My Baby is 4!

Sorry, I have been absent for a while. I had a nice 2 week vacation from work so at home I tried to stay away from the computer. I have a bad habit of checking my work email from home so I had to show some self control. I also did not sew except for the bag I made in the right measurements for myself (see previous post- exact same just a bit smaller.) I did have plans of sewing the whole time but the sun was out so we spent a lot of time at the park. Now I have a ton of stuff to make in a short period of time.

So, my baby is 4 today. I guess she is not a baby anymore. I remember the day she was born like it was yesterday. Her skinny long limbs and big ol' eyes. Time really does go so fast.

Saturday we celebrated by going to the FunZone with all her friends. Its a big warehouse with those gigantic bouncy houses. The kids were worn out in about 20 minutes. Everyone had a great time. M wanted a soccer theme. I don't know why. She doesn't play soccer or even own a soccer ball but about a year ago she said she wanted a soccer party and that is all she talked about for the entire year so that's what she got. See the soccer uniform? I also got her a soccer ball. I couldn't find a soccer cake and I didn't have time to make one since her ballet recital was the night before so she picked out a princess cake and I found candles in the shape of soccer balls so she was happy.

After, we took her to Red Robin with her friend J. J is one of my college friend's daughters. We live about an hour and 20 minutes from each other so we bought a membership to a Children's Museum halfway between our houses and we meet once a month. We get to gossip - they get to play. They both were so funny telling jokes and eating of course....macaroni and cheese. My husband told the old knock knock joke banana, banana, banana, orange you glad I didn't say banana? Then J retold the joke and mixed up the orange and banana and said "banana you glad I didn't say orange." Didn't make any sense but it was so funny. 4 year olds are hilarious.

Since today is actual birthday I made a mini cake for her last night and sent cupcakes to her day care/preschool. We'll bbq tonight and give her the last of her presents. My child is way spoiled. I think her dad may even pick her up and take her to Build a Bear. Man, I don't get this spoiled on my birthday!



M also had her first ballet recital this weekend. They were so adorable. I can't wait to get the video so I can watch it again (and probably again and again). I was back stage with her helping out so I didn't get the best view of her. She looked really nervous looking out at the audience. She was a fairy and she flew for most of it. They did really well though for their ages and how many people were in the audience (a couple hundred). It was at the historic Mt. Baker theater. I was surprised at how many people came and this is an entire weekend thing. 4 shows! (little kids only once) After the recital - we took her and her cousins out for ice cream at Mallard's. The best ice cream. All freshly made. Yum.

I hope to get to some sewing this week. I think I am going to make another ballerina for a birthday party this weekend so I kind of have to get motivated.

Happy Mother's Day!

My wonderful mom came up on Saturday and took my lovely daughter for the day. My old college roommate (she put up living with me for four years!) was in town so my mom wanted us to be able to hang out for the day. We shopped all day for silver shoes! Our other roommate Sarah is getting married in June and Andy is going to be in her wedding and needed silver flats. I unfortunately won't be able to go. M is having her first ballet recital that weekend and with travel time from Seattle to Massachusetts- not happening. Anyway, we were horribly unsuccessful. There are so many silver shoes but Andy was being picky. I did however score a 525 thread count sheets for a queen size bed for 6 bucks! I like to spoil myself with good sheets. Well, good sheets that are mass cheap!
M had a great time with out me. They hung out at Nana's house and M played in the newly rototilled garden. She was so dirty she had to strip outside and be carried to bath tub. I even found dirt in her eye later in the day! My Uncle Ray also took her to an exotic chicken farm after she was cleaned up. She had a blast. I wish I had photos!

Andy left about 4 pm and my mom returned and we did some quilt store shopping. I bought some cute paper doll fabric. I have no idea what I am going to make with it but I have wanted it for a while. This other quilt shop had it in a kit but I just wanted the fabric. I think it will be a great little fabric to use for a new mom of a little girl. Or I will just keep it for myself. :)

I also turned in a quilt to be quilted. I made a quilt for the aforementioned Sarah and I made it so simple that it really needed some quilting done to it and I would have just stitched in the ditch since my free motion skills are minuscule. The place we took it is really affordable so we are excited to see the quality.

