to help hold where you need holding.
This year I am using Irene's tutorial for these adorable shopping bags and it will be reusable all year for grocery shopping. Plus I am making additional ones for gifts. Irene told me yesterday that one year she made 32 of them and got it down to 20 minutes per bag!
Here are some additional links for more Green Bag Challenge tutorials and ideas.
Visit The Green Grocery Bag Challenge Facebook page where we're posting links to tutorials, videos and other inspiration. It is also a place where people can go to say, "I'm in!"
Join The Green Grocery Bag Challenge Flickr group to share photos of handmade bags and gifts wrapped in reusable cloth bags
I hope this gets you inspired to join the challenge!

Yay!

2010-11-30T14:51:00.001-08:00

I had been told by my Blue Hill pals some time ago that there would be a quilt with Party Dress appearing in McCall's Quick Quilts but I wasn't sure what month. Well, I was perusing the McCalls Quilting website last week and saw the preview and nearly popped out of my skin! It was even more fun to go into my local grocery store and pick it up off the newstand and find the quilt in the December/January issue!! The quilt was designed and made by Joanie Holton and Melanie Greseth and I love what they did. It was exciting for me too because when I spoke to them several months ago and they told me they were fussy cutting the diamond garden flowers I told him that was something I had in mind when I designed it so I was so excited to see it used that way. It is on page 64 of McCall's Quick Quilts December/January issue! I need to go get one more issue to send to my Granny!

Holidays!

2010-11-23T11:23:00.001-08:00

I finally got some Holiday crafting in and it felt good to scratch that crafting itch. I have other things to do but I just needed to make something holidayish and my sweet Gnoma Clauses from Monica have been whispering to me. I finally got one stuffed and on the mantle. That first cut into that precious panel of Gnomas was hard but now I am on my way. I want the whole row stuffed and perched on my mantle! The wreath above him is something I found on Amber's blog. The first one I made I kept marveling at how on earth could she have made so many of these because the yarn wrapping took forever! But then I finished and had to make another one! And another one! And several wreaths later I don't want to stop. Be warned! I even made a 20" silvery grey with red pink and white roses for Valentines Day. I hadn't intended to craft for Valentines Day yet but it looked so perfect together.

This one I made for my daughter. I just love all of those sweet pink and purple roses. It is hanging on her door now so it is nice to look up the stairs and see it. I didn't want my son to feel left out so I offered to make him one with blue roses and he politely declined. "Ya I'm good Mom". Noted.

We are on a snow day from school though there is little snow to speak of. Just a nice sheen of ice. We are warm and snug. I just made two loaves worth of french toast using Silk Nog (Soy Milk egg nog-so yummy!) we have full bellies and a full freezer too. I hope everyone is having a good fun day today too!

I'm back!

2010-11-08T14:34:00.000-08:00

Wow! What a whirl wind fall! I have been trying to get this blog post up all week last week but it just was not meant to be! It is a little late but here is my version of Quilt Market!
Here I am with my partner in crime and roomie for the weekend, the always lovely and kooky other Mo, Monica . We are visiting with the uber talented and sweet Patty Young. Her booth was fabulous. The effort put into these booths is significant and the work really shows. I personally think that her Kyoko pattern is one of the best, if not the best, little girl dress pattern out there. Gorgeous!

Next up is my girl Violet's new bag pattern put out by Indigo Junction. I got my hands on one of those patterns and am so ready to get one made so I can parade around with that gorgeous bag on my hip. Well done Vi!

This is sweet Katy form England. She and Brioni, two of the talents behind Fat Quarterly came all the way from the motherland to come and see Quilt Market. I am so glad they made the journey because I sure did have a ton of fun with them!

coolest tatoo ever. I may have to get one of those... Here now is John (also of Fat Quarterly) giving us his Blue Steel and Monica proving that he is in fact, her homeboy. (by the way- go check out that gorgeous quilt on his blog today...)

I have more pictures of people's booths and that will come later (when I find the card reader to this stupid camera with the smallest most obscure memory card ever! Monica let me use her camera which is why I have all of these fun shots) but here is Kate Spain's booth. So pretty- Central Park is her new line and it looks fantastic. If I had to pick one word to describe Kate it would be effervescent. She is warm and bubbly and makes you feel like you have been friends forever. I love this quilt. She quilted around each of the little animals in the border. So sweet.

I just have to show you this- it was made of FELT! The detail blew my mind.

This had to be a high point for me- I found a quilt hanging with Grandma's Pearls in blue in it. It sort of took me by surprise to see my fabric out there in the wild! Isn't that a cute quilt block? It is the work of Pixie Girl Quilts.

Ah the famous Cake Party. That Lizzy House can bake as well as she can design fabric. It was Heavenly! Violet, Beth Dunn, Melissa and Monica. It was such a nice break in a hectic day of trying to see every single booth at Quilt Market! By the way, Melissa has a new line called Swoon and I don't have a photo of the quilts made from of it that they had in the Andover booth but you will have to take my word for it that they are stunning. Beautiful fabric!

Here is the sweet Bari J. She had a booth and it was lovely. I think this was her first time exhibiting and you wouldn't have known she was a booth rookie. We got to visit over dinner Saturday night (friday too, come to think of it!) and she is as sweet as she is lovely.

Last but not least, the amazing Elizabeth. She is the one at the table signing her brilliant new book. If you haven't seen this book yet, it is FANTASTIC! It really is. She is my sewing pal here in town and she is such a wealth of knowledge. And funny too!

I will be back because there is more that I want to share and I have more thoughts I want to put down but right now I have to go get the kids off the bus and walk the dog!!

Surprise guest!

2010-10-11T16:17:00.000-07:00

Isn't he amazing? I think he is a Western Screech Owl. (click on the photo to get a better look) I hear them quite often in the summer at night but I had never seen one. We had our annual Lord of the Gourd neighborhood pumpkin party yesterday and at one point my nephew looked up (from frog hunting) in the big tree in our front yard and spotted him. It was a good spot because he blended in pretty well with the tree branches and dappled sunlight.

It had rained all morning but cleared up in time for the party so there had been about a million frogs in our yard. I wondered if that was why he was there or if he was just taking a snooze before nightfall. Sort of difficult to snooze with a huge gaggle of people pointing and ooing at you. He just sat there and blinked accasionally. Totally unfazed. It was such a treat to get such a good look at him. He was about 12 feet up and he stayed there for hours. After the party was over there was a man walking his little dog and I called him over to see it. He was so enraptured by the owl he wasn't paying attention to his dog and the dog completely wrapped his leash (one of those long skinny retractable ones- I hate those!)around me and it was so little and hyper I was powerless. It felt like a cartoon- my husband just watching a laughing and the man oblivious and me totally stuck trying not to fall on this tiny freaking out dog. Classic.

Lord of the Gourd is a party we have every October- this year was the 7th annual. It is a big neighborhood party and it was so fun to see people come yesterday who had never come and the mix of people is great- Tons of kids, some older neighbors we don't get to see as much of. My husband is the Pied Piper of Pumpkins and he has slowly over the years coerced just about everyone to grow pumpkins. The record this year, after a particularly wet and icky summer was 108 lbs- down considerably from last year's 286. There were about 90 people there and it was the perfect fall day. I think everyone should have a LOTG party in their own neighborhood- it is so community building and we are now at the point where people start talking about it in the spring as we all get our pumpkins planted.

One of the contests we hold is a pumpkin decorating contest for the kids. This is the only category where pumpkins can be purchased and the kids always come up with awesome pumpkins. Plus if you don't cut into them they usually last until Halloween. This year's winner is that amazing Queen of Hearts. Isn't she cool? Made by one of our talented 8 year old neighbors.

Ah yes... the food. The rule is bring a dessert or appetizer to share and there is always tons of yummy food. Our Belgian neighbor brings Belgian hot chocolate which will blow your mind. It is like hot brownie batter. I made cookies, bread pudding, pumpkin cake with caramel cream (below) and kalua pork nachos. The caramel cream for the cake was homemade caramel whipped into heavy cream and mascapone cheese. It was crazy good. I have said it before and I know I will say it again: The Cake Book by Tish Boyle is the best cookbook for cake period anywhere. Every single thing I have ever made out of this book has knocked all of our socks off. If you like cake you have to get yourself this book. The ingredients can be pricey but all the cakes I have made have this incredible batter consistency that makes you want to rub it into your skin. OK, not really but it is beautiful batter.

Winners &Gifties

2010-10-02T13:49:00.000-07:00

I went to my sewing group last week (which I always look forward to immensely because it is such a fun bunch of people) and my friend Kristin had this wonderful gift for me! She had it made for me by a talented woman she knows named Cindy. I was so excited to receive it. I told her it was so much less narcisistic to have if I didn't make it myself. Though I am not above that! I love it!! I should also tell you that Elizabeth of Oh Fransson! had a copy of her book that will be released very soon and it is FANTASTIC! I already had my copy ordered on amazon but now I am ordering more for gifts. It has a ton of great info and several beautiful quilt patterns.
On to the winners! I asked my kids in the car today on the way home from soccer to each pick a number and my son picked #16 which just happened to be sweet sweet Joan! and my daughter picked 32 who is Allison, who does not have a blog but will be getting some fabric to play with! I will email you both to work out the details!
So I have to tell you that when I went outside to take the picture of my lovely pin cushion I was sitting beneath a tree that has good size glass jars hanging from it. I usually have candles in them but we have had a lot of rain and they are full of water. Slimy green water. I sat down to take the picture and told myself to mind the jars on my way up but in the 30 seconds it took to have that thought , take the picture and stand up again, I had forgotten and I stood up, bonked my head on one got a bunch of slimy green water down my back. Ewww! I did manage to keep the pin cushion dry though.

Presenting Magic Garden!

