Thursday, October 28, 2010

Fall Frenzy

Thanks to my wonderful husband spending lots of time outdoors with the sweeper this year, I'm spending a lot less time on this:

And more on this:
Finishing up quilting a children's charity quilt.


Making Ada a winter blankie; this one happens to be a QT Cuddler.  Talk about EASY; I seriously think this may be the first project of my life that I purchased, started, and COMPLETED the same day.  There were a couple straight edges to the fabrics before I started, but honestly I didn't even finish squaring up the two fabrics together; they were slightly different sizes, but it mattered not.  I just pinned, sewed, turned right side out, closed the hole, topstitched and then wrapped it around Ada, gave her a snuggle and taught her to say "snowman".


We had a great Modern Quilt Guild meeting this month, focusing on applique.  I went over both machine and hand applique techniques, doing demos for both, and then we had a leaf applique challenge.  Pillows were started, quilt tops were completed, and there was a little cowboy costume making thrown into the mix as seen above. :)

I'm also finishing up Ada's Halloween costume; she's been putting on various pieces each day for the last few days and running around the house, so I have hope that she'll stay all dressed up for a while when we put the whole thing on on Halloween.  Here's a little preview of part of the head gear she was modeling tonight:


All that and progress on the craft room remodel as well.  This... 
and the rest of my fabric is now all neatly organized in the closet.  Can't wait to share some pics once I get the rest of the room put back together after all this sewing!

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Yay Mom!

So proud of my mom, who finished her first quilt top last month:


Way to go Mom!

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

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.)




Saturday, August 28, 2010

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!

Sunday, August 8, 2010

And a beautiful sunset...







Sneak peek - progress!

Can't wait to show more of this soon!

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Sunday, August 1, 2010

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.