It's Not Easy, I Must Want To Do It

I can hardly believe my pillow cases are finally done!  I think I started these some time over the summer.  I know this is crazy but I can't help thinking I should crochet a lace edge.  I've never done that before.  I bet it's not easy.  So, naturally, that's what I want to do.

The Guild's 2014 BOM is getting closer and closer to being done.  I've already started on one of those blank blocks.  This month will be a light violet primrose.

I didn't anticipate the clam shell fabric reading as large dots.  It's actually little rainbows but I keep thinking of it as clam shells.

A close up.

This is with the borders that will eventually go on.  But, honestly, I kind of like it without borders.  Maybe I'll leave off the borders and just bind it in the green.  That outer border is pretty busy.

I started work on my Neighborhood block.  I liked it until I put the dog on it.  Now, not so much.  The dog is lame.  No idea where to go from here.  Probably the drawing board.

Reality has been setting in lately.  Bethany will be graduating in May!  I can't believe it!

Time to get busy on her Shoe Shop Girl quilt.  She's been working at Famous Footwear since she turned 16 & tomorrow is her 18th birthday. One more thing I can't come to grips with.

More shoes.

I tried to make shoes she would wear but it's tough.  I kind of think the chevron soles are a little bit genius.  And, I want to know why my spell check stopped working.  Genius almost looked less smart than it should have.

The pattern is Angie Padilla's Walk With Me.

That slingy sandal was such a pain in the butt!  It was supposed have an ankle strap but it was so thin, I decided we could do without.

So, I'm looking through the patterns only to realize I didn't save the final block!  Yikes.  Now did I do that on purpose because I knew she'd hate the boots or did I just flake out?  The world may never know.  Which means, I don't have a 12th block.  I think I'll make Hunter draw a pair of boots for me.

Hey Cupcake got it's borders!  It's so cute, I love it! I should have done a close up of the fabric.  They're little cupcakes.

I've been working on other little things here and there but mostly my life has been busy figuring out how to parent.

I'm now a Home School Parent.  Crazy, right?  The decision was kind of made for me.  One of my kids is, let's just say special needs, and the school system wasn't working anymore.  Naturally, because we let one home school the other demanded like treatment.

My house will never be quiet again.  It's a lot to wrap my head around.

Distractedly Productive

Good day to you, my dear friends.  How the heck are you?  My second week of lay off came and went like a flash.  Seriously, when will I get the chance to be bored?

Any who.  I've tried to stay productive but I'm just really distracted.  I do better with deadlines.  We had our guild meeting so, I knew I had to get some stuff done by Tuesday and that helped me focus.

The guild block of the month is almost over.  This was from November.  I was a little nervous to do a dark flower because there is no dark, or purple for that matter, in my companion fabrics for this project.  I think it's pretty.  It's bright enough that it doesn't look completely out of place.

Then we had this cute holly plant for December.  I'm loving my little fussy cut berries.  Even though, I'll admit I was confused that we'd do a winter bloom with so many spring flowers.  This is how my brain works.  It also explains why I'm not a designer.  Making the berries pink helps me deal with it.

So, now that there are only 2 more blocks left, I've been thinking about the end game.  Out comes the Circle of Nine book.  What's funny, is that I didn't want this book until my friend Sue H. bought it.  Then, I was like, you're right, this is cool.  So far I've used about 3 times.  That's a lot for me.

The fairy blocks are where the applique blocks go.  The squares in squares will be light green and a floral.  The brown blocks are going to be a clam shell print and the outer border will be the floral again.  Trust me, it's going to be great.

We bought some "new" furniture this week.  We trash furniture so often that we never actually buy new.  Rich's co-worker was re-decorating so we bought his old stuff.  We got a dining room table, this bench, 4 dining chairs, a love seat and a recliner for $300.  I also like to collect furniture for my kids.  Not that I want them to move out, I just want them to be ready to go.  Know what I mean?  I have now been informed that someone actually has to move out before I'm allowed to collect any more stuff for them...

My bench was covered in solid black.  It just wasn't working.  Luckily, Jackmans's had their sale and I was able to re-upholster it for $15.  I'm considering pillows but they never get any respect at our house.  They end up on the ground and covered in dog hair.

 I should have mentioned this one first.  This fabric was my first choice for the bench.  The taupe background was really disappointing with the black bench.  So, I went back for the other.

I couldn't let this go to waste because it's also beautiful.  Turns out that it's the perfect compliment to my grandmother's peony painting.  So, I was right.  I was just in the wrong room.  BTW, this is the dining room.

The first thing I did this week was quilt this very old quilt.  It's been in my pile for 2 years.  I just recently bought the book for it, even though I've already made the quilt.  What can I say?  I wanted to support an artist.  I used the walking foot and did a wiggle between the rows.

Then, I managed to work on Roberta Anne With An "E".  Her May block is adorable!  What I love about this one is that I actually had this hat as a Halloween costume when the kids were little!  Dana D. is a saint for letting me use her wool stash!

So, our guild is doing a UFO challenge that could potentially involve me winning money.  I know, pretty exciting.  So, there's another motive for me to get my act together and finish my many projects!

I'll keep you posted!

Hey, Cupcake

Holy cow, so many pictures!  I'm just going to apologize right off for that.  And, the weird carpet stain outside my son's bedroom door.  God only knows...

So, last time I told you about the Hey, Cupcake fabric I got for Chistmas.  I was super excited and scoured all my patterns, looking for applique blocks I could add to it.  I knew I'd saved those patterns for a reason!

