My valentine

Ok this is a little late…but better late than never right?  Several days before valentine’s day Bob spent a couple of evenings being very mysterious.  I knew he was making me a valetine, but he totally had me stumped when he asked to use my sewing machine.  I was wondering what in the world he could be making.  So those evenings he headed back to my sewing room with his laptop and scanner.  Very strange, I thought.  But this valentine that he made me, well I just love it and want all to know that I have the best husband ever!  He used a blank board book, and sewed these papers together to create a beautiful simple valentine that made me cry.  I love you huns!

           

          

          

Organizing

I’ve been busy working on making a few more gifts, so of course I can’t post on them until I give them away!  But I’ll get some pictures up once they are given.  I guess I should get better about taking pictures of the process, so I can at least give sneak peaks of the fabric.  (and have something to post about while I’m sewing away)
         
Speaking of fabric, I’ve been organizing this morning.  I now have a small chest of drawers in my sewing room and it has rows of lovely organized fabric.  A lot of my fabric has been given to me, so some of it I don’t like, but don’t get rid of it either, because you never know when I might want to use it right?  That’s a hard one.  One blog I read says life’s too short to sew with ugly fabric.  And I think that’s a good motto to live by when sewing.  But sometimes when I’m making a gift for someone I choose fabric I know they are going to love, but its not always my style or first choice.  I guess its the balance between personal artistic expression in what you make and what you know someone is just going to love.   

I’ve been thinking more and more about starting up an etsy shop.  Bob and I have made some strong goals of getting our mounds of student loans paid off.  His plate is more than full so he’s not in a position to take on extra work at this point.  So I’ve been pondering sewing some things to sell and get rid of our debt faster!  I’m contemplating some names for an etsy shop.  I’m not good at this.  There is already a “sew much more” shop, so that’s out.  Here’s a few ideas I’ve come up with.  Water Oak Creations or Designs or Handmade (we have this amazing water oak in our yard that I just love), Washing Room Creations, Laundry Room Designs,  (my sewing room is also my laundry room), The Blue Paisley (after my curtains in my sewing room), St. Elmo Handmade.  I’m really not sure if I like any of those yet or not.  Any ideas?  I really need some input.  Maybe if selling on etsy works out well I’ll end up changing my blog name too.  We’ll see, I can dream right?

Pumped

So I was just on my way to bed, trying for an early night and decided to check out some crafty blogs.  Well, 50 minutes later… I’m so completely surprised and excited and will never get to sleep tonight for all of the quilting ideas floating through my head.  I ran across Sew, Mama, Sew and their quilting theme for this month. 

I’