A Few Projects

Two washcloths,



and a pillow for my friend Joanna. She picked out the fabrics (at my request) when they visited us in Alaska, and I just finished it. Shame on me!

Backyard Beauties

I went outside to photograph this, which I just finished for a baby girl at church.

I had such good help.

I don't want to give it away!

Then I got distracted by the Beauties! The owners of our house must love flowers. The yard has these right now:

And these to come later. Do you recognize the leaves?

This isn't in the back yard, but . . . Does this look comfortable to you?!

She's just nine tenths of an ounce shy of ten pounds. Growing!

I finished the baby's quilt top today! (Not before putting it together wrong once. Waaah!) I had a little help with the photography.

I wish I had done a few things differently, but it's done and I'm not redoing it. Now I just need to make the "sandwich" and put it all together.

Well, I'm sitting here with Philip. He has been sick with a stuffy/runny nose for the last few days, so we're home from church. He hasn't slept well at night, so neither has Mommy. I'm feeling it. Steven spent yesterday and today at Fort Custer with the Army, so we were all home this morning. It makes for a long day.

The other day Philip climbed up in Steven's desk chair and was reading. He does love books.

"Okay, Mommy, I finished sorting the crayons, and now I'll organize the recycling for you!" He did help put them away. (Yes, he got a haircut.)

Oh, and the quilt. I took this picture

so I will remember the layout when I get it back out. Arg! I made the additional six inch squares, but I STILL don't have enough of the background fabric! This lovely stuff--anybody have some?!

I did place an ad at missingfabrics.com, so we'll see what turns up. Otherwise, well, who knows. The quilt will get finished somehow or other. My creative juices aren't up to it right now, so it's put away and the floor space is now available for other uses.

I have started working on the baby's quilt again. I'm using 1930's reproduction prints, and it's coming together. Just nine-patch squares, but I think it will be cute. Samuel's and Elizabeth's baby quilts were nine-patches too. I do really like the simplicity of them. Philip's is even simpler with just squares and rectangles, but I think the fabrics really make it.

One more thing. I am in the midst of knitting three baby girl hats! You know we're having a baby girl, and my brother Ben's wife Abby is due with a baby girl the day after I am (!) and my brother Steve and his wife Jolene are in the final stages of adopting a little Chinese baby girl. So three new baby girls in the near future.

Two will be just like this, and one with the dark color as the main body of the hat. I'll try to remember to post a picture of all three when they're done.

Speaking of babies, during my NST on Friday I had three contractions, so the doctor checked me. I am NOT close to having the baby, but they did tell me to pay attention and come in if things heat up. Well, while Steven was gone I did have lots of contractions. (Let's call them Braxton-Hicks, shall we?) But they are not regular, so we're hoping for another few weeks. I am planning to pack our bags pretty soon, though. I don't need to be doing that in the middle of the night.

Y'all take care now!

More Quilt Squares

This week is our Christmas/New Year break. I am using the time to work (frantically!) on a certain quilt. I've made progress, while allowing my house to completely fall apart. I have fed the family, though. Here is what I have accomplished so far, twelve inch squares:







Six inch squares:


At the beginning of the week I laid out what I have so far to get an idea of how many more squares I need to make. It's a little hard to picture, but this is looking at it sideways. You can see the four strips that will outline the quilt and separate the squares, and the squares I had finished at the time. Try to pretend there isn't a stripey rug under it. . .

More Quilt Blocks

I've been working on. . .

Shoofly

Dutchman's puzzle

Double pinwheel

Churn dash

Card tricks

Snail trail variation (ahem)

I also got some new fabrics, and they were on sale!

Stars upon Thars

I'm working on my in-laws' 40th anniversary quilt. It started out with just stars, but now it's going to be a sampler. Stars are tricky! The points have to come out right, and mine don't. . . Thankfully, my in-laws' are pretty easy-going folks. I said that it started out as stars, but the history goes way farther back than that. Let's just say my mind has been changed by various circumstances over the past several months.

So here they are. You're my friends, right? My paternal grandmother used to say that you would never see [fill in the blank] from a galloping horse. So, gallop on by and don't look at the points too closely. :o)

Playing with my Food (and other stuff)

We had alphabet spaghettios the other day:

Here are the flowers for Elizabeth's quilt so far:

I needed a break from the quilt, so I made purses. First I made one following the pattern. Very cute. Put my stuff in it: too small. Elizabeth loved it, so I bought some more fabric while the bug was still biting and made a bigger one. She loves having matching "pusses" (like Puss in Boots). Sunday evening on the way to church she told me that she hoped everyone would notice that we were matching. We got out of the car, Dr. David B saw us and exclaimed about the purses. Elizabeth was thrilled! :o)



We have been sick! A week ago today I went to the doctor for a sinus infection, after having been sick for two weeks (I don't believe it was a sinus infection before that). Steven missed two days of work last week and still is coughing. We kept Samuel home from church Sunday (a sore trial for him) because of his cough. Elizabeth has been better for a while, but also had respiratory issues. Bleah! We're all on the upswing, though, and are very thankful for that.

Samuel has two new teeth! The strange thing is that he hasn't lost any baby teeth. He has the two middle ones on the bottom, coming in behind the babies. I called our dentist, and the lady assured me that this was common and not to worry about it. I was a little concerned that he had picked up a shark gene somewhere, as they grow successive sets of teeth that grow forward and replace the old ones as they fall out.

I had an interesting experience last Saturday. One of our local grocery stores holds a "sidewalk sale" about once a month. They sell reject food or food near/past its expiration date. There is a cordoned off area in the parking lot with rows of banana boxes on the ground full of the goods. At 9:00 the man says go and people have at it, filling banana boxes which cost six dollars each when full. I didn't arrive until around 9:30, so things had been seriously . . . pawed over. But I came home with

about seven boxes of organic or other yummy cereal,
two jars of Grey Poupon mustard,
a jar of Miracle Whip,
three things of name brand salad dressing,
some organic peanut butter,
prepared horseradish (a favorite of mine),
a box of couscous salad,
a graham cracker crumb crust,
(maybe some other stuff) and
four rather smooshed MoonPies!

First of all, did you imagine that MoonPies had a website?! Okay, I haven't ever given it thought either. But seriously. You should look at their store for a laugh. (If you are a Southerner, I have nothing but respect for this fine tradition and I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing with you!) Check out the

MoonPie shaped hat,
variety of t-shirts with MoonPies and "It's a Southern thing",
salt and pepper shakers in the shapes of MoonPies and RC colas,
MoonPie scented candles,
license plates,
a biography of MoonPie history,
MoonPie Memories book.

I am not kidding. Anyway, the ones there were orange flavored, so that's what we enjoyed. When I opened mine, it brought back vivid memories of baby aspirin. Yep. Exact same smell. As Steven observed, "Orange and marshmallow were not meant to go together." But we did all eat them.

Finally, I will mention that there was a reason some of those organic cereals didn't sell. Barbara's Baker has a lovely shredded oat cereal, billed as being extra crunchy. That would be an understatement. We have started pouring the milk on at bedtime so the "pillows" will start to soften by breakfast. Not quite, but they are crunchy!

Well, enough blathering. It's bedtime. Thanks for visiting!

:o)

Progress on Elizabeth's Quilt

I am making a quilt for Elizabeth's fourth birthday (April 29). It will have lots of folded flowers on it--like origami, only with fabric. I have the roses finished, and here they are. Please believe me that the fabric is prettier in real life.




For your interest, here is Samuel's fourth birthday quilt. The fabrics have vehicles: trucks, cars, tractors, airplanes, bicycles. . .

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

This morning Abby and I made bows for Annie. Here are two of them.
In the afternoon, we finished the quilt for Amy. Well, to be quite honest, Mom finished it. Mom sewed the squares together, she sewed together the sashing, she put on the border and did the handwork, she tied half of the knots (that hold the front and back together). BUT I cut out the squares and tied the other half of the knots. You see, my mom is a perfectionist (she says it herself). I did some of the sashing, but it was a bit "off," so it was decided that Mom would fix it and finish. Really, it's okay. We laughed that in 30 years this scene would be repeating itself with Elizabeth and me. And 30 years ago Grandma M did Mom's handwork perfectly while Mom whipped the other parts out. So.

Mirror, mirror on the wall,
I'm my mother after all!

Anyway, here it is. The colors didn't show up very well. They are blue, yellow, green and peach. It really is very pretty. Thanks, Mom!