I've got an obsessive personality.  Once I latch on, I don't let go until I'm done or bored.  So, I basically worked on this constantly for a week and half.  Between work, dr. appts and all that other crap.  And, here's what I came up with.

I tried cutting the panel up using the standard block sizes so I could end up with 12" in the end.  That turned out fairly easy with only a little shaving of the words.  I think they do that on purpose, so you buy more than 1 panel.  It's so hard to shave off the cuteness.

I did a lot of half square triangles with my favorite cream and yellow dot fabric.  Then, came across this lay out by accident because I didn't have enough of this color to do my original thought.  I love it.

This block originally was just a 4 patch with with red squares but it looked like a big blob of red with no purpose.  So, I used some left over checkers to make this a little bit more interesting.

Love this pink!  What's funny, is Vicki told me when she gave me the fabric that I'll never get that pink right.  It's kind of pink/peach.  It turns out I had A LOT of salmon laying around.

I downloaded a coloring page off the internet for this applique block.  And, tried for another unique layout.

 Another stray applique pattern from a book.  Sorry about the crappy photos.  I used my iPhone because I was too lazy to go dig out the camera.

I love her crown and matching bag.

This is my 2 in 1 block.  I couldn't do a 12" block with those skinny panels so I made a 12" x 24" and some checkerboard.  I love checkerboard.  I think I must put it in everything that is my own design.

 This is two blocks.  The checks lined up perfectly and by accident, I might add!

This is what's above the previous pic.

 I've used this cupcake 1/2 a dozen times in various projects.  I love me some cupcakes.  I wanted to do the roses also but they're just circles.  I thought it would be boring as applique.

Oh, I lied.  This is the block that was a red 9 patch.  I thought I was being clever by adding arrows pointing to the center.  Then I realized I made a star.  Yep, real clever.

Another internet coloring page.  And, I think it's my favorite.

 Kept this one simple.  Nothing wrong with that once in awhile.

My shoe.  I think I've shared this before.  It's still awesome.

My other favorite.  Can't you just see this dress with that bag.  CUTE!  Another bad picture.  The background is cream, not yellow.


I went to Jackman's recent sale to get the outer border.  I decided on the cupcake fabric but in black with the black and white stripe as the binding.  I'll share a pic when I get it put together this week.

Other than that, my other obsession has been Ancesry.com.  I made myself not work on that today because it was becoming a problem.  Seriously.  Rich's family is only 6 generations American so, there hasn't been much to look up for him.  However, the Purdy's, Bradley's and Hass's have been here since the pilgrams.  I've only made it to the Civil War on the Bradley side which would be my mother's paternal side.  I've fallen in love with Quintilla, Peni Money and Beulah Bradley.  The men however have been decidedly boring.  Robert, James, William.  SO MANY generations with all the same names is making my head spin.  Trying to line up spouses, making sure you don't marry them off to a cousin with the same name...

Have a fabulous week!

A New Year, Same Old Me

Happy New Year my dear friends!  I hope this post finds you and yours safe and healthy.  This was the first New Year in, God knows how many years, that Rich and I spent together.  He's either sleeping or working.  It was a real novelty to get that midnight kiss!  I'm hoping that means that this year is going to be awesome!

I woke up this morning so energized and looking forward to 2015!  Normally, I don't do resolutions.  I like to change things as I go.  Why wait for a certain day to do this or that to make yourself a better person?  Just do it.  Besides, I'm not that bad as I am.  Just sayin'.  That being said, I am aware of how much room I have for improvement.

So, I went shopping and spent a little money on myself.  That was tons of fun!  There are all kinds of sales on Jan. 1!  I don't usually leave the house so, this was news to me.  I bought a frame to finish my Quilty Stitches project!  It's a little crooked and I couldn't get out the mysterious pink stains...  If you don't look too hard at it, it looks great.  You know, at running gallop, someone would think it was perfect.  And, that's all I aspire to.

Hey, I remembered what I was calling Bertie's Year.  The working title is "Roberta Anne, With an "E" Because That's How The Queen Spells It."  Just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?

I like to imagine my mom as the bird.  It's like I'm bullying her into these cute situations.  For April, she gets to wear this great bunny hat and tend her pretty eggs.

Here's the difference between me and my mom, vs. me and my kids:

Me: "Mom, put on this bunny hat!  It's going to be awesome."
Mom: "No, I'll look like a moron."
My kids: "Mom, take off the bunny hat, you look like a moron."
You see the difference there?

So, then there's my newest project.  My friend Vicki R.  gave me the cutest panel and some companion fabric for Christmas!  She gets me:)  It's all about cupcakes and being a princess.

I cut up the panel and have been working it into random blocks.  Such a fun project so far!  The blocks take almost no time because they're so simple.

I'm just trying to make everything into 12" blocks and when I'm done, I'll have to see what I have.  That first block at the top however, measures 12.5, finished.  Dang it.  But I didn't want to trim anything off, so, I'll finagle something.  Then, this one is 24" finished.  That'll be easy to work in.

One of the problems with working with a panel is that some of my letters are being shaved off.  Nothing too horrible so far.

Isn't this one cute!  I had an extra shoe left over from Bethany's shoe quilt because I had made it backwards and it just happened to be the perfect color of golden yellow!  This is why we don't throw things away.

Here's what I have so far.  Obviously, it's a work in progress.

I start layoff on Jan 5.  I'm so excited!  If I can keep myself focused, I'm going to finish up lots of projects, rearrange my sewing room, and get a handle on my life.  In between the loads of doctor appointments we have scheduled.  And, you know, feeding the hoards.