2010-09-24T16:55:00.000-07:00

Here it is!! It seems like it takes forever to get a collection just how you want it and then there it is! And then I have to wait for yardage! This fabric designing is a good exercise in patience for me. I am so happy with how this one turned out. It is a little smaller collection and I am already so excited to sew with it. Color wise I went in a direction I didn't expect and am happy with how it landed. I love my yard, I love to go outside and see what is growing at any given time of the year. I love to see how it changes one day to the next and one season to the next. It seems like magic to me, all the goings on- that buzz you feel when you are outside. I was stumped on the name so I got my favorite 8 year old intern and daughter to help me out. She came up with "Magic Garden" and it felt good to both of us. She is thrilled and proud that she gets to participate in this with me and I am thrilled and proud too that she enjoys doing this with me. The first colorway is "Petals". I wanted something feminine but not too youthfully girly. I hope I hit that spot. This first print is a little bit bigger scale and it is a panel stripe. The floral stripe with its leafy border runs the length of the fabric , repeating three times over the width. I think it will work so well for little girl skirts, aprons, bags. I can't wait to get my hands on this one.

I call this one tiny flowers.

plaid- I love how the linear feel of this plaid works with the rest of the collection.

Butterflies. I think this would be a great wallpaper too! Couldn't you see a bathroom in it?

wandering vines- because that is pretty much what they are doing...

I took these prints to my sewing group last night. One friend said she thought this one looked like a birds eye view of cupcakes- I think she is on to something.

Spider web. I think this feels like a dew sprinkled web.

One more circle posies because I just couldn't pick one!

This colorway is called Indian Summer. We have amazing Indian Summers here in the Pacific Northwest. It gets hot during the day- dry so everything is a little crunchy and fading but still vibrant and the sun hits an angle that makes everything glowy and magical.

So there it is! It feels good to be able to share! I hope everyone loves it! Blue Hill will be showing and taking orders at Quilt Market in October. I already have a quilt pattern or two worked up for it. You can be sure I will share it with you as soon as I get it together!

Fabric for you!!

2010-09-20T12:47:00.000-07:00

The folks at Blue Hill sent me bolts of my fabric and it feels like an embarrasment of riches to have all these bolts for myself so it is time to share! Leave me a comment telling me what your favorite sorts of prints to sew with are. I am mostly curious what sort of scale you like to work with, your favorite colors, florals or geometrics- that sort of thing. In a week or so I will pick out two people and send them each three yards of fabric- a yard each of your choice from Party Dress. Or 6 half yards of your favorites. Or one big 3 yard piece of a cheater print. Your choice! If you want to get an extra entry, go ahead and tweet or blog the giveaway and then pop over and let me know you did. Hopefully by the time I pull the names I will have the ok to finally reveal my next collection!

On a side note, today is the 13th anniversary of our wedding. Lucky 13! I picked a good one so I imagine there will be plenty more where that came from. He really is such a fantastic guy. Here we are on our big day-
We look so young! I have to tell you- we did see each other before the ceremony for picture taking. I came out all dolled up and he came over, held my hands, looked sweetly in my eyes and said, "You look like a synchronized swimmer". Not really the sentimental words of love I was expecting but so totally him to say that. And I did! Oy Vey- that hair was so shellaced that it almost looked the same later that night when I took all the pins out. It is exciting to make it to this point and still really enjoy each other. Plus my kids won the Dad lottery so I am a pretty happy woman.

I love a bargain!

2010-09-15T20:45:00.001-07:00

After!
Before...

I bought this chair about a year ago. I think the shape and tufting are just perfect. It was a whopping five bucks and I couldn't pass it up even though the fabric was shredding. It took me about a year to decide what fabric to cover it in and I ended up going with yardage I had so I didn't need to spend anymore cash. I found a fantastic woman on Craig's list who did such a great job covering it. I am in such love with this chair! All those covered buttons! I only wish there were a pair of them but I am happy with this one. The dog must know how much I love it because he stays off it. I love that dog.

Tomorrow is back to school night so I can't go to the Portland Modern Quilt Guild meeting but I have a sewing date during the day with one of my sewing pals so all is not lost. Should be LOTS of fun. And lots of gabbing! Next up is new curtains and new pillows for the livingroom. And two quilts I have in the works.

Do you think I could get my eight year old to wear this?

2010-09-03T14:45:00.001-07:00

I'm kidding- I know she won't because it is just so cute and she has moved past so cute even if I haven't! Hawthorne Threads has this great feature where people can upload photos of things they have made out of a particular fabric so shoppers can see what the fabric would look like all made up. I was perusing the site the other day and found this unbelievably cute set made out of my Lady Dot print from the Soiree colorway. I tracked down Tina the maker of these darling pieces and told her I had to show you. Super cute and so nicely sewn.

I have so enjoyed seeing the things going up on the Party Dress flickr group. If you have anything to share I would love to see it! The kids return to school next week- that was fast! I feel like we have hardly had a summer. I will say that I will get back to more regular posting and will be showing a sneak peek of the new collection sometime very soon. Just fine tuning a few things here and there.

Happy sewing!

Please show and tell!

2010-08-16T10:10:00.000-07:00

It's up! I put together a group for Party Dress show and tell! I would just absolutely love it if you have made something with Party Dress, if you could hop on over and add your photos to the group. That is the best part of designing a fabric collection- seeing people's creativity with it. If you have anything in your etsy shops made out of Party Dress, I would love to see them. I will put links here to help spread the word! Here is a link to the group:http://www.flickr.com/groups/partydressshowandtell/
I can't wait to see!

This one's for you other Mo

2010-08-12T16:37:00.000-07:00

Our local amazing Asian Market had their annual Hawaiian Festival last weekend. We go every year- saturday and sunday so we can get our shave ice fix. And listen to Hawaiian music and sit and wish we were actually in Hawaii and not in some parking lot in Oregon. Monica, who I call Mo also spent some time living in Hawaii so I knew she would appreciate the shave ice. This one was pineapple, passion orange, guava. Soooo gooood!

There was a booth with amazing vintage Hawaiian Muu Muus and shirts. The most awesome fabrics. These photos don't do the colors justice.

And we also found tropical flowers. I love tropical flowers. I love all flowers... They even had Plumeria leis and my husband bought me one and I wore it all day.

It started out looking like this but now looks like a rotten banana all black and brown with little peeks of yellow. I have it hanging on the wall next to my bed because for as unsightly it is it still smells like Heaven. The kids have decided that they don't actually need a tree house and want to put the money we would have spent on a treehouse into a vacation to Hawaii. Sounds good to me! We already have a fort in the bamboo patch in our yard so I vote for Hawaii too!

There have been some great things popping up in blogland made out of Party Dress. I am going to go right now and set up a flickr group and I would LOVE to see everything and anything you have made with it! The next collection went out to Blue Hill with all the tweaks so I think we are looking good and that one may be ready to go. As soon as I get the word I will show and tell here!

Aloha nui loa!

Loving this!

2010-07-18T18:01:00.001-07:00

This last week I got two emails with projects that people made out of Party Dress! I have always said that the most fun for me will be seeing what people make with the fabric and it is as fun to see as I imagined! Those sweet Jamma pants were sewn up by Kaitlin, whose sister is Lindsay of Hawthorne Threads. I love the photo! It is from a pattern you can find in Joel Dewberry's new book, "Sewn Spaces". Secondly, Heather of Ala Mode fame made this adorable head hankerchief. I so remember wearing those when I was younger and wonder why I don't wear them now especially out gardening with a mouth full of little hairs that fly all over? Better get on that!

Secondly, she made these hexies and I think they are about the cutest thing ever! And perfect! I should take a picture of the backs- so nicely done.
Heather and I met on the internet and live in the same city and I knew we had to meet. I have other friends from the web who live in the same state that I correspond with and think are just the coolest- Monica, for one. (Who I call the other Mo.) Mo2 and I had our first fabric collections come out at the same time so we had lots of fun going through that together. So last thursday I finally got to meet these lovely ladies in the flesh! We arranged to meet at The Old Spaghetti Factory along with some other fantastic ladies, Violet (my sewing buddy from here in town who has her own line of fabric coming out soon!) Joan, Terri, Tammy,Tracy and Jona. I think the best part about the evening is that it was so much fun and I really felt like we had all done this before! A lot of laughing and a lot of good fabric talk. After dinner we all went to the Portland Modern Quilt Guild meeting and learned how to make hexagons. All in all a really fun night- I can't wait to do it again!

On an unrelated note- I am being bombarded with comments regarding counterfit purses and viagra so I turned on the word verification. Hopefully it will stem the flow of these comments. It is a pain to have to enter the word so sorry but I have had enough of these comments!

fortyonederful

2010-06-27T12:24:00.001-07:00

It was my birthday yesterday. After turning the big 4-0 last year this one was pretty uneventful. I did let it be an excuse to go to the plant nursery and buy the dahlia and rose above. It is a little late for roses in the nurseries but this Abraham Darby was still there and it smells like Heaven. I have been working in the garden all week and I got a little crazy in one of my beds and ripped about 2/3 of the plants out. It was overgrown and the roses were pretty diseased. I hadn't meant to do that but it looks so much better now. Blackberrries grow here with gusto. Everywhere. I am constatnly pulling them out- I always have to laugh because my best friend in North Carolina buys them and plants them. I can't imagine them not growing everywhere the way they grow here. They are like the cockroaches of plants here- opportunistic and indestructable. I knew a woman once who had two small goats that she bought just to get rid of the huge tabgles of blackberry vines on her property. Can you imagine eating them? I got a blackeberry thorn poke through my gloves right into my knuckle the other day and it got all swollen and I could hardly bend my finger for two days. I can't imagine all that going through my digestive tract! That cake was yummy, by the way. I made it myself from my favorite "The Cake Book" which is the best cake baking book EVER!

Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!!

2010-06-24T00:30:00.001-07:00

These are some photos of the tide pools we found during our last beach trip. I could spend days just poking around tide pools.

The spring here has been the wettest suckiest spring that I can ever remember. Several rainfall records were broken and people started calling it Juneuary. Waking up every morning to grey skies and cold dampness was very nearly pushing me over the edge. In all honesty I was starting to just feel resentful and sad. Last sunday we had a double header and we sat in the cold drizzle for so long (we are hard core here- if we ran away every time it rained a little we would never get to do anything- the field was fine so we played on) that I was soaked to my underwear! Every layer of clothing I had on, head to toe, was soaking wet. It finally really started to pour so we packed up and went home. June 20th in my wintercoat, soaking wet in a dark gloomy day. Ugh! One of the worst parts is that if you dared to look at the seven day forecast it looked crappy all week too. I think we had 4 days classified as "sunny" from April 21 to June 20. Something happened though and the sun has been coming out. Today was unbelievable- we were outside much of the day including a few hours at the neighborhood pool tonight. We made sandwiches and just hung out. All of the neighbors crawled out from under our rocks and we got to hang out together in the sun and laugh and relax and just soak it all in. I feel 1000 times better. It is crazy to me how far a little sun goes. On the flip side of things my son's baseball team had to practice in the relative heat and they were zonked from it- just not used to it yet. Speaking of baseball, my son made the All Star team for his league so we are all super excited for him. We love baseball! The tradition is that we make pennants for each boy with his name and number and they get hung on the fence at the big tournament. Crafting and baseball and sun- Heaven!