The next day was Mother's Day and my mom gave me gifts. (I gave her gifts too but not that exciting) One was her old serger. She just bought herself a new one and although she could have used it as a trade in she thought I would like it. I do! I've used it before to make cloth napkins for my grandma and although I like using them - they scare the bejesus out of me. I am afraid I will cut my finger off. M got a pre-lecture about touching it.

She also gave me a doll dress. She said she hunted every where to get the perfect dress for my doll. I love it! So cute and I love that it fits the time piece of the doll so well. I told her she has to make a matching dress for M since it is so cute. I got the typical Mom response - we will see. (She also gave me a 1/4 inch foot for my machine - YEAH!)

We did receive bad news this weekend. My brother in law and sister in law are getting divorced. What I thought was funny (not the divorce- that's awful) was that my mom kept trying to console me. Finally, I was like, "Mom, I am not getting divorced and they aren't my parents." She just smiled and realized what she was doing. I think it was some residual guilt of her and my dad getting divorced when I was six which I am glad they did. It just made me giggle.

On a side note, this is pretty popular in the crafty blogging world today. At Craft Hope, a website designed to help others with our crafty skills, they are beginning their second project which is to give children in an orphanage in Managua, Nicaragua handmade dolls. I decided it is so worthy and I have made some dolls in just a few hours that it really is just a minor giving. If you are interested - check it out. I just have to figure out which doll to make or I can just make a few!

To all those moms, Happy Mother's Day, a day late.

Little Girls

My daughter has a birthday to go to tomorrow. We had gotten her a small gift certificate to Build a Bear because what kid doesn't want to go there? But, I felt it was a bit cheap. So, I made this little girl to go with it. Build a Bear gives little boxes with the gift certificate like you get when you make a bear so I thought it would look cute if she held it. I got the pattern here. She has some other patterns too. Peter Puppy in an earlier post is from her as well.

We spent most of our weekend outside in our backyard. Here are some pictures of the dog with her wagging tongue and and the kid enjoying the sun and attempting to figure out the hoola hoop. Ignore the mess in the background. We are still working on our winter cleaning of the yard. The dog destroys it and we neglect it. I wanted to be inside working on her dog quilt but that was a no go. I have it about 50% done. I hope my dog lover loves it. Hope you are getting some sun too! OUrs will be gone tomorrow. Boohoohoo.

Wow- Weekend Surprises and my ADD

This weekend was not at all what I planned or would have liked (most of it) but you go with the flow. Thursday morning, I received a phone call from my Uncle. My grandma is not feeling well so he was taking her to the hospital. She did recover after a few day stay in the hospital. The difficult part for me, besides my grandma being sick, was that she was supposed to host Easter which fell to me. 14 people in my tiny house which was a total mess. So in between visits to the hospital, I cleaned and shopped. That wouldn't have been so bad if I had help but my husband was out of town at a Bachelor party and didn't return until Easter around 2PM! Everything of course turned out. My mom stayed with my Grandma for the night until my uncle returned from his conference and fought with her the whole time. My 90 year old Grandma, after just being released was going out the get fire wood and when she was asked why I couldn't go get it she told my mom I wasn't strong enough to bring in fire wood. I just shook my head and got the wood. My mom also made our family's Easter tradition of Egg Nests. My grandma said she did okay for the first time trying. She is a feisty old broad.

So these Egg Nests are yummy. It is just a hard boiled egg, colored of course, wrapped in a sweet bread and baked. Then iced with just a powdered sugar and water icing and topped with colored sprinkles. Totally cheesy but I look forward to it.
I have also determined that I have Crafting ADD. I have like 6 projects going and 4 I want to do and I got a new book today that I want to do like all right now! This book is cool. I have always wanted to do Landscape Quilting but really didn't know where to start. So far this book looks very simple with a few beginners patterns to start and shows you how to make your own patterns. I can't wait! You can get the book here at Amazon. Nancy's Notion's also has it but it was like 15 cents cheaper on Amazon and eligible for the free shipping so I got mine there. I will let you know how it goes with the project once I find time to do it. Maybe I should start now. :)
Oh, M loves the dumb looking dog I made her. I'm glad kids aren't too picky.

