Fun Mail

I was a lucky winner AGAIN in the Block Lotto!  So, it will be a fun week or so as all my wonky trees arrive.  And, the UFO Challenge group promised to send each other fat quarters to celebrate finishing things, so those are the other fabrics, some nice blue and cream small prints.

Here are the trees that I mailed to one of the other winners:

The green one is supposed to look like Charlie Brown's sparse Christmas tree :-)

I have to share a cute Christmas memory...my daughter is obsessed with the "Gloria" song.  You may know it as Angels We Have Heard On High, with the chorus "Gloria, in excelsis deo."  We were singing it and she was saying "Chelsea Stable" for excelsis!  I love how that little mind works.  And then, since the subject of stables came up, she figured that the stable Jesus was born in was pretty dusty.  Probably!  She also wonders why angels don't have shoes, LOL.

It's that time again

Kendra had a birthday so I had to get the annual bunny picture. (Background: each month of her first year, I posed her on the couch with the same stuffed bunny. Now that she's older, it's a birthday tradition.) As a four year old girl, she is quite the drama queen, and she doesn't always cooperate with photo requests. Today, bunny was too scratchy.

I solved that dilemma by having her wrap it in a blanket like a baby.Quilters with a sharp eye...look behind the bunny and check out the Dick and Jane quilt on the brown chair :-) Thanks to Grandma!!

Of course we had a celebration complete with cake:
And presents. ALL BARBIES. You should see the clothes and shoes, Oh My Goodness. I am the official "dresser." She has several of the Disney-themed dolls and it's funny to see Mulan in Snow White's outfit!

Wordless Wednesday - Dance Party

4 years and counting

Tomorrow is my blog-iversary! WOW. Can't believe it's been that long, time flies, my baby is growing up, you know all the cliches.My other works-in-progress...

The test swatch for a lace shawl. In my dreams, I hope to have it finished to wear at a wedding in June. LOL - don't hold your breath! Counting yarn overs, k2tog and ssk takes concentration which is difficult to find when a pre-schooler is in the room.
Most of my time has been spent on this paper pieced quilt. 42 blocks, 40 pieces per block. Yeah, it took a while! Now I can have fun quilting it. And you'll have to wait for the final reveal since it's a gift and I don't want to ruin the surprise :-)
Finally, what every girl needs in Phoenix, a wool sweater. At least it's short sleeved! The pattern, Bob, comes from Knitty.com. This is much easier to work on while Kendra plays, so there is hope of seeing a finished product in a few weeks. Of course, then it will sit in the closet until the temperature drops back down to 60 degrees...perhaps this will debut for Thanksgiving dinner!

National Quilting Day

I am going to miss my guild meeting because Kendra has strep throat. That kind of put a damper on my Spring Break plans to quilt while she was at daycare...and I am officially sick of all the cartoons on Disney Channel and Nickelodeon. Thank goodness there is basketball this time of year!

I am working on the last six blocks of my paper pieced quilt, so that huge project is on track for its June deadline. I had most of the thread I need for the quilting stage, and managed to pick up the last two colors at the annual show last weekend.

Kendra is a budding artist herself - she is in a rainbow phase, and must cover every square inch of paper in her drawings. I've learned not to pick her up during art time at daycare, because I have to wait for her to finish. This week she colored what looked like a log cabin quilt block, so I had her dig through my scraps to find fabric pieces - TA DA!

Labors

Work is kicking my butt this year. My afternoon classes are remedial algebra...let's just say it's a tough crowd. I come home exhausted every day. I am going to try more structure than I usually impose in my classroom and hopefully the students will calm down and we can all have a little bit of fun. Enough of that! Here's some happy stuff -

I joined the I-Spy fabric swap hosted by Wendy and Meredith. I took 80 of the 200 squares and put them together as four-patches.Then I added some green sashing, next will be a blue border and then it will make some child very happy!

You'll have to click on this next photo to see my quilting. My guild's challenge this fall was "Anything Geometric" so I tried some new meandering patterns with right angles (in orange) and triangles (green).
Cool effects in my photo-editing program...
A park nearby has a small water play area. Kendra is getting brave - standing under the spouts all by herself!

Birthday Week

The birthday celebrations are over and our princess is officially three years old. Here is the bunny picture...
Opening presents - Grandma Mary bought the "Calico Critters" townhouse with 5 rooms of furniture. The bathroom includes an 1/8th inch bar of soap to sit on a 1/4-inch soapdish. Thanks, Mom!
So, the photographer didn't plan the shot well...but here is the cake and candle portion of the day.
Hectic week with parties and trying to get ready for school. Bentley starts his third week of class, and my students arrive for Day One tomorrow. Kendra will be with new teachers and mostly the same kids in her daycare center. Of course, Murphy's Law struck, and she has been running a fever for the last 12 hours. I really don't want to call a sub for the first day of school, ugh!