I hope you are sunny in your neck of the woods!

2 + 6 = 22

2010-06-17T14:39:00.001-07:00

Remember when we got those mice? Those two sweet low maintenance mice? And remember what happened? (thanks Pet Smart...) It was fun to have those little mice running around and fun to see them grow. Once. I got on the internet, read up all I could find. I called three Pet Smarts and asked for guidance. Well, the internet lies. Mice can (though they shouldn't) impregnate/get pregnant at 4 and a half weeks. Not six weeks- not eight weeks like I was told. We split them up (boys and girls) at five weeks. They had just weaned a week or two before! Well, five weeks is too late! We had two moms. One of them was so plump with babies (she had 10) that she looked like she had swallowed a quarter cup of dried beans! All lumpy! Watching them feed the brood of 16 is hysterical- they just lie across the top all limbs spread out and just wait for it to be over! Pitfalls of the unintentional neophyte mouse farmer. Now from our original two, we have 22 mice. we already gave two away from the last batch or we would have 24. Are you kidding me? These were supposed to be easy pets! They turn four weeks on wednesday so on tuesday we are seperating them! Thank goodness my Aunt volunteers at the local Humane Society and she told me that they love to have mice because they get adopted out quickly. By families with small kids and not for snake food so they get to go there on the 27th. We will keep four. Four girls! I hope that one up there is a girl because that is one cute mouse- and very friendly too.

Another Giveaway!

2010-06-14T15:48:00.001-07:00

One day I will blog about something other than my fabric but for now, here is info on one more give away! I want to get this stuff in people's hands so that I can see what you are going to make with it!
If you haven't heard of the amazing ezine Fat Quarterly, you need to go check them out! It is a fantastic resource brought to you by several really great quilters and sewers. (check out their About page and you will be sure to recognize a name or two or six!) Their first issue came out not long ago and it had several really nice projects in it and some great interviews too. I love it when you can tell some good thought went into a publication and when the projects are all top notch and inspire you to stop reading and go sew! So follow this link to check them out and enter the giveaway!

Winner!

2010-06-12T11:13:00.001-07:00

This is how I spent my weekend last weekend. It was fantastic. We are coming off some of the wettest weather in years and we got to the beach only two hours away and the sky just opened up and it was blue and warm and wonderful. I needed that! By Sunday it was a monsoon again but a day and a half will tide me over.

Thanks for all the sweet comments! I love getting to share the fabric with people and I wish I had enough for everybody! Here are the winners:

Ginger Ale Shop

and

Dogwood!

Send me your addresses and I will get some fabric in the mail for you!

If you didn't win and still want a crack at some free fabric, go and see Heather at Ala Mode- and wish her a Happy Birthday while you are at it!

Have a Happy weekend everyone!

Time for a Giveaway!!

2010-06-02T18:11:00.001-07:00

Time for some Party Dress party favors! It feels so fun to get to give away some of my fabric finally! I took some to share with my sewing group pals last week and have shared some more here and there and now it is your turn! All you have to do is leave a comment and early next week I will draw a name (or two!). If you want extra entries, go ahead and blog about the giveaway and then leave an additional comment to let me know and I will count those as an extra entry.
I have had my sweet girl home for the last two days with a tummy bug. No fun. But I did manage to make her this skirt today and she was feeling well enough tonight to model it for me. Gosh it sure is green there in my backyard. Because we live in a sponge. A damp wet drippy sponge. It has been so rainy here this spring it is driving me insane. This May was the third wettest May on record. They are calling it Juneuary already because we are having storms we usually only see in January. Nice. Time to clear out clouds- summer is coming and I have big plans- and none of them involve being wet and cold and soggy from more crappy weather!
I can't wait to share the fabric and see what people start making out of it!
Up next... a preview of the newest collection! I can't wait to show you!!! I just have to prep the files and load them up!
FYI: I am happy to ship internationally so my overseas friends are welcome to enter too!

Parade of samples!!

2010-05-19T15:51:00.000-07:00

Being that this is my first fabric line, this is my first round of samples for Quilt Market. I was a little intimidated because the people looking at these samples at Market all know what they are doing! Plus I got all of the fabric last friday and had to ship it out this morning so that left me with 4 and a half days to kick out my samples. Thankfully I had a few great people to call who could help me out and I think we did a pretty good job! First up I am loving that baby quilt! My lovely Aunt Sue saved my bacon on that one- I love how it turned out. It is the cheater print. We used a higher loft batting and you really have to look to see that it is a cheater print.

I love the striped binding and the grass flower sash. It was so fun to see it come to fruition this way. Check out the back. Just sew around the hexagons and the back looks great too and I love the way the ladybug print worked for the back.

Next up is a string pieced pillow. Is it ridiculous if I love all of the samples? I really do! And to be honest, there is so much time spent in fabric designing away from the sewing machine so it was great to spend a few ,albeit harried, days with my machine.

Don't they look cute together? I am going to put a free pattern together for the flower pillow. It is not hard and I think it turned out pretty cute. Good way to use little scraps.

Here is my girl in a dress of her choosing. This is her favorite print and it gave me a chance to make more fabric flowers! This pattern is great. (This is the third one I have made of it!)

We were interupted halfway through our photo shoot because a little frog hopped by and she is not one to resist a frog. Lucky for her we are Frog Heaven in our backyard. We saw three that afternoon.

This is my friend Toots. She is an absolute doll. Her Aunt takes care of her during the day so she comes on our morning dog walks and I adore her company. Isn't she the cutest?! This dress is the Oliver + S Ice Cream Dress which is darling! Her patterns are the best.

I found some hangers to cover with my fabric so I made some for each of the outfits. I want to make some more to use in my daughter's closet.

I have had this adorable vintage glass button for a few years and I am glad I had it in my stash because it is a perfect match!

Look at this cute bag that my Mom made from this cute tutorial. Sewed up so nice! Thanks Mom!

and ladybug lining...

Another cute purse sewn up by my friend Mary who stepped up in a hurry!

She also sewed this blouse. This print is shaping up to be one of my favorites. The blue is so pretty!

One more shot of the hanger with the dress...

So there you go! Thankfully I have a couple of friends going to Market who said they would take photos.

It's here!!

2010-05-14T20:30:00.001-07:00

I finally have my fabric in my hands! It sure felt like it took a long time but it has been worth the wait. I have a big pile of it here and I have started to make samples for Market. Things are a little late so I have only a few days to make samples so I am in hyper drive to get some good stuff done. It is hard to even know where to start! And there will be plenty left over for a giveaway soon!
This is the first sample I completed though I have several others in the works. My daughter can't wait to get it back after Market because she already called dibs. Sadly I won't be attending Market this time but I will have lots of friends there to give me the low down when they get back.

These photos aren't very good as it is night time now so it is artificial light but I love this print as the binding with that linen. I can't wait to share some of this fabric with you guys and see what people will make with it!

Favorite new craft project

2010-05-03T10:32:00.000-07:00

I was checking out www.sew4home.com the other day and they had this fantastic tutorial. I love these types of flowers so I thought I would take a crack at them. I bought quarter yard cuts of several different organzas and satins and took them to my friend Jill's house for craft night. At first I really tried to stick to using the template but you quickly realize this is a very forgiving process so we just free handed the petals and melted away. I only caught one petal on fire so that is not too bad. (make sure you have a bowl of water to toss flaming fabric in!) Overall we all loved the project and all of the flowers turned out great. So great project, very relaxing, satisfies those latent pyro tendencies and good results right away. A 10 in my book! Oh- plus it is cheap. Quarter yard cuts ran me about $1.50 and you have enough in a quarter yard to make a lot of flowers. (The lovely flowers are sitting on a piece of fabric from my Party Dress line that comes out so soon! I will show more projects with Party Dress soon!)

We had an awesome roller skating party for my sweet eight year old on sunday. I LOVE rollerskating! They had adult speed skate for a bit so we all got off and watched these women go flying by. There was this one woman with this darling bob and she was speed skating sideways. I am not really sure how to describe it but she had all of us Moms secretly wishing we could be roller derby babes like she apparently is. I ran into her later and I told her how awesome we all thought she was and turns out she is in her fifties (did not look fifty whizzing by us!) and she is getting her hip replaced in a month. Whoa! I took the shots of the cupcakes in the car on the way. I adore the plastic roses from www.layercakeshop.com . They have expanded and have a new website. I love that site- so many fantastic baking things. Makes you want to bake all the time. I have to say that this frosting is the best frosting ever. I am not a fan of really heavy butter based frostings. This is whipped ganache. You heat cream, melt chocolate in it (good dark chocolate) add some vanilla and then chill overnight. In the morning you whip it for a minute and it makes light lovely so yummy frosting. (light? with those ingredients? I know but it feels lighter...) I have a bunch left over in the fridge so I just may have to make another cake this week. My sweet neighbor has a wicked sweet tooth so I know he won't mind if I end up baking.

Crazy 8!