Finally finished with the dog!

So I never did find that Joann's bag so I had to go back and re buy what I needed. At least I can use it later if I do find it. How frustrating.

I finished up this stuffed dog for my daughter's Easter basket. I think it is a bit dumb looking but M won't care. It is a dog. I think if I used different fabric is would have been better. The pattern is here. I did make a minor change on it. I didn't like that you hand sewed the tail on after and I didn't like that the opening to stuff it was where the legs were so I took the back pattern piece and folded it in half and then cut two with a seam allowance. Then I was able to sew the tail into the seam and I left a bit open in the back to stuff it so that the hand sewing closure was on the back and not at the legs. Did that make sense? That was a long sentence. I might make another one with different fabric. The pattern's dogs are way cuter so I know I can make a cute one!

I also made this doll. I think it turned out so cute! It is for my friend's daughter's first birthday. I totally forgot about it and it was nice because I did the whole thing during M's nap time. The pattern is here. I didn't change anything. It was super simple and I even put myself to the test to hand embroider! I think it turned out pretty good for the first time. I even think I am going to try these. I bought the Bavarian one and the Italian one. M was born in Germany and my family is Italian so I thought I would start with those. If I like them I might make all of them! I know big dreams with all the other projects I have. Tonight I am working on the PTQB blocks and AQB2 block. I know what I want to do- now I have to do it!

Busy Weekend

This weekend was quite busy. Saturday my mom drove up and we went to my Great Uncle's 90th Birthday. I hadn't been to a "family" function in a while so it was quite odd walking into a large room and knowing 90% of these people are relatives but not knowing who they were. My Grandpa was one of 8 brothers so I got a lot of "how are you related? Oh, Lester. Nice to meet you." There were some really nice people. My daughter had a blast chasing boys around. A girl of my own heart. :) So, this portion of my family are potato farmers. They are really well known in this town and the surrounding towns. When I went to a family reunion like 20 years ago all they talked about was potatoes. I don't know anything about potatoes. So at this function they had these little mini potato sacks full of jelly beans. How adorable! Then they had Mr. Potatoheads at every table. Mr. Potatohead cookie jar being used as a vase, potato bowls, stuffed potato people and more. It was funny and so darn cute at the same time. Great Uncle Gord seemed to really enjoy himself.

Afterwords we stopped at two quilt shops. I thought this town only had one but they have three! Its only like 20 minutes from my house so I am pretty excited. I picked up one vintage fabric with dogs on it for a summer dress for M and then I bought a "fake" porcelain doll. It is from, oh darn, I can't remember, Oh, Daisy Kingdom. Very cute with a 20's hairstyle. It is currently in M's room in its undies. I was too cheap to pay $17 for a doll dress when I could make one out of scraps.

Then after dropping off my grandma, my mom and I went home and played with M and watched The Music Man. This is a picture of her with all her dogs. Note she has dog ears on as well. When she went to bed she threw some dogs off her bed. I guess some of the dogs are not worthy enough to sleep on the bed and they were the ones that I picked up off the floor so I know she is very specific about this. So weird. She is proudly showing off her new outfit here. Dogs of course. Plus it has pockets that she can put a stuffed dog in. How perfect. I let her wear it two days in a row but after she got it dirty by sitting on the wet grass I washed it.

The next day we went and bothered my grandma and uncle for breakfast and came back home, my mom left and M and I played in the front yard with bubbles and chalk. I also weeded while she tried to plant some of the dandelions I pulled up. It has been a long time since we saw the sun so we took full advantage of it.

I did complete a one project and 99% of another (I can't find the bag with the buttons to finish the other one). This is a list taker I made to donate as a door prize for one of the nursing programs I work for. The color didn't turn out too well. It is navy on the inside with red bias trim and I used a red thread to sew it all together. I think it is the best one I have made so far.
You can find the pattern here. I made a ton of these at x-mas. Its a great little gift for someone that you don't know what to get them. Do we really need any more lotion or candles? I made my mom one that was miniature for her purse. I just made the pattern for that one. She lost it last weekend so I have to make her a new one. I'll show it then. I'll also show my other project after I finish it. If I ever find that bag! It had Easter basket stuff in it so I hid it and I don't know where!!! I made a little puppy for her basket so I have to find it before then.

Grandma's quilt

So, last year M turned three and we made her room into a big girl room. I would have taken a picture for you to see it but you can't see the floor at the moment. Anyway, we got her a big girl bed. My mom and I were just browsing at IKEA and in their broken or display stuff they had this cute wrought iron bed, really low to the ground. It was super cheap. They were discontinuing it and this was the display model. We bought it right then. Try to fit a bed into a car with two adults and a car seat with child in car seat. Along with all the stuff we picked up when we were browsing. It is quite a challenge, let me tell you. Anyway, so Grandma wanted to make her a big girl quilt for her new bed. This is just a close up of it. It is so beautiful. She used the blue and white fairy frost that makes it all sparkly. She has a Brother Disney fancy dancy embroidery machine so in each of the Dresden plates has a Disney princesses. I really didn't want an obsessed princess child and luckily I don't. If we knew she would become dog obsessed 2 weeks after her birthday we would have put dogs on it. M really loves her quilt and she loves that Grandma made jammies that match the back flannel. She giggles whenever she gets in bed and sees that she matches. And the bed being close to the ground has been great. She sometimes doesn't even notice she fell out of bed. Once I found her sleeping with her feet on the floor and her body in bed. Funny girl.

Cape

I made this cape for my daughter like a year ago. She loves it. I didn't get all fancy and put a letter on it or anything but I did put some pom pom fringe on the bottom. I had to make it girly right. The fabric was for a shower curtain but I decided it was to hideous. Okay, not hideous as I have used it for 10 other projects (I bought a lot) but it just didn't match my bathroom very well. I ended up using a sheet I bought at Target. I'll show it another day. Instead of a rolled hem I used binding tape and used that as the tie for the neck as well. Super simple to make. Anyway, thought I would share my cape as I have been seeing a lot of capes on other blogs lately. Hope you enjoy. (I can't believe how much M has grown!)

I wanted to give you this...

The other day my three year old and I were going out to the car to run and errand to Joann's, of course, and the sky was so beautiful. It was a dark blue and the stars were gleaming from end to end. I always try to take a moment and enjoy the sky, clouds and all which we have plenty of here in Washington. M looked up at the sky and said, "This is what I wanted to give you for your birthday." She is so sweet. I could feel my heart swell. In this picture she is wearing her rock star track suit and she is holding a flower that her great grandma, Nana, bought her. Nana felt bad that the previous time we were there M wanted to pick flowers in her yard but there weren't any so she got her primroses.

Fat Quarters

I love fabric. Really it is the only reason I sew. Its the perfect excuse to buy more fabric. Well, one of our lovely local fabric stores, Fabric, etc., was celebrating Mardi Gras by having a Fat Tuesday sale. Buy 20 fat quarters for a dollar a piece. I am never really happy with the selection Joann's has so I went crazy. I bought 32 with no real plans in mind. I wanted to share my selection with you.

I did let my 3 year old pick out some.

She thinks we are making stuffed dogs with them. With a fat quarter? I am not sure that is happening. (if you know of a dog pattern for that much fabric let me know!) She is as bad as me. We were at Walmart and she found a remnant piece of flannel with dog prints on it and insisted on it. For 87 cents I let her get it. My Daugher is OBSESSED with dogs and occasionally she is a dog named Brenda. We then went to Grandma's and she nagged her Grandma until she made something. Here it is. The Dalamtion is Jasmine and the bulldog is Cinderella. My mom made her Jasmine since she had the fabric and the pattern for it. She was hoping that would distract her from the paw print fabric but it didn't. My poor grandchild spoiling mother was making dogs all weekend. Both are quite happy though and Jasmine and Cinderella go to Preschool with M.


Now I have to figure out what to do with all that fabric!