A Week (and a Day) in Pictures

...and a fair number of words.

Sunday (9/4)

Everyone gathered at Grandma and Grandpa's for lunch and an afternoon of hanging out :

Ada LOVED the watermelon; it was the only thing she wanted to eat all afternoon.

Then time for the slide; she wasn't too sure about it while going down,

but was SUPER proud of herself when her feet touched the ground.

I swear this bar was way higher when I was 8.

Monday (9/5)

Aside from the trip to my parents on Sunday, the rest of the holiday weekend was spent removing the last of the wallpaper and cleaning lots of nasty glue off the walls in my craft room.  So relieved to finally be done!

Tuesday (9/6)

Young Mom's Sewing Night at the quilt shop; pretty light crowd with all the back-to-school craziness going on last week.

Progress!

Wednesday (9/7)

Daycare was closed part of Wednesday, so I took the afternoon off to hang out with Ada.  She currently loves having all her quilts and blankets spread out on the floor of her room; then we have to practice sleeping on them (while making snoring sounds of course). :)  And she's very into "shoes"; hence the random shoes scattered throughout every room.

The pink blanket was made by Chris' godmother for Ada, the yellow and white one was made by my mom, the bug quilt was made by Chris' mom, and the circles quilt by my friend Katie.

She also loves carrying the footstool all over the house, then puts it down and announces she's going to "sit".  On Wednesday she decided to use it as a slide, saying a slow "weee" as she slid down the stool and landed on her knees.

After she went down for her nap I decided to tackle removing (most of) the rest of the fabric from my craft room's closet.

We won't talk about the stack of large tubs full of fabric that were already packed up...at least not until they're all unpacked and looking pretty on my new shelves. :)

Luckily the cat decided to take a nap on the couch. (He has a thing for fabric too and normally pounces on any fabric he can get his little paws and teeth on.)

Thursday (9/9)

Speaking of the cat...

Thursday was one of those days...you know, the kind where all you really want to do when you get home is just sit for FIVE MINUTES by yourself and escape in your new, shiny (Stitch) magazine.  And then as soon as you open the cover your kid starts screaming, so you set the magazine down, only to return five minutes later to find the cat EATING said magazine.  So now all you really want is a rather large glass of wine, but since you can't share that with your 16-month old, you give up, make a bag of popcorn, put on a Pixar movie you haven't already watched 10 times in the last month, and pretend to "read" those quilting books you picked up from the library, even though you're being interrupted every few minutes by a little someone who is demanding yet another cup of popcorn.

Friday (9/10)

It was definitely already feeling like fall last week.  Ada was wearing new shoes and a new (to her) shirt, and loved it (she kept touching her shirt and telling us about it).  But - she was NOT in the mood to have her picture taken.

Luckily she was a little more agreeable outside:

Saturday (9/11)

I dropped Ada off with my mom, sister, and nieces (those 2 actually belong to my other sister) at a huge garage sale in Hopkins.  She hung out with them while I went into Minneapolis for my first of six Hand Applique classes at Glad Creations.

It's really nice to be doing some handwork again, although I definitely need more practice.  This is the first piece of a little beginner's sample; after I master this I'll be on to my "real" project for the class.

Areas for improvement: stitches are showing on the inside curve, I made the typical beginner right-hander's mistake of flattening the lower right part of the outside curve, and no matter how many times I tried, I just couldn't get that top corner to tuck without threads sticking out.

Sunday (9/12)

Some pictures of Ada in another new fall outfit while we were trying to give the cat some exercise in the porch. It was rather cold so she had her jacket on and hood pulled up, which of course just added to her cuteness. :)

(Love how the shoes are in focus on this one.)

Treasures

This morning Ada and I headed to the Farmer's Market here in town.  The weather was perfect, and so was the selection at the market.  It's a pretty small gathering of vendors, but there's a great assortment of veggies, syrup, breads, preserves, pickles, honey, and handmade goods to choose from.

Our finds included a great mix of cherry tomatoes (there's about 8 varieties in there), those cute mini chocolate bell peppers, 2 little burpless cukes for Ada (they're so cute!), and some bright yellow squash for the grill.  Yum!

I also made a terrific discovery this morning; this bread may be the best I've ever had, like ever, as in my entire life.  As a matter of fact, I'm going to go eat some more as soon as I'm done typing this post.

And I couldn't resist getting Ada some handmade "cookies".  She immediately loved them and has been "eating" them, and "feeding" them to us all morning, and saying "MMMM" each time.  Unfortunately this guy has decided they're also his new favorite toy:

Hopefully his most recent favorite toy, the hackey sack, will satisfy him instead.

And just because she's so darn cute, here's Ada eating her snack after we got home:

Sliced cukes, and some crackers with hummus.

This girl LOVES her hummus. :)

Happy Saturday!

And a beautiful sunset...

Sneak peek - progress!

Can't wait to show more of this soon!

Morning Sky

Quiet

Our house seems a little too quiet this morning after a wonderful week of visiting with Gramma and Grandpa K and Aunt Sarah.

Ada is missing them already, looking around the house for her Bumpas.

Good Things Come in Small Packages

So I thought this post would be all about last night's quilt guild meeting.

About how we each participated in an improvisational challenge and took 5 small strips of fabric:

And turned them into these amazing blocks in just over an hour:

(Mine's the beach-themed one; the seams are kinda wavy on purpose - part of that whole beach thing - but I couldn't get it to iron flat.  No matter; I love it.)

And then there's this small package of fabric:

It totally doesn't match my holiday decor, but that's why I picked it.  Because I know I'll be able to just play with these and come up with something fun for the Holiday Challenge, no stress.

But then we came home with this small bundle tonight:

And Ada went crazy with joy at having her own "kitty..puppy..baby..SCREAM!" in her own house.

The lightest gray kitten I've ever seen, with dark ears, a dark tail, and dark gray on the backs of its legs.  And let's not forget those pale blue eyes.

After a couple hours of non-stop running and play (this thing is more work than a baby!), it finally settled down for a nap on the laptop:

The jury's still out on whether it's a boy or a girl, so no name yet.

So how did we end up with this cute little kitten?  It all started with an impromptu visit to the Humane Society last Friday night to let Ada look at the kitties and puppies.  We weren't really looking with an intent to buy, just keeping our eyes open, but the visit triggered the mention of a free kitty this morning by our daycare lady - a friend of hers had one free kitten left.  So we stopped by just to take a look...and we couldn't leave this sweet little kitty behind.

So I guess it's true...good things do come in small packages. :)

May: Sewing!

Wow - finally crossing this post off the list!!

May was full of sewing events, with some actual sewing time fit in too. :)

First, there was the second meeting of the Twin Cities Suburban Modern Quilt Guild.  One of the ladies showed off her fabulous photomosaic-style giant "Elvis" quilt!!  We talked about hexagons - they have been haunting me lately, but I just can't start a hexagons project right now since I have just a few other piles of fabric that urgently need to be turned into quilts and other assorted projects!!  We also made fat quarter bags; so easy and fun!  I'll have to post a tutorial one of these days.

Then there was the Sandi Henderson book signing our guild co-hosted:

And then  - I got to meet this amazing lady face to face!!!

That's right - Anna Maria Horner - in person!!  And her cute little man.  And she signed my book!  I'm saving all my allowance so I can splurge when her new line comes out this fall...well, okay, I might have to spend a little beforehand on Meadowsweet 2...

AND...I was lucky enough to be asked to make a sample for the front window at Quilted Treasures, for a solids display.  I created a fun, reversible, little handbag, and love how it turned out!!

The handles are my favorite part!  I'm noticing I didn't really get a picture of it, but the other side of the handles are all chocolate, except for a hint of dark pink at the base (you can just make it out at the top of this photo).

And a double pocket inside.

This was so fun to make; I started out with a vague plan based on the fat quarter bag, and then cut, sewed, and improvised and ended up totally satisfied. :)  I have future plans for another version featuring some fun embroidery on the outside.

Oh yes, and how could I forget?  There was also the Young Mom's Sewing Club...speaking of which, the June 1st meeting was the last time I touched my sewing machine!!  But I'll be back at it all next month; at least every moment I'm not working in my gardens...