2010-04-27T20:35:00.001-07:00

Last friday my sweet girl turned eight years old. EIGHT. That is old. It feels weird to have my youngest be eight. I kept my freak outs over her age to myself and we had a really nice day. I brought her a special lunch to school and sat with her and her friends. Then we all got to go have recess together. I love these little moments- getting to hang out with her in her daily life with the people she chooses to spend time with. Later we had a visit from some favorite out of town cousins and dinner at The Cheesecake Factory- her choice (she loves their deep fried macaroni and cheese balls- wow! What and idea. Deep frying the fatiest fatty food! They are ,of course, delicious!) She loves how big and fancy it feels. The wait at TCF was 90 minutes (!! at 5:30!!!) so my husband casually mentioned that we should go take her to have her ears pierced. That is not the type of thing you can mention to an eight year old and then go back on. We went and watched a couple of girl's get their ear's pierced and she promptly changed her mind. I didn't really have an opinion either way so we bought cheesy accesories for her and her cousin instead. She thought about it all night though and as soon as she woke up the next day she told me that she was going to get them pierced today! So after a particularly exciting baseball game where my son hit two home runs (he was tagged out at home in an exciting slide/late catch on the first one so he came back at next up and hit it a bit farther so he would be sure to make it that time!) we headed to the mall and she did it. For being as whatever about it as I felt, the second the peircing guns went off, I got all choked up. I hadn't expected to feel that way at all but in the end it did feel sort of mile-stoney. I get choked up a lot this time of year though. The end of the school year is always a tough one for me- moving on- the feeling that things are just moving way too fast.

At any rate, I always like to make something for her for her birthday. She had asked for Felicity - the American Girl Doll. She is a girl who doesn't really ask for a lot of things so my Mom and I went halfsies on it. I do have to say I love the AG books. It is a nice way for her to learn history from a more resonant perspective. In fact, I found the greatest book on Amazon to go with the doll . She hasn't read it yet but both my husband and I have read it. It sort of sucks you in with lots of great details and photos. Well, Felicity needed a quilt so I dug through my stash to see what I had to make a Felicity appropriate quilt. A friend had given me a bag of scraps last summer and in it was a half finished embroidery piece. About a million french knots later, I finished it and used it for the center of the quilt.>
My daughter loves it and I was happy with how it finished up. I think the pink stripe was a scrap from a garage sale a couple of summers ago. I love embroidery and it is so nice to be able to have a portable project that you can just have in a bag and pull out where and when ever. I have one more half finished panel that if someone wants it, I would be happy to put it in the mail. You have to enjoy making french knots though!

Finally done!

2010-04-10T12:06:00.000-07:00

We are finally done with the kitchen re do! We are really enjoying it. We took out a soffit and made the window over the sink bigger so it is much lighter and brighter now. I love the new window because now I can see so much more of the backyard. We have a 60's tri level and there are really deep overhangs on this level so we don't get as much light as we could. The window helps a lot. Our old kitchen was original to the house and the drawers were literally falling apart. We had half of them nailed together and the silverware drawer back had to be taped to the front. Pretty. Plus there was a big hole in it that things would fall out of. That was annoying.

I love the countertops- if you enlarge the picture you can see there are little sparkly bits in it. My husband actually chose that and we both love them. See the dog at the bottom of the photo? He matches the new kitchen so perfectly!

Here is the backsplash tile. It is recycled green glass. I love the way it looks which is good because I have enough leftover in my garage to do a whole additional room due to my poor math skills.

Here it is close up- it has a little irridescence to it.

These are the lights- another favorite. It is swirly glass. I love them . It took a long time to find something I liked that I could afford. Lights are so expensive! I am really happy with these and everyone comments on them so I think they are a hit. I am glad we are done and all in all it was a fairly pleasant experience. We usually do the work ourselves but this exceeded our combined skill set by a lot so we had help. I am glad I love it because it has to last us another 40 years!!

I actually managed to get one little photo of our babies the other day. This was a few days ago and already they all have hair and are a bit larger. They are all white with black spots- so I know enough about Mendel and his pea plants to safely say that Nibbles, the white mouse, is the Mama. I should say is the birth Mama because they both seem to be lactating and are really taking turns with the babies. I think that is so sweet.

There are six of them so we might be needing some good name suggestions. Any ideas?

Baby mice update

2010-04-05T18:58:00.001-07:00

These are not our babies but this is the supreme cuteness we can look forward to. I have to say that I feel like I am living some deep seeded childhood fantasy because I have baby mice in my house. I just always wanted baby animals and tons of pets as a kid. I had a dog and a cat and a bird with a nervous habit of pulling out all his feathers but I wanted more. I also vowed frequently that I would, in fact, eat Freakies for ever meal and not just the once a month or so that we got them. And now they don't even make Freakies anymore. So I guess it feels nice to live out one childhood fantasy. Our babies don't have hair yet but they will get it in the next few days. I am pretty sure they were born on the 31rst of March as we saw them on the 1rst and they looked pretty new. As one neighbor put it, "They look like meat" which they sort of did because they were so darkish pink. Now a few days later, they are still pink but nice lightish pink and they have spots on them indicating where the hair will be black or another color. We only get tiny glimpses at them here and there with a flashlight as they are tightly sequestered inside their nest. The sweet thing about mice is that they are excellent community parents and the two original females have been helping with the mom duties. One lady at work commented "My mice have two mommies" and they do and I think that must be nice to share those responsibilities because if I had to breast feed six new borns all day I would want help too. I say six but it is a guess according to the tiny peeks we have had. We have been reading up on how to sex them so that when the time comes, we can seperate them before we are in this position again. As fun as this is, I don't think we should keep breeding mice. We are going to

keep a baby or two (females) and give the rest to good homes. So that is the update. I can't wait to see our own babies and see what they look like. We might get a feeling for who the mom really is once we see what colors they all are. Oh- I was looking for the mouse picture and this file is "Baby M" so I figured it was the mice but it is my sweet daughter. She is so cute I am leaving it up. Of course she is almost 8 now but still cute! Her baby hair stuck up like that for several months. You couldn't get it to lay down. Then it all fell out eventually and she became a blonde. Her cardiologist called her "Porcuspino" because of her porcupine hair.

A visit from the stork!

2010-04-01T23:52:00.001-07:00

I never thought this would happen. Especially on April Fool's Day. It took me a long while to convince my husband of the blessed event, given the day. The kids and I were getting ready for Dad to get home so we could go out to eat, given that the new counters were installed today and we have to wait 24 hours for setting. All of a sudden my son comes running up the stairs absolutely frantic yelling, "The mice had babies! The mice had babies!!". Let me remind you that we have had these mice exactly one week and they are both female. For a minute I thought this was surely an April Fools joke but I realized rather quickly that my son is not that good an actor. So the three of us went downstairs and, sure enough, a writhing little pile of pink mouse babies. He had lifted the little hut off to get his mouse to play with it and discovered the pile. He left it off so I carefully placed it back and took my freaking out children out of the room and promptly called Pet Smart to figure out what the $#@!*&!! I was supposed to do. I put them in my office so that they would not be disturbed and that is about all I need to do, except give them food and water once a day. And no cage cleaning for 10 to 14 days. (!!!!!) My office is going to stink. I will say that we can't see the babies now because they are tucked nicely in their nest but they make these tiny little squeaking noises. We are all pretty excited. I can't wait to find out how many babies after all. I was too shocked to sit and count them but I am still marveling at how all those babies fit in that tiny mouse. I still don't even know who the Mama is but they both seem to be caring for the babies so that is good. So there you go. Lots of mice for the price of one.

Whiny Baby

2010-03-30T21:06:00.000-07:00

This is a before shot of half of the kitchen. Looking through the before pictures gives me some needed perspective tonight. We have come a long way. We are so close. And I am a whiny baby. I so wanted to bake cookies tonight. I wanted to see if the gas oven (we switched from electric) was going to bake up my famous chocolate chip cookies as well as the old oven. Thankfully it did. I have a reputation to protect. I will say though that having to work in a half finished kitchen is starting to grate on my nerves. We have plywood counters, a huge deep old utility sink while we wait for the real one. It is so deep you practically have to climb inside to wash the dishes. In the midst of all of my internal griping tonight, I realized what a whiny baby I am. First I thought about the Little House on the Prarie books. How Ma had to make do with nothing and how the easiest thing today would have taken a whole day to do back then. Need clean underwear? No problem, throw a load in. Not Ma, she would have had to first sew the underwear, go down, get water, bring out the washing board, wash all the clothes by hand and hang them to dry. Then my son and I read a fantastic article about this lovely local couple who, once a month every month, go down to a local park and make hot food for the hungry people there. Homeless folks and folks who just need something to eat. They told of one man who has a job but just can't stretch those ends to meet. They always head to the park at the end of the month when foodstamps have run out. It was a great article and a nice reminder of ways we can help. I also needed a reminder to be thankful. So thankful. The couple also mentioned how the started out their food sharing by going to local parks with food boxes. Who says we can't take this new kitchen and make a whole ton of sandwichs (and famous chocolate chip cookies!) and take them to a park to share.

New friends!

2010-03-28T18:59:00.001-07:00

The kids have been wanting more pets. We have our dog and he is the best but you know how kids are. My husband was steering them towards fish and we went to look at fish one day and they saw the mice and it was love at first sight.

Here they are playing in the (pink!) bathtub while there cage gets cleaned. We have a glass aquarium which provides a good view on their goings on. They are not strictly nocturnal as they have several active periods through the day which are really fun to watch. The brown one is my diaghters and she named him Maple.

This little white one is my son's and he named her nibbles. Thankfully she doesn't nibble on us. They are surprisingly tame and holdable given their place on the food chain- you would think they would be more cautious!

They are very very active though- tough to get a good picture of! Look at those tiny feet. I have to say I am also really enjoying the new pets.

I can't believe spring break is over today. Off to school and work tomorrow. Ack! I am excited though because the countertops for the kitchen come thursday. With any luck the backsplash will get tiled soon and then we will finally have a kitchen put back together and usable! And pretty! I can't wait to show you pictures! Have a happy week!

What do you think?

2010-03-15T15:53:00.000-07:00

We came home from dinner on friday night and it was pouring. Big fat raindrops. We ran inside and evidently we were not the only ones who hurried in doors. This chubby fella was just sitting in the entry way. He must have hopped in after me. I am so glad none of us stepped on him. We are a very froggy neighborhood and once spring hits we will see frogs every single day. The kid played with him for awhile and he hopped all around and they, of course, loved it. My husband and kids wanted to keep him so they put him in a deep glass jar. Here is my question: Do you think we should keep critters like that? I have no problem with the kids enjoying them outside and, like I said, we will have plenty to play with outside in a month's time, but this guys got all sorts of hair and fluff stuck to him and I just really feel like if I were a frog, I would so much more want to be outside than in a jar for some kids to occasionally play with. I was out voted so he stayed. Until he outsmarted the rest of my family and started making such a racket chirping in his vase that he was set free. Am I being silly? It's spring- don't you think he has a lady friend to find? How do you handle these types of things? I was further reinforced in my thinking when my daughter exclaimed yesterday, while looking at the slugs she had been keeping in a jar, "Mom! They shrunk!". No honey, they dried out and died. That would make me sad if that happened to that frog.
On another note, we had an all school fundraiser at the roller rink the other night. ROLLER SKATING IS AWESOME! I had completely forgotten. I could go again tonight. Though I do hurt where I fell but I had friends there to pick me up off the floor. And it really was so much fun. I used to spend hours in my garage skating in cirlces with Grease on my light blue record player. And Xanadu. Good times. May be time to really ressurect that past time!
On one more note, how good is the Liberty stuff at Target?! My daughter is going to be looking good because those dresses are so cute I could hardly stand it. She got lots of Liberty and is now a convert. I loved it all and bought too much. I did not get the bike though.

THREE MORE DAYS!!

2010-03-11T16:56:00.000-08:00

Just a few more days until Liberty hits Target! I am so jonesing that Beach Crusier in this print. Should I ? Shouldn't I? I just can't decide. Wouldn't it be so fun to ride around town on your own Liberty of London beach crusier? With a big wicker basket on the front of it? I am hoping they have table linens. That would be the best. Because even though it is cold and pouring today the sun will come out soon and I will want to eat outside as much as possible. And eating outside on Liberty linens would make it even that much better.

Measure twice order once

2010-03-09T20:50:00.000-08:00

I looooove this fireplace. It is covered in beautiful hakatai ashland e recycled glass tile. (find it here: http://www.hakatai.com/) and pretty soon our backsplash in the kitchen will be covered in it too. Only a green version. Palmetto Green which is a beautiful springy translucent green. It was up to me to measure the space we needed to cover. It shouldn't have been difficult but somehow I ordered twice the tile I need. That was a costly mistake. I felt better though when my husband came home from the tile floor with about 100 extra square feet of bathroom floor tile. So what we learned was we should measure twice (or three times...) and then order. Did I mention that my son is in the special math class at school? He is wicked smart- a mathlete. Not sure where that came from. Next time I will make him measure for the tile. Thankfully the floor tile can go back and we will probably be able to use the excess glass tile in the laundry room. That is going to be a nice fancy laundry room. Here are some other things I have learned during this remodel.
1. It really does cost more than you think it will. We got an asbestos surprise, had to replace cabinets we hadn't counted on, and the "scope creep" is dangerous. Well if we are going to change that door, we might as well do them all... That type of crap.
2. It is hard to have someone in your house every day. Even if the are the nicest people (which they really are) it still cramps my style when I can't ,say, sing out loud (and I mean loud) to the dog whenever I feel like it. Though you would think I would have stopped that after the day I was screaming, I mean singing "Born Free" (which I do not know the words too) to the dog and walked by the front door where two Jehova's witnesses were peering in to see what that horrible noise was. Nope. Still like to sing loud. Plus they have been working on the bathroom under our bathroom upstairs and I feel like they can hear every single thing that goes on above their heads. If you *ahem* know what I mean. Akward!
3.You can do fine with a microwave and toaster oven but if you don't have a sink, you are screwed. Those first couple of weeks I put the random dishes we needed to use in the bathtub to await the day we would have a place to wash them. It looks horrible and makes me a little nervous that if child protective services dropped by they might decide this is not a house fit for kids. The mess is crazy!
4. I have really nice friends. Really nice friends who are really good cooks. We have had several nice nights out at friend's homes and one friend showed up at Dodgeball with a bag full of burrito fixins. My friends are the best!
5.When you remodel, odds are good that you will get some of the most awesome cardboard boxes. We got a particularly large one and my daughter and her friend were gussie-ing it up and playing inside. I commented what a great fort they were making and was corrected and told it was not a fort but a British Tea House. Awesome.
6. Dry rot spreads a lot slower than you might think.
7.It really is worth it when it is all done. We had the ickiest bath/laundryroom downstairs that had fallen prey to a leaking shower (that leaked for some time into the wall without being detected) and the dry rot and accompanying musty smell were icky. Plus nothing had been done since 1962. It looks and smells worlds better now and the nightmares where the house implodes from the rot have all but gone away. I can hardly wait to have the kitchen finished (though we are a few weeks off yet). I am excited to bake again!

So before you know it I am going to be posting before and after photos. Can't wait!!
Edit: to clarify, the gorgeous fireplace does not live in my house though I would love it if it did! It is a photo from Hakatai of the tile we are going to use in our kitchen.

I could get used to this

2010-03-04T16:15:00.001-08:00

Here is a picture of our summer hidey hole in the bamboo (complete with the newly added hole trap to catch who knows what). We put art supplies in there and it is a marvelous place to while the day away. Well our hidey hole is getting some early season use because the early spring we are having is amazing! It is March 4th and I am out in a short sleeved shirt pulling weeds. The trees are in bloom- the garage is covered in evergreen clematis and it smells amazing. I could get used to this. Typically February is my least favorite month but not this year.
I also wanted to share that I have just finished my second fabric collection and it looks like it is a go! I am very excited. The first one was so exciting to me but something about having the second one in the works just feels really nice. I should have my Party Dress yardage sometime next month and I have ants in my pants because I just want to see it so badly! I have some fun projects planned and I think sewing with it is going to be great. Mostly though, I can't wait to see what other people make with it. I will keep you posted and try to share something as soon as I can.
I hope everyone is having a peaceful start to March.

It's that time again

2010-02-26T10:21:00.000-08:00

Around these parts February means school auction time. Last year I made a couple of a line skirts and was asked if there would be more this year. Sure, why not?

These are quick and easy to make with a flat front and elasticized back. I am so in love with that Kaffe Fasset print down there at the bottom. And this ribbon is the best! A garage/Estate sale find. I got a bag with about three yards for 50 cents. Score! So they are on their way to the auction ladies today.

I have one more cut out because I couldn't very well make these and not get one done for my girl. I bought this Kaffe in a blue color way too and it is gorgeous. His colors are incredible.

Gifties

2010-02-24T11:59:00.001-08:00

First off, I want to say thanks for all of the great fun comments on the Hanging Vase Tutorial over at Sew Mama Sew! It was so fun to read all of the nice comments. I do hope that if you make one you add it to the flickr group I have just created. I would love to see what you guys come up with!

As you can see from the hanging vases, I am a big fan of embroidery. My kids are also big fans of embroidery and I have been wanting to make it easier for them to do it whenever they feel like instead of coming to me and having to ask for me to get the stuff together for them. Plus it is just fun to have your own set of something that you love to do. I found these great sewing baskets at a rummage sale last fall and kept them just for this project. For Valentines Day I filled them full.

They each got their own scissors, hoops, threaders, floss, pins, fabric fat quarters, tape measures, transfers and other bits and bobs. I also think this is a good exercise in taking care of your things as the scissors are always walking away around these parts and this will help them to keep track of their very own pairs. I love that my 10 year old son loves to embroider and was happy to find these muscle car transfers for him. How funny is that? Aunt Martha's "Road Rage!" embroidery transfers! My eight year old girl got days of the week puppies- also a good fit.

I was pleased that they were both excited about their gifts. I am going to get some pillowcases for them to embroider. My girl and I had a sick day home one day a few weeks ago and had such a nice day bundled up on the couch with our embroideries. Meanwhile, in other exciting news, this is our bathroom:

Or I should say that was our bathroom. The bathroom, laundry room and kitchen have been gutted and are being put back together. Our house is such a mess but I know it is temporary and in the end I will have drawers in the kitchen that don't have gaping holes in the bottom where all the utensils fall out. The kitchen was original to the house which was built in 1962 so things were a bit worse for wear. I hope this new kitchen lasts as long though!

Summer project idea

2010-02-21T11:03:00.001-08:00

Later today there will be a tutorial for these hanging vases over at the wonderful Sew Mama Sew blog. Kristin had asked me if I had any ideas that would be good for summer weddings and I had been thinking about this idea for awhile so I worked it up and think it would be perfect for summer weddings and parties! The one with the 8 is to celebrate my little one's upcoming eighth birthday and she really has enjoyed it. We hang it from a hook in her room full of flowers and she can look at it from her bed. Typically in all of her youthful energy, flowers get knocked over in her room but this cute vase has the added bonus of being knock over proof! I am going to make a bunch out of vintage sheets to hang around our yard for the summer months. I hope you enjoy this project and send me photos of ones you make!

One more valentine!

2010-02-05T11:45:00.001-08:00

These are my favorites because I really am more traditional when it comes to Valentines. I love the red and the pink and the glitter. I worked up a sheet with both of these designs on them so enjoy! I am giving these to my pals along with the yummiest Fleur de Sel Caramels dipped in deep dark chocolate. I found the recipe right here and people freak out when they eat them. Just really watch your temperature or you will have caramel hard candy which is not quite as good. (It is really only good if you don't have any fillings. Any fillings that you want to keep in your teeth, you should just throw the hard stuff out!). I use Lindt Excellence Dark 70% to dip them in and it is so nice and dark that it really balances the sweetness of the caramels. I just cut the caramels into rectangles and dip them in the melted chocolate with two forks and let them dry on a wire rack. I found this cute stack of glass dishes at an thrift store and I am going to fill them up with caramels, put the tag on and give them away. Perfect for the teachers and for my girlfriends who get into this type of thing.

I also saw these cookies on Velvet Strawberries and I think they would be perfect Valentine cookies. I might make them heart shaped if I can find a small enough heart cutter in my stash.

So I hope you enjoyed the printables and I hope everyone has a really fun Valentines Day! Here is the download:

Hearts on a String Valentines Cards

Valentine week

2010-02-03T11:13:00.000-08:00

I cooked up another printable for you. It feels a little less traditional. You could certainly gussy it up with some glitter but I didn't this time and didn't even miss it. It folds together like this:

so that when you give it to someone they get to unfold it and have all the beautiful stuff on the inside. A good metaphor, if you ask me. Then the fold allows it to stand up nicely on its own. If you would like to print it out, here is the link:

open heart valentine

and later in the week (friday or saturday) I will post one more valentine printable. Small ones this time. Plus I will link to some amazing recipes that I will be making for my sweetheart.