Avoidance

I waste too much time on the computer. It's one habit that I am trying to break! Of course when Kendra decides to have a tea party, the computer gets left in the dust :-)

I'm a bit intimidated by the next quilt I have to do...antique signature blocks and a request for feathers.
So, I am going to find some stencils today and tackle this one...on Monday, LOL. Hey, don't roll your eyes like that, my weekends are busy with family! Do you know how hard it is to get anything done with a three year old running around??? Luckily there are 10 days left before I have to go back to school, so the goal for next week is to JUST DO IT.

Of course, I haven't touched the seam ripper since I admitted my mistake on the other quilt. ugh. There are many hours of repair work waiting for me in the quilt room...see why I play on the computer so much?!?

Lessons Learned

I pledged to knit nothing else until this blanket is done -And last night I got a lesson on crochet. It's much faster to use a single-crochet to seam the blocks together rather than mattress stitch, and I think the result is acceptable:
You can see a bit of the lighter color in the seam on the front, and I need to carefully make sure the stripes line up, but I am pleased with my first attempt. Only 18 squares left to knit and then on to seams and borders, woo-hoo!

Kendra has been working on faces...Mom and Dad are at the top,
Grandma below with her glasses on. I think the green blobs are earrings :-)

The lesson I learned today is to always measure the width of the quilt as it advances on the longarm. The corollary is that problems do not magically go away over night! I noticed some rippling in the edge of the quilt I'm working on (lovely feathers, if I do say so myself) but I just kept easing it in. Not a good strategy...when I got to the lower border I had way too much excess, so that's when I grabbed the tape measure. I had "eased" about two inches worth along the way. Now I have a date with Mr. Seam Ripper, oh joy. Lots of cliches come to mind - Haste makes waste, primarily!

Colors

Quilts of Valor issued a new challenge - use the Disappearing Nine Patch pattern to make a quilt. I've seen this pattern before, but never tried it myself. This version uses 5" squares. My last QOV project decimated my meager stash of red, white and blue fabric so, oh darn, I will have to go shopping before I go any further with this!

Temptation from Wendy:
She organized an I-Spy swap. I have ideas for several I-spy theme quilts, so this will be a fun way to get lots of different prints. (Amy sent me such a big bag of goodies that I am sharing the love!)

Kendra has been busy for about three days now with a highlighter marker. She can even draw a recognizable face! Parents - remember the simple joys of empty boxes and colors :-)

Ch-Ch-Changes

I hereby resolve that I will not cast on another pair of socks until this blanket is finished! Here are some tricolor squares... I adapted the original two color pattern for three colors. This lets me use up some of my leftover colors without an obvious repeat. I have been avoiding the seaming process, but I need to get started. I'm sure by the time I've done 100 or more seams, it won't be as intimidating!!

There is a water play area near some restaurants over by Grandma and Grandpa's house. We had a fun evening watching Kendra play.

We packed away her crib, here she is in her Big Girl bed:

I think mattresses are bigger these days...the headboard sure seemed taller when I was a kid. I plan to fill the blank wall with some of the beautiful quilts that have been made for her. Daddy will need to use the power tools, I just need to attach the hanging sleeves.

The process

Fun at the zoo! There is a little water play area and Kendra was brave enough to go through the waterfall. She hates having water on her face, so Daddy showed her how to put her hands over her eyes and walk forward until she felt the water. Of course, the highlight of any visit is the carousel. Today she rode the "li-lon" and gave a big RAWR.The Quilt Show is having a contest in support of Drawing Day, and I decided to play along.

Here is the quilt that I will be working on next:
To preview some quilting designs, I used photo editing software to print a grayscale copy. I lowered the brightness and now I have a worksheet to sketch on. I may be doing alot of stopping and starting since it will be tricky to move between the same-colored areas. I tend to do all my stitch-in-the-ditch before I start the block designs, although I've talked to other longarmers who do it as they move between blocks. I'm afraid I'd miss a side of a square along the way. The next question, do I have thread to match those fabrics??

Ahh, vacation

I spent most of Monday at my longarm. It was wonderful! Actually, it started out crummy because I was trying to use invisible thread and it just would not cooperate. So, there was a bit of ripping out and then I decided on the nice aqua/green Permacore that you see in the right hand block. I got into a rhythm with the curves and got that whole section done.

I am going to use a different color and design in the other nine-patch blocks. I think I can finish this one by Friday, yay!

One of Kendra's grandmas went to Disneyland last week and brought her a princess hat. It's a little big, but she loved it.

I am waiting for the repairman to show up and fix our sliding glass door, then it's off to have lunch with my mom. I packed three projects for some afternoon sewing. I wonder what will get done?!?

May Update

Finished half of a pair of Shur'tugal socks in STR Alley Oop (details on Ravelry).

Almost to the end of the mystery quilt!

Baby K continues to brighten every day with her smiles.

Daddy brought home a huge flower arrangement from his school's graduation, and K "planted" on in the yard.

And then she got in touch with her inner farmer...

Yay Photos!

My life over the last week or so...
I love working on this quilt since the fabrics are right up my alley. Lots of blue and wonderful prints, some batik and lots of Kaffe Fasset! I got all the blocks outlined, then I am filling in some free-hand feathers, using a multi-color thread on top and a navy blue on the back. A tip for stitching feathers that I learned from DeLoa Jones: think of curving into the spine like the curve of a freeway on-ramp. You come in at a gentle angle, not straight across! Also, imagine how a question mark curves from top to bottom. Gidget has a new favorite spot to nap in the evenings. She isn't very social, but she comes halfway down the stairs to hang out.
Here is Kendra with some of our Topsy Turvy brand tomatoes. I added them to the sausage and rice we had for dinner last night.
And here she is before swim lessons. I wanted a nice pose with the pool in the background, but she didn't cooperate! This is our first year of formal lessons. It's a parent-tot class, so I am in the pool with her. We practice kicking and blowing bubbles. She does not want to put her face in yet, but she looks forward to the Hokey Pokey and playing with the toys in the shallow beach-entry area at the end of class each day.

Text Only

Here's a glimpse inside my head...

There are no pictures for this post because the camera is upstairs and I am too lazy to run up and get it. Plus, I want to take a few pictures of the QOV mystery quilt that I am working on, but I'd probably get sidetracked sewing or something and then never make it back to the blog post!

I had a good Mother's Day. I let Daddy get up at 6am with our little angel, and woke up to coffee on the patio an hour later. Their card to me was perfect - a little grumpy-faced baby with the caption "Mom, I know I'm difficult and spoiled rotten...Fortunately I'm cute enough to make up for it." Baby K is two-and-three-quarters, and we get a screeching NOOOOOO if we ask her to do something. Of course, two seconds later we ask and get a sweet "Yes, Mama." On the patio this morning, she decided to jump rope. I missed a fantastic video opportunity because all she was doing was holding a rope and jumping up and down. It made me laugh so hard!

Then we went to church and I was able to sew for a bit while K. took her nap. Then it was off to Grandma's house for dinner. Sunday afternoons are so hard to manage because we can never predict naptime. The plan is always to put her down when we get home around 12:30 and let her sleep 2 hours or so. Today we were late because we stopped for lunch, and then it took a while for her to quiet down. So, we had to wake her up, which is a slow process and she's always grumpy for about an hour. But, it worked out because Grandma has fun toys and K. got to sit on the tractor!

Tomorrow starts the last full week of school here in Arizona. I have one more unit test to give and then next week I will do a couple days of review before final exams. And what will I do with my free time over the summer? Quilt, quilt and more quilting! I have several QOVs to finish this month, then two for friends, then my own pile which I don't even dare to count. At least then I'll have pictures to share!

Spring has Sprung

I am worried about the political divisions in our country and the potential for a flu epidemic. But, since those things are beyond my control, I will focus on the happy things in my life! I love to visit blogs and see pictures and read about everyone's life...those sneak peaks into the ordinary moments that fill our days. I have been an infrequent blogger for a while, and I realize I don't say much! For someone who dreams of being published someday, that's a sad state of affairs, which I will try to change - starting now.

I've dedicated most of my quilting time recently to Quilts of Valor. Last month, I quilted a beautiful top for a lady in California. A few weeks ago, I sent off a quilt to be presented to soldiers in Colorado (read about it here). And, I put borders on my Boxy Stars, so it's ready for quilting.As I was browsing around the QOV website, I noticed a link for a mystery pattern. (Instructions here.) I raided my stash (and my mother's stash as well!) and I'll start on that as my next project. I have piles of quilts in every room of my house, so I need an outlet for this hobby!

We're enjoying gorgeous spring weather after flirting with summer temperatures early last week. Baby K loves to have picnics, so we took some fresh strawberries outside for a snack.

3 years and counting

Friday was my 3rd blogiversary! It's been a fun way to journal my crafty projects and Baby K's daily adventures...thanks for tagging along.

She had a fun Easter Egg hunt last week at church.

I finished the first half of the April assignment for the Quilt Show project:I finally loaded a new project on the longarm. I thought of you Samantha! Fun nine-patches with Kaffe Fassett fabric: