Brain Farts?

I hate having brain farts. It reminds me of the time in college when I spent an hour bird walking with a pal and at the end he says "how did we get here again?" causing us to spend the next 15 minutes trying to figure out how we got to where we were in the conversation. Heck I thought we were just shooting the bull...

So what of that brain fart you ask? Well, I thought I was BOM for April. Nope I'm block of the month for May. Lovely. I felt this huge pile of stuff weighing on me and it turns out I was the one to making the pile heavy. Eeegads, I must be a camel let's just pile it on.

The good news is that I'm heading out of town a little weekend girls getaway. I can hardly wait, and of course I will have plenty of new reviews for "trying a bit of something new" when I arrive back home. Hopefully I can leave my brain farts here where they will dissipate never to be seen, smelt, or heard from again.

Dreams Delivered

Did you know Disney has their own florist? We should have guessed after all they have their own surveying company. There are many many wonderful things there. Some that cam be delivered right to your Disney hotel room, and other items that can be delivered to your home, bringing a little bit of magic right to your doorstep. The vastness of offerings in and of itself is stunning. Why don't you have a look after you lock up your credit cards? http://www.disneyflorist.com/

Not much getting done around here now or in the next couple of days for that matter, why don't you kick back and have a cold one too?

A Quilt for Baby

The Dino Quilt is done. Hooray. I'm so glad. The woman hours I've put into it blows my mind. It doesn't seem like much but shoot! Other bloggers have been keeping track of "stash" fabrics used versus "new" fabrics purchased. Here's one that will blow your mind: I haven't bought ANY fabric since before Christmas. I know tell me about it, withdrawal anyone?

As for an actual accounting of the fabrics. The entire dino side is scrap bag fabrics. The back is made from DD's baby clothes, cut up and used this time last year for the baby clothes quilts (current count ~ 4 double sided pillows, 1 wall hanging, 2 double size quilts, one twin size quilt, and two baby blankets, and a prairie point binding on a king size quilt all from those aforementioned precut baby clothes). The only "added in" fabric is the red white and blue border all gained from my stash. Both the blue and the red were purchased with a plan in mind and I used what was "leftover" from those projects for the border. The white was purchased last summer simply because it was polka dots (on sale for $2 a yard!) and dd loves polka dots.

I always save the batting that you cut off to "true up" the quilt after it's quilted. Sometimes I have a bunch leftover sometimes not so much. All of the batting from this quilt was from my "salvaged batting" pile. For anyone wondering: if you'd like to use your own salvaged batting simply zigzag stitch the pieces together sewing either just on top of the two edges or abutting them. I've done it both ways and you can't tell any difference. While I wouldn't use salvaged batting for a wedding quilt it's just fine for a little quilt like this.

So my total out of pocket for my good deed was merely time.

In the second photo you can see Jessica. She is doing this new rather annoying thing. She will smile big and bright and then right when she knows you're taking the photo she will turn it into a "closed" smile. It must be something she picked up from her father...

Blue

It bothers me somewhere down inside that white and I are not friends. I love white. White on white fabrics make me drool. I love the embroider on them. I have made two STUNNING quilts with white. One was even simple red and white. Yet I myself can't have white.

A couple months back I found an amazing deal on a white organic tank top ($5!) it was nice for a bit of "dress up" or "dress down" and looked great with... You get the picture. But heck if I could keep the thing clean. My DH is the master of all stains. They all stop and yield to his will. Of course he has to know about the stain to will it out. In spite of all that after only a couple of wearings my beautiful "nice" white tank was spotted. Well heck if I was going to let it go the way of every other white t-shirt I have owned.

So today at the grocery store I bought some rit dye. I can't believe it was $2 and change but hey it is what it is (I could swear you can get fabric dye from Joann's for a buck!) I'm a driven person. Mood inspires me. New things move me. So I couldn't resist (after the groceries were put away and my DH had gone to work) digging right in to my little dye project.

Now let me stop right here and say when they tell you to use gloves bite the bullet and use gloves. It has taken me all evening to get the dye area limited to my fingernails. (yuck). I did the sink method in a big stainless stock pot mostly because I didn't want anything stained forever, except the shirt ~ of course. This process takes a whole lot of standing. I'd like to think it's the last time I will do it when I don't have help, but almost for certain I will encounter something that will lead me astray.

I just love how the rhinestones didn't take the dye. The package said anything plastic would take the dye (that's why I didn't bother trying it in my front loader - not to mention the automatic size sensor wouldn't allow enough water in to completely cover the material per the directions). The rhinestones being plastic surely should have take the dye but you can clearly see they didn't.

I'm glad to have my "nice" shirt back. Even if it isn't white.

Habit Overcomes...

Last night I told myself that I would go ahead and get right to knocking out the last border on the dino quilt. My intention was to get up and go directly to the sewing machine. Well my morning hasn't panned out that way and somehow I'm sitting here writing to you. Ah well.

Jessica's uncles came over yesterday, they are only 6 and 8 years older than she is so for the most part they have a good time together. My clean house got lost somewhere along the way, but that's okay.

Jessica's G-U-I-T-A-R is on it's way. We bought her a Mahalo Ukulele in purple. I'll let you know how it is after Easter. Some of the websites I'd found said the painted Mahalo's have some cosmetic imperfections, but I'm not to worried about that. We bought the one for Jessica direct from amazon and I know they stand by their stuff. This one is a U30-PP-G the pp is the color i.e. purple, and the G stands tells you the style of the tuning adjusters. With the "G" they will be out at the sides instead of the normal model where they come out from behind. We're planning on restringing it right way with Aquila Low G strings as I have heard that the Soprano Ukes can be a bit shrill, and the string they come with can slip out of tune. I'm not 100% certain about that they do need restrung when they arrive because they way they are strung in the first place is to prevent damage during shipping, it could be the review I read about slipping it just someone who didn't restring it. The Aquila nylgut strings are more likely to stay in tune and stand up to changes in weather, not to mention better sound. That's one thing the B-U-N-N-Y can mark off the list.

While I did consider a 1/2 size guitar I found the Ukulele much easier to tune. Since she's only three and a half my brain tells me that's important. Or maybe it's the future echos of my ears?

I added my hooks to the wheelchair bag so my part of that is all done. DH has promised to attach/install it before I need it next weekend, I'll take photos once it's installed as that should be the best angle.

Take care and have a great weekend.

Another One is Gone

Here is the top that I've been working on. It's for one of my small group Row Robins and all the rows are mine except for the one at the very top, that one is Barb's. The entire time I worked on it I kept having this story unfold so I wrote it to go along with the top.

The Snowman Story

I heard them before I even opened my eyes.

"It's snowing!" they exclaimed.

Quickly followed by "Shhh, don't wake her" from the oldest.

I opened one eye to peak at the clock. "Ugh" so early. I pulled my quilt up a little higher to ward of the chill. I listened to the children grabbing a bit of breakfast before running to gather what they would need to make a snowman.

A soft knock at the door jolted me form my sleepy eavesdropping, "We're headed outside to play in the snow." can a whisper.

"Okay" I murmured. As soon as I knew they were outside I threw off the covers and sprang out of bed. So much to do and a quiet house to do it in.

Starting with the fire I built it up and then proceeded with the decorating. Cheerfully I went about the house watching the snowman grow through the window.

With the last finishing touches I nearly ran to the kitchen surprising myself with my own excitement. Hot coco all around. When it was ready I gathered up the mugs and went outside to help.

All in a Hurry

Do you recall those friendship bracelets of the 80's and 90's? Well it seems my fingers still know how to make them. I was surprised at how fast this little bit came out.
It's all part of the Small Quilt Group Row Robin I pitched in to help out with, as the hostess sometimes things happen. This quilt's theme is building a snowman. Through the window you watch the snowman be put together and the house become decorated. You can of course click on the photo to see it closer. Then the person inside makes hot coco for everyone and takes it outside to help with the snowman. This will be added to the first row when it gets here and then out the door and off to Beth.
This is the latest quilt block in my Spring 2009 Sampler. This block is Bountiful Blessings and can be found for free at Quilter's Cache. It does take a while to make all the applique circles. It is quite a heavy block that I would in fact recommend as a stubble weighted special needs quilt. Because of the layered circles it gets quite heavy. Don't forget no matter how you make a special needs quilt use craft beads from Walmart instead of rice because the rice isn't very washable.

The fires are still burning. Fire trucks both in the wee hours of this morning and again throughout the day. It did rain a day or two ago but it wasn't enough to help much. DH found two preteen girls right up in the smoke. Seems they thought it was steam. Fires are so dangerous it's good he came up when they did because the roots underground that were burning could have given way beneath their feet at any moment not to mention smoke inhalation poisoning.

Dino Day

Here is the top! All 15 little dinos are sewn in and accounted for. I'll be adding a 6" border all around to increase the over all quilt size, but other than that it's coming along just great.

Have you looked into the Federal Weatherization project? Perhaps you qualify, there was a write up in the newspaper about how it is to help make low income households more energy efficient. According to one of the articles I read a family of four can make up to $44,000 a year so don't tune me out. Is there something in your home that needs taken care of? A furnace tune up perhaps? I personally have a list. This is a United States federal program so if you have a need be sure to give your local office a call.

And Then there were 15!

At least 12 hours ago I sat down to work on the little dinos for the front of the baby quilt. My pea brain tells me scattered embroidery with charms between... Size uh hu, yep, need 15 Dinos. Sounds great it's going to look awesome.

After I finish stitching out the first two or three dinos it hits me. Even at only 15 minutes a dino, I'm going to be here for HOURS! I explain it all to DH and what does he do? He tells me how great it will be when it's done, how appreciated it will be, how special. Awww geee, he must know my buttons. Before I go any further I need to explaining... That 15 minutes to embroider something? That's the time it will take the sewing machine to embroider the dino but no matter what my stop time i.e thread changes, broken needles, ect isn't included.

About the time I'm halfway in I'm figuring this little quilt will have about $100 worth of embroidery on it. Right, and no one will ever know. I hope they love it. Personally I love the little green guy on the bottom left with the big red heart. A little guy for everyone. The pastels I found nice and sweet also.

My supply of embroidery thread is getting lower and lower... I even RAN plumb out of red. That's okay though. I figure my next order of thread will have about 20+ spools in it. Good thing where I buy Madeira thread has great rates!

Tonight at bed time Jessica asked me if I would stay awake. She always asks this and I always answer the best I can, because even moms have to sleep sometime. "Honey I'm going to sew a bit more on the sewing machine and then I'm going to bed to watch TV. For reasons only known to a 3 year old she thought that was funny. Nearly laughing me out of her room funny. But after sitting at my machine all day... Granted something I enjoy... I feel the need to veg, "be still like vegetables, lay like broccoli."

Momma-made and Jessica Helped

This is the back of a baby blanket I started for my neighbor's great niece. She is expecting a little boy in July. Perhaps it's the July due date that has me taking the time to make something. I don't know it just feels right. Like I just said this is to be the back of the quilt. On the front I'll be using the dinos you see at the top together with some cartoon style dino embroidery. I hope it will be really nice. When Jessica was little her pediatrician would always compliment me on Jessica's blankets so hopefully that bit of sweetness will be passed on as well. Yes these are charms leftover from Jessica's baby clothes quilts. This makes quilt number five made from her baby clothes. Who knew I had cut so much? My "boyish" fabrics are running thin so hopefully I'll have a slew of baby girls to make quilts for. hahaha This is the Angel food cake that nearly wasn't. I always make homemade Angel Food Cake. The yolks are saved for homemade ice cream, and the whites go to the cake. This is the only cake my daughter will eat, so I suppose it's nice that she chows through it. Excuse me I seem to be doing a bit of bird walking today.

Why this cake almost wasn't. After separating more than 8 of the required dozen eggs I broke a yolk into my whites! Eeegads. Luckily DH fished it out for me...
Then I mixed ALL of the sugar into the flour, instead of holding some back to mix in the whites (I dealt with that by beating the whites into hard shiny peaks instead of soft peaks)
Just as I was measuring out the cream of tartar I discovered I only had 1/2 tsp. but my recipe calls for 1 1/2 tsp! (I handled that one with a bit of help from the Internet - it seems you can substitute lemon juice for the cream of tartar!) So I used what I had and used lemon juice for the rest (use three times the amount of lemon juice in place what your recipe called for)
At this point I'm certain my cake will fall. I don't know what that looks like I've never had a cake fall before but I dread it.
Lastly I discover that the tube pan has been put up and away for so long that it's dusty and now I have to quick wash and dry it before the eggs are whipped. I'm drying it as the preheated signal on the oven goes off. Thrilled I'm done and it's up to fate now I rush to put the cake in the oven. Except my oven racks are all wrong and I have to move them while they are hot. I hate that. I'm always afraid I will burn myself. We have strict rules about no children within a crazy huge radius when the oven is open but still...

As you can see it did not fall. Lucky me. I'm beginning to wonder if it's not really me... Maybe I just have a great recipe?

March Row Done

Such a wonderful day to get things done. Today I wrapped up my March assignment for the row robin. On each side I have embroidered line work of snow covered towns in golden thread. On each side of the center I have a north pole this way sign, and in the very center is Santa's Village complete with Mrs. Claus placing a scarf on a snowman. Most all of these patterns came from Sew Teri-fic, and I just love it. Mrs. Claus has beautiful patterning within the thread on her skirt. It's so pretty I found myself wishing I could be Mrs. Clause, lol if only for the dress! This is the detail shot of the center before I sewed it on. The theme for this row is Christmas with Santa - Scrappy Style. I just loved working with the applique embroidery, what fun to dig in my scrap bag, and for these little houses any little piece would work! FYI the line work town came from Embroidery Designs. But it's a big design and filled my 6"X10" hoop completely. This row took 11 hoopings of embroidery and I think the finished product makes it well worth it.

My new baby Orchids arrived today and have been escorted outside in a temporary arrangement until DH is feeling better. Seems he caught some sort of nasty stomach bug.

Cherish those you love. I am currently reading "Chicken Soup for the Mother's Soul", which my neighbor gave me by way of her cousin. The little story I am holding with me today has the following line, "but that can't be why, I'm adopted." and the momma says "I always forget". Isn't that wonderful? May your day be filled with Sunshine and Happiness.

Peak a Row

I just started working on Alice's row for the Row Robin today. I'm thrilled over the top with how it's shaping up so far. I did a Shell Tuck edge to secure my skyline applique and it looks wonderful. While not traditional I wanted my sewing to barely show and the shell tuck was the perfect solution.

The entire row will be applique and embroidery, so keep an eye out for future updates.

Checkup

Hello there! After days of feeling like I can't do anything right, I find myself wondering how all of you are doing. There has been a spin off of unforunate events blogger style, but I'm not going there. To hopefully end the desire to beat my head against the wall I've been thinking spring. DH is buying me two baby Orchids. You can see the parent plant info here --> http://troymeyers.com/direct/?123905 and here --> http://troymeyers.com/direct/?123793.

I have been so wrapped up in this I have learned the reasons behind every orchid death that has come to my hands. Sad I know. My Papa always used to raise them for my Grandma, and they were so beautiful. I feel closer to her when I have Orchids near. (And trust me after my unsteady stressful hand I need someone to steady me!) Amazingly one plant still exists from those good old days, a seed that blew into the tree and found a root hold there if you can believe. I have no idea what kind it is yet, but I have high hopes of collecting seed, and participating in Meyer's Conservatory flask program, so that I too may have some of this little bit of family history in my home as well. In case you didn't follow the links to the parent plants I posted above, let me pause for a moment and say that Meyer's Conservatory is a wonderful place. Troy ready to help with a whisper of a notice. My little Orchids will ship out Monday and will arrive within a couple of days after that. IT is such a great think that Troy and his company are doing, keeping costs (extremely) low to propagate what we have, in hopes that less plants will be ripped from their wild homes. Perhaps someday we'll be able to give back what other's before us have taken as well...

DH installed most of my curtains already, wasn't that great of him. It's going to take come getting used to, but I am very glad I used Muslin, this allows some light through, so when you're only lifting pack a little bit to put a cup or a dish away, the light shining through the fabric is perfect. Of course because I made the curtain style it is very easy to simply open them.

You your pets play peak-a-boo with you? This is a photo I took of Tiny peaking around the table. She sits on top of the CPU when she wants to hide and or pick up a little extra heat. Now don't start about PC's on the ground. I already know.

Don't forget you can always click on the image to see it bigger.

Spring Sampler Blocks Completed!

I am so excited about this. If a project can't hold your attention set it aside for a little while. Not to long, and certainly make sure it is in a place that you will see it, so it will continue to stir within your brain. That's exactly what happened with the Spring Sampler. Just a little bit here and there, and now I've got it. With the addition of the last two blocks I have all I need for the child's camp charity quilt.

My pieced blocks will be interspersed with muslin in between. I'm thinking 8 bits of embroidery, and 4 inspirational quotes. So far I like these:

"Once you choose hope anything is possible." ~Christopher Reeve

"It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters." ~Epictetus

"A day without laughter is a day wasted." ~Charlie Chaplin

"The best way to give advice to children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it." ~Harry S. Truman

Do you know of any really good ones? I feel there must be more, but so far I'm not feeling it, so I must need a break.

The cornerstones for this quilt are butterflies, one of which can be seen in the header on the upper right. All four have been set. I need to do another load of laundry to pre-wash the muslin for embroidering.

Projects? What projects? Aren't they all done?

I made great progress yesterday on all of my sewing projects. At least the ones on the forefront of my mind that I can recall. I started off by finishing the kitchen cabinet curtains. I hemmed them and everything. Hopefully DH will be able to install them next week.

Then I moved on to the wheelchair bag. My oh my, that is one hard project. First you have to find a way for force the canvas into having all protected edges because the stuff really likes to fray, and then you have to begin assembly. Don't go to fast or else you will find that this piece should have been attached before that was. Luckily this time I didn't have any such trouble. DH was certain it would require hand sewing, but I figured out a way so everything is machine sewed. The final bag has to large openings. One extra large opening complete with gussets! (my very first ones!) as well as a medium exterior pocket just right for DD's cup or other such thing. All that is left is to install the special system I dreamed up for securing shopping bags, but that will take a trip to the hardware store. But it is very nearly ready to install. I will post photos after it is installed.

Oddly my house is also clean (okay you caught me - nearly clean) and I have a load of laundry in the dryer. Yippie! This should be a nice quiet Sunday.