One little mention about printing- I had a friend over who lamented that her printer won't print out as nicely. I have a nice printer but really it is not too high end. I find that if you experiement with different papers and use your printer's tool to select the right type of paper you can get nice results. That goes for any printable you might find. When you go to print it will have a dialog box that will ask what type of paper- photo paper, cardstock, etc. and you will find that it really does make a difference.

Enjoy!

A Valentine for you!

2010-01-27T14:23:00.001-08:00

I love Valentines Day. It's all pink and red and candy and glitter. Plus there isn't too much build up and you are done quickly. And it is a good excuse to send out valentine cards to your pals. It isn't the best photo above but here is a little printable card for you to print out, glitter and give to all your valentines. I am making fleur de sel caramels in dark chocolate to give with my cards this year. There are four to one 8.5 x 11 inch page and there are little crop marks so you can cut them apart easily. I made it so three say "Happy Valentines Day" and the one says "Be Mine" to mix it up. Sometimes you want to give a good Valentine wish but you don't neccesarily need everyone to be yours. Plus I know my kids get squeamish about saying Be Mine to their classmates for fear that someone might get the wrong idea and merciless teasing could ensue. (4th grade can be a little akward with the whole boy girl dynamic!) So print off and enjoy! And keep your eyes peeled because in a few days I will have another free printable! I love valentines day!!

Box of Chocolates Download

Party Favors!

2010-01-16T19:19:00.000-08:00

I just wrapped up my two days hanging out at the lovely Pine Needle and I had such a great time! I met lots of people and got to hear some great feedback on Party Dress. It was a nice way to spend a couple of days. I made up some postcards to hand out and I ordered a ton so I have some left over. If anyone wants to have a couple, I would be happy to put them in the mail. Just leave a comment or email me (mobedatcomcastdotnet)with your address and I will get them in the mail. Just a little party favor!
Tomorrow is the Lego Robotics State Tournament which we are pretty excited for! I help the team and our head coach has family in town so I am stepping in and have to be there at 7:45. Ugh! Truth be told we didn't expect to be going to State so it should be a good time. A good chaotic time but fun none the less. I will be so ready for Monday to sleep in and have a fun day with the kids. I hope everyone is having a fantastic weekend!!
I am working on Valentines Day printable Valentines to share because I LOVE VALENTINES DAY!! Keep your eyes peeled for those!

Yowza!

2010-01-07T13:39:00.000-08:00

I am so excited! I was invited to come and hang out at The Pine Needle, which is a fantastic local store, for their Open House! They send out a really nice glossy catalog every few months or so with their class offerings and special events. I got my copy in the mail the other day and flipped open a few pages and there I was! My kids thought it was so cool that something shiny and glossy that came in the mail actually had their Mother's photo in it! And if I am being honest, I thought it was cool too! So if anyone is in the area, next friday and saturday I will be at The Pine Needle in Lake Oswego and would love to meet you!

Hot find!

2010-01-05T10:34:00.001-08:00

A couple of months ago M and I went to a school rummage sale. It was tiny and outside on a very cold rainy day. I wasn't so sure I even wanted to stop but then I found this whole box of super cool vintage dinnerware. It is Figgjo for Viking. I think the print is so cute and I love the colors and look at all this stuff:

I paid $15 for all of it. Initially I thought I would try to sell it on ebay because my husband and I sort of have this competition of who can find the coolest thing at a sale that we buy for a song but is worth a good chunk. The more I look at this though I think it is staying. Right now he is in the lead- he bought a big old glass fishing float for $15 or $20 and sold it for $185. I get too attached to the great stuff I buy though! Good thing they have more of this stuff on ebay so I can round out my set! It's funny too- I have not really ever been a huge 70's fan (been there done that!) but lately I am finding it so appealing. We got M an American Girl Doll for Christmas. Finally bit the bullet- those things are so expensive!! She picked out Julie the one from 1974. She has a banana seat bike and wears jumpsuits and has a ($68!!) fondue set! We did not buy any of the accessories because I think $68 for a tiny fondue set for a doll is ridiculous! Even if it so so cute it makes you want to buy it just to play with yourself! I had a banana seat bike and wore jumpsuits (and Hee Haw overalls...) and ate fondue. I am loving the 1974 Julie Doll and fortunately so is she!

Happy 2010!

2010-01-01T22:19:00.000-08:00

2010. Doesn't that look weird? 2010. So futuristic and out there and impossibly here! It snuck up on me and the day came and went without much hoopla in our house. I am under some timelines and have a very full few weeks ahead of me so I shifted into gear right after the holidays and ,in doing so, sort of forgot to remember the new year. I will say that I am almost done with my second collection for Blue Hill and am very glad to have it nearly ready to send off to them. The first one was challenging in that it was my first time and I was sort of flying blind into a new adventure. Now I really want to do a good job the second time around so the pressure is still there, though in a bit of a different way. Bottom line is that I am sure having fun doing it though! I do think that the old year calls for a bit of reflection so I am picking a few of my favorite images to remind me of some of the good times of 2009. The one from the top of the page is so great to me. It is my son at the beach. He looks so tiny in front of that vast and beautiful ocean. It is from a weekend trip we took, just the four of us. We got home from the trip and I got laid off the next day. It was actually an exciting time and I was able to make some changes that I wouldn't have made otherwise. We are all happier now and it ended up not being a bad thing. That beautiful photo represents well to me the feeling of unknown openness that unanticipated change can bring.
Here are all of the sweets I made for my 40th birthday. We had 80 folks over to help celebrate and we asked that everyone bring toys to take to the Children's Hospital where my daughter had her heart surgery. I made food for 80 people which was a feat but we got lots of great stuff to take over to the young patients.

These are my favorite flowers from the whole year. Sayonara Dahlias, Chocolate Cosmos., Limelight Hydrangea and Hardy Fuschia. So pretty! Oh and I love love love that vase. I think I got it an a rummage or estate sale. Love it!

This was taken on my birthday. My sweet husband took the day off and we spent it, the four of us, fishing at the most beautiful lake. Fishing as a family was something new we tried and enjoyed this year. It was a really fun day. (I will say that a lot of my enjoyment of fishing came from never actually catching anything!)

This is our backyard. The Dogwood is one of my very favorites and when it blooms it is just breathtaking. I love our yard and our neighborhood and feel so lucky to live where things are so lush and green and the people are so very very friendly. It really is the best neighborhood. We have a neighborhood pool and everyone swims together all summer and bbq's and knows each other.

I love these funny cupcakes. I made them for my sweet daughter's seventh birthday. We took a small group of girls out to lunch and it was a sweet intimate birthday party and so much nicer than the big free for all parties we had gotten used to throwing. She had so much fun. We did the same for son- just a small group for a sleepover and they were such nice parties.

All i all I liked that we slowed down a bit this year. We did little things like having candles at every meal and took more weekends away as a family. We had a few curveballs thrown at us but I think we came out feeling pretty good and happy. I like the slowing down thing and so I am going to continue that in 2010. I like feeling like everyday should be a little special. I sincerely hope that 2010 is a wonderful year for everyone!

Merry Christmas!!!

2009-12-25T12:50:00.001-08:00

I hope everyone has a really wonderful and sweet holiday weekend! Recipe for Hot cocoa here! Yum!

Christmas show and tell

2009-12-20T09:00:00.000-08:00

Here are some of my favorite holdiay decorations. Some of these are blurry but I like the glow of the lights over a clear too bright picture. I like to have lots of tiny lights all over the house. This little group is in the dining room and I love it. I adore me the vintage christmas ornaments.

I love theses candy canes made out of vintage glass garland balls. Laurie made them- she has the magic touch with this Christmas stuff. We found the snowman in my hubby's folk's attic. So cute- and probably pretty old.

I love our tree this year. It looks so big in the corner of our living room. I love it! I love the glass garlands and all the sentimental ornaments.

I found this nativity at a rummage sale last spring and think it is just perfect. So sweet I couldn't wait to put it out.

The kids and I made these bells out of egg cartons 3 years ago. They are one of my favorite decorations. remember having so much fun making them together.

We made these last year- another favorite. They are so cute and, again, we had a ball making them. Here is more info on them in case you want to make some.

These I made last year too and I love them hanging on our armoire where we keep my husband's computer. I love glitter! That is just some of my favorite things to have around the house at Christmas. I hate to take it all down in January. I will confess though that I leave the outside lights on until Februaryish. I love looking out and seeing the color twinkling at night. I hate the long dark days so I have to do something!

Whoa!

2009-12-18T16:19:00.000-08:00

That is a lot of butter!! It is friday after school so officially winter break has begun!! I am so excited. I love having the kids home with me, we have so much fun together. We are baking cookies tonight. That mess o' butter is for a triple batch of Spritz- our favorite. Tonight we are going to get all snuggly and watch Elf together while we eat those yummy spritz. Ahhhh, now I am really in the Christmas mood!

Gift & exciting news!

2009-12-17T21:37:00.001-08:00

I had intended this to be a gift for a friend's birthday in October but she got it today! Better late than never, thankfully. It is a pieced scarf from Denyse Schmidt's fantastic book. I love how it turned out. It is vintage Kimono pieces that I got on etsty with some beautiful wool I got here locally. Some of the wool has cashmere in it too and it feels so good. She loved it so that made me happy!
I love the colors. So perfect for her too. She is an orange girl for sure.
So the exciting news is that my son's Lego Robotics team is going to the State Tournament! They did a great job at the qualifying tornament but I didn't anticipate this at all- none of us did. I help out with the team so we will now have another few weeks of prep before the Robotics season is over. Should be pretty exciting- lots of teams from all over the state. I made these cupcakes for the what we thought was going to be end of the season pizza party. Wish us luck!

Those lego candies are so cute but hard as a rock!

The Intern

2009-12-15T00:01:00.001-08:00

Here is one of those great working at home perks. His name is Dusty and, aside from some occasional gas, is the best little intern around. He doesn't really help me much when I am working but he is always right there in case I need a little mid day snuggle. And he thinks I am the best person he knows so that's nice too.

If craft supplies were currency...

2009-12-02T13:57:00.000-08:00

I would be a bajillionaire. I have so many supplies for all types of projects that I have collected over the years. We do use them and often but I knew we had more than we would probably use. We love to make our gifts for the holidays and I think it is a great thing to do with kids so that they can feel like something they make can be a wonderful present, especially this time of year when they are getting a few too many store bought gifts. (I have gifts for them underway and I will share that soon!) A couple of weekends ago I had gift making classes for kids whose Mom's don't have such a ridiculous supply of fun stuff to paly with. We did a group of 6 on sat and a group of 7 on sunday. I have to say though it was a good amount of work ,even with the patient and sweet help of my less crafty husband. The kids had a ball and being around all that excited creative energy was really enjoyable for me too. Soap and eye pillows were a couple of things we made. I dragged one of my sewing machines out and let them sew up their little rectangles. All but one of these kids had never used a sewing machine and they were all so excited to get their hands on it. We stuffed them with lavender and lavender scented flaxseed. By the way, you need very little flaxseed. You do not need a giant 7 pound bag of it. If anyone wants to make an eye pillow I have about 6 pounds of lavender scented flaxseed over here...

I did different projects each day (with the exception of the soap which is fast and easy and the kids love to do it) in case kids wanted to come both days, which a couple did. We also made candles, the cute bird ornaments above (from a holiday magazine I bought), decorated matchboxes to go with our candles, decopaged candle holders (with tissue and origami paper- I love them!), decorated boxes for wrapping the candles in and decorated mirrors. I had to laugh though because probably the most popular project was these snowmen we made out of felt and toilet paper tubes.

My son made these to go together. Note the snowball stuck to the side of the face of the guy on the right- and the little pile of snowballs the guy on the left has. He thought he was pretty funny with that and I did too. We made Santas like this when I was little so I adapted for snowmen to make it more winter themed. The kids were really into them and so excited about them. It was a really fun couple of mornings.

Peppermint tags for you!

2009-11-24T11:25:00.001-08:00

I have decided that since Thanksgiving is this week, it is officially acceptable (in my house at least!) to start getting things festive for Christmas. I made these tags a few years ago and I still use them when we give out our baked yummies to the neighbors - though I changed the sentiment to "Sweet Wishes" which fits better when it is tied to a big tin of my famous "Evil Fudge". My husband calls it Evil Fudge because he can't keep himself away from it- it has power over him that he can only desribe as evil. I printed them on cardstock with a nice subtle sparkle to it. I think the paper is called Popset Cryogen White but I think Paper Zone has their own knockoff version. Then I add little dots of glitter and the bakers twine to hang them from. There is a link at the bottom of this post if you would like to print some out and use them too. I put little crop marks so that should help you cut them out. The bottom row is meant to be folded in half, which I use a bone folder for. I love my bone folder- if you don't have one and do much of anything with paper, they are great to have and inexpensive to boot. I think they are usually with the bookbinding supplies. Now that I have figured out this whole how to link to a pdf thing, I think there will be a couple fo more printables in the next couple of weeks so keep your eyes peeled!

Peppermint Tags pdf link!

And so it begins!!

2009-11-11T20:45:00.001-08:00

I started my holiday gift making in earnest today. When I make gifts I like them to be cute and useful and these fit the bill. Plus they are nice and easy on the wallet. I bought a box of Microwaveable Soy Wax with my 50% off coupon at Michaels. I had my reservations because the directions made it sound like you had to fill them part way, come back later after they had cooled , poke holes in the surface to release air bubbles and then top it off. It also said that it might have trouble adhering to some surfaces. It made it sound sort of finicky. I wanted it to be more one step than that. But I bought a box anyways, brought it home and tried it out. I will say that they looked so smooth and pretty and then I poked the surface like they said and poured more wax over it and they ended up all lumpy looking. Then I poured one just straight to the top and that one is perfect. So one step it is and they haven't had any trouble in the containers I used. I bought my containers at a thrift store which had a huge selection of darling orphan glasses and teacups for good and cheap. I found some more modern looking mugs too for my mid century modern friends. I used essential oils to scent them and it worked great. I think it is a nice touch to add a little pretty paper wrapped match box. I went and bought two more boxes of wax tonight so I know what I am doing this weekend! Ack!! Gotta run! Glee starts in 10 minutes!!

Birthday gift for a world class napper

2009-11-04T14:21:00.001-08:00

It was my father in laws birthday not too long ago so I made him this quilt for his daily nap. He is still working as an engineer and has a lot of get up and go and I think it might be because he makes sure to get a few winks mid day every day. Reason enough for me to subscribe to his plan.

I love this print- it is an Alexander Henry and I love all the great colors. The pattern is a Valori Wells. He loved it! So any suggestions as to what to make him for Christmas? I am all ready to start getting my Christmas crafting on!

Thank you!!!

2009-10-16T15:00:00.000-07:00

Thank you so much for all of the sweet sweet comments and emails about Party Dress! I can't tell you how fun it was to finally put it out into the world and get such kind support from out in Bloglandia. My Blue Hill friends tell me it was a wonderful market and we got some good orders so I couldn't be more pleased. As a special thank you I embroidered these little flowers from Diamond Garden and this weekend I will put a free pdf together so if anyone else wants to stitch them up, they will be right here for you. Have a great weekend!!

Sort of like a birthday!

2009-10-05T10:39:00.000-07:00

It feels sort like a birthday because there has been many many months of preperation and thought and effort that went into all of this. I have kept this in the bag for a long time now, but today is the day I get to spill the beans! I have wanted to do my own line of fabric for about forever and it has finally come together. I am so excited (and nervous!) to be putting this out in the world finally! I have partnered with Blue Hill Fabrics and couldn't be happier to be working with such wonderfully nice people. So I would like to introduce to you, Party Dress!

Fiesta is the first colorway- bright and fun and a little more saturated. There are nine prints total in three colorways. When I was a kid, you had play clothes and school clothes and party dresses. Everyday was for those Hee Haw overalls (yes, really!) and special days you got to bring out the beautiful dresses and shiny shoes that you had to save for only the best and funnest of days. I wanted the collection to have that fun and celebratory feel to it.

This print (above) is called Diamond Garden and it was the first one I really hashed out and the rest of the collection drafted off of it. I can't wait to see a big huge piece of it in fabric!

I made these sheets to show what the fabrics would look like pieced next to each other and the folks at Blue Hill said, let's do this as a print. I love that idea and can't wait to make a baby quilt with a big fat ruffle edge on it with it.

Here is Shindig. I love blue and I think this came together nicely with those pretty greens and that little hot pop of pink.

And last but not least, a nice softer version, Soiree. It is the first colorway I did when I was working the designs up. I used to be an apparel designer and I designed a lot of these with girl's clothes in mind. Though my daughter would like a set for her bedroom out of this.

So there you have it! I am so excited to say that Blue Hill will be showing it at Quilt Market this week! I won't be able to make it there myself this time but do go and say hi to Dan and Roger in booths 956-960. I hope so much that it makes you want to sew up something cute for someone special! Thanks for hanging on to the end of this post and thanks for indulging me with my big reveal! And I have to say Thanks to Kristin for all of her help and support on this and Paula was very helpful too! Thanks girls!
Hmmmm- blogger seems to be cutting off some of the pictures- If you click on them you can see the whole thing. I will need to fix that!

Favorite new old toy

2009-09-27T10:20:00.000-07:00

My dad had this great old typwriter and asked if I wanted it. I said yes thinking it would be really fun for me. I didn't even think about how much the kids would love it. They love to write on it and think it is just the coolest toy in the house right now. He sat down the other day and typed out all the Greek Gods he could recall from memory so not only is it entertaining, it is educational too! I can't believe the ribbon still has ink in it. I need to order a new one soon though. Note to self: call for haircut appt. for him next week...

And how pretty are these dalhias? Cafe Au Lait dinnerplates? I think they look so great with the chocolate cosmos but I think everything looks great with chocolate cosmos. And dig my new vase. 50 cents at a rummage sale last weekend. It has orange gladiolas in it right now and I love it.

DQS 7 Received!

2009-09-22T14:15:00.000-07:00

I LOVE the houses! Here is my doll quilt that I received in the swap. Handmade by the lovely Lois.

I love the colors and the log cabin with the sweet little houses. I love doing swaps like these because you always end up with something different than what you would have put together yourself. Just a different way of looking at things. And I love it!

Love the orange in this one and the sweet little tree.

DQS 7

2009-09-17T09:01:00.001-07:00

Here are photos of my Doll Quilt Swap 7 that I sent out. I made the block from the Spider Web Quilt that is in the recent Sew Hip. I just bought the magazine not too long ago so you can probably still get it. It looks like a really fun quilt. You would actually put several of these blocks together to make the spiderwebs- you can see them forming in the corners. My partner said she liked black and pink and lime green and I had lime green fabrics to add to this but they never made it in. I hope she likes it!

Here is the full view with the binding. I was able to use all fabrics from my stash, which is always fun. I can't wait to get mine in the mail. I keep looking at the flikr group and finding ones I like and hoping that one of them ends up on my doorstep!

Like little quilts

2009-09-14T10:19:00.000-07:00

I showed my 10 year old son all of these and he said, "I love those- they are like little quilts" which I though was very sweet for a ten year old boy to say. All that lavender has been going to good use around here.

My Granny was in town this weekend which I always love and when she comes we have dinner one night with a couple of her friends who are fantasticly wonderful company. I wanted to take a little something over to them (and Granny) so I made lavender sachets for all the women in attendance that night.

I like this one the best.

My sister is a mushroom type of girl and she got one too.

Mom and Granny like red and I love that center print. I believe it is out of print and I use it one little bit at a time to stretch it out.

I also made eye pillows for the kids and one for a friend. I made one for my daughter but already can't find it. I can follow the smell and I will find it though because they are very strong smelling right now. I mixed the lavender we got from the neighbor's bush with flax seed and that is what I put in all of these little treats. I still have a ton of lavender left so I am sure I will make more of these. They are sort of addicting. I have a very nice neighbor lady who is one of the hardest working Moms I know so I think I am going to leave her an eye pillow and a note from a secret admirer. She deserves a treat.

I'm a squirrel

2009-09-09T10:52:00.000-07:00

The first day back at school is always a little bittersweet for me. Mostly bitter this year because we all had so much fun together this summer. Now that we are on day two and the kids came home happy about their teachers and classes, I feel better. I spent sunday being a squirrel so that the freezer would be full of good things to feed them in their lunches and for breakfast. I made four loaves of banana bread, lots of ricotta pancakes, 5 loaves of zuchinini carrot apple bread and 2 dozen of these little muffin tin quiches. I will say that I could have eaten all of those ricotta pancakes hot off the griddle that day. I didn't tell them that they had cheese in them, only that they were pancakes because you never know what will prevent them from eating something. They are heaven. It is a recipe from Martha Stewart Everyday Food and you can find the recipe here. I omit the orange zest and add almond extract and a little vanilla extract. They are sweet and don't need syrup that way. I want to try them savory - maybe with a little pesto mixed in and brushetta style tomatoes on top. Or pesto ones with tomato soup. Yummmm. These little quiches are the best. Both kids will eat them!

I guess it is a sort of nesting in a way- making all that food. I do like a full freezer. I think I may need to start making soups for the freezer too because it is too cold in here! I don't want to turn the heat on yet!! It is supposed to be 90 this weekend so I am hoping to make it another week or two without turning the heat on but we will see.

It's not too early...

2009-08-31T11:46:00.001-07:00

We are big gift makers here for the hoildays. We make a ton of the gifts we give and the kids really get into it. Our sweet neighbor needed some help deadheading his gorgeous yard so I volunteered for the lavender and was able to take home all the faded flowers. I have two big buckets as it was a large plant. I put the buckets in our entryway and it smells wonderful in here. I spread them out on a big sheet today to dry them a bit and get the lavender buds off. We are going to make schets and eye pillows depending on how much we get. I think I will use the sheet on my bed afterwards so I can sleep in all that nice smell. Though on second thought it might give me a rash so maybe not!

Here is about two thirds of it. I have other ideas too- I think we can get vintage containers and fill them with wax for candles. Everyone uses candles so it is practical and nice to get. I also think I am going to hold a little one day craftravaganza for some neighborhood kids so they can make gifts too. You realize after awhile that not everyone crafts the way you do in your own house and I have supplies up the ying yang so it would be a good way to use some of them up.
Edited: We left for a few hours and the smell when we walked in the door was overwhelming! My son declared that we will be eating somewhere else tonight because of the smell!

Wedding!

2009-08-23T10:35:00.000-07:00

It has been so long since we have been to a wedding and this one was just perfect. It also was a nice excuse to make another shirred dress for my daughter. I did a little velvet ribbon halter tie but I am going to rip that out today and put on wide shirred straps so she can wear it to school. Straps have to be three fingers wide- what the principal calls ravioli straps. It doesn't even seem that dirty today considering she was perched like this at the edge of the pond for most of the evening. If you held your hand in the water, tiny fish would come and swim all over it. Plus there were frogs and other fun pond dwellers to check out. I was sure one of the kids would fall in but thankfully no one did! The wedding was at an herb farm and the setting could not have been lovlier.

The bride had requested I make her an apron because, as you can see, she loves tacos and the mexican food at the wedding was amazing. She had lived in Amsterdam for the last couple of years where, despite all the other good things to eat, no good mexican. Everybody loved the food. It was all cooked to order and very fresh and yummy. I made the Amy Butler Split Bodice Domestic Goddess Apron. I went together quickly and easily though I am not used to 1/2 " seam allowances. I fudged a little on that because it just felt like too much. Is that just me or does that seem like too much? Plus it did not take anywhere near the fabric it asked for so she is getting napkins to match.

Check out these amazing lilies. The submerged bud looked so incredible to me- I didn't know they started out that way. It looked so mystical and magical with all the layers of things growing under the water. I really want a pond now. I already wanted one but that clinched it for me. I am sure that all of our frogs in our backyard would also love for me to put in a pond.

They had a bunch of baked pies instead of cake. The whole evening had a really nice feel to it- the sunset was beautiful and there was tons of planted lavender and it smelled so good. One note on the shirred dress- I tried to make it out of a lightweight almost voile type cotton and the elastic was just too powerful for it. It did not work at all so I would stick with the quilter weight cotton.

Finally!

2009-08-16T13:30:00.000-07:00

It has been a loooong loooong wait but Season 3 Premiere of Mad Men is on tonight! I watched the season 2 finale last night on on demand to bring myself up to speed after all of these long months and I am glad I did because there were a few key things I had totally forgotten about. I love the colors and the styles and the storylines- great show. Now how many days until Glee starts? And that should do it for my fall tv watching.

It is that easy

2009-08-11T09:20:00.000-07:00

I, of course, couldn't find my "Weekend Sewing" book but I watched the link on Martha's website and followed it from there. There were a couple of comments on the link that made it sound like the tension was tricky to figure out on this. Plus, it just looks so cute to be that easy. But it was. It sewed up like a dream and did everything Heather said it would on the video. In fact, If I didn't spend all that time looking for the book and my tape measure, it would have been done in a flash. (note to self: buy more tape measures- the kids like to walk of with them but what are they doing with them?) This one is for a little friend turning four today. Her whole world is pink so I thought this was a good choice. My daughter will be getting a couple this week too. We have a casual outdoor wedding to go to so I am going to make her one for that out of the cutest fabric that has lived in my stash two or three summers now.
Here it is hanging in the cucumber patch. Hope she likes it!

More of that fabric that I love

2009-08-09T22:19:00.000-07:00

I really do love that fabric- plus I have a lot of it. I am loving this idea- I wanted to do a lampshade but didn't want to commit (and I was in a hurry!) so I fused medium weight interfacing onto the fabric, wrapped it around the lampshade and velcroed it in place. It was a decent solution, if I do say so myself, for a very fickle girl. I am going to look for some of those really strong magnets and glue some vintage MOP buttons on and do another one in another fabric and magnet it in place.

My daughter really wanted a new apron so I made this for her. I had that sweet vintage lace in my stash and I think it worked out quite nicely. She loves it and that's what counts.

I had about an half hour to myself for the first time since school let out. I really wanted to sew a pillow so I cranked this baby out. I turned it to put the pillow in and OOPS...

Sewed the back on inside out. I thought for about a half a minute about ripping it out to stitch on properly but I decided I liked the washed out look of it so it is staying the way it is. I would rather have it on my couch being used than on my pile of projects to mend until I get another bit of time to myself!

New Curtains

2009-07-24T21:35:00.001-07:00

Here is the dining room with the newly sewn curtains that were a long time in coming. I had the fabric for some time but it just took a bit to get them done. Now that we have painted all the main floor it feels like I live in a piece of beach glass. The color on my monitor doesn't do it justice. I really love how it feels.

Don't the curtains and that beautiful bowl look like they were made for each other?

Ooooooooo

2009-07-20T14:50:00.001-07:00

This is one of my all time favorite little bouquets I have ever had in this house. All of the fowers are from my garden and the little vase is an estate sale find from who knows when. The Dahlia is Sayonara and it has been so big and beautiful and prolific this year. The Hydrangea in the back is my all time favorite, Limelight. It is from the same bush my husband mowed over a few years ago. Lucky for him it came back with a vengance. (Plus he bought me another one to make up for the one he mowed down so now I have two!) The little hot red flowers ae some sort of sage that my dog smells like because he walks through that part of the garden and it rubs on him. Chocolate Cosmos are the little dark ones and I would hate to go a year without them. And round it off with that fabulous hardy fushia. Doesn't that just make the whole thing? Love it! Here is one more. The roses are store bought and so are the white flowers but I love those colors together.

We had a party last night and here is the dessert table. The plastic orchids on the cupcakes are my favorite! I found them at Layer Cake on etsy. Click to enlarge and see them in all their gorgeousness. They were coconut cupcakes with white chocolate cream cheese frosting. Thankfully their are a few leftover in the fridge for after dinner. That chocolate cake is Deep Chocolate Sour Cream Poundcake and it lasted about half a minute.

Both recipes are from the Cake Book by Tish Boyle.My favorite! It was a great party and a nice reminder of what a nice thing it is to have a party in your backyard on a nice summer evening. We havn't done that in forever.

Birthday Weekend!

2009-06-28T19:13:00.000-07:00

I just turned FORTY! I don't think I feel like forty but age is just a number, right? I got plenty spoiled and had a really fun weekend of lots of family time. We took a day to fish at a local lake which was so wonderful. Didn't catch any fish really which- don't tell my kids- is o.k. with me. It was nice enough to sit and watch the birds and the trees and the glittering water out in front of me. Sigh...

Here is my view for the first half of the day. Nice. We had to laugh though because for all of our efforts we had one bite over two hours that didn't result in any fish and then this guy walks up near us with his two extremely loud yelling under five year olds who keep throwing rocks in the water and has a bite in the first five minutes. He also had three huge tackle boxes which makes think he knew much more about fishing than we rookies. We had a picnic lunch with my first basil tomato havarti sandwich of the season. My youngest was sitting perched on her knees with her legs out behind her and a little bird came and perched on her foot. You know the kids loved that.

Midway through we went exploring and found this nice little stream to play in. It was so nice and not crowded that day so it felt very peaceful.

Here is another nice view of my handsome hubby lakeside I had later in the day. The second spot was just the four of us. The four of us and approximately two thousand mosquitos. I don't really get bitten and neither did anyone else in the family except my poor daughter who has the nastiest collection of boil like mosquito bites all over. I feel bad that she got so eaten. Next time we will have to be more careful. Then we drove home sweaty and tired and happy. When we got home there was a gift that a friend left and I think it is so beautiful. Here is a link to the site- Yoga Goat . So gorgeous! It looks perfect hanging on the wall next to the new curtains I sewed a few weeks ago in my pre summer project frenzy. I will take a photo later. Pacca (what the kid's call Hubby's Dad) came over so we showered up and got a nice dinner out just the two of us. Went to one of our favorite little neighborhood places and had really good fresh food. Home for cake and finally to bed! It was a fantastic way to spend my birthday. The next day we got to have dinner with some dear friends who we haven't seen in ages. The man of the house grew up in Texas and does a mean barbeque. The kind of chicken that doesn't end up like sawdust because it is cooked past the dryest possible point. So good. Then today we went to an Art Fair and looked at fantastic art. I milked this birthday, being so milestoney and all but I am glad I did because we all got to have a ton of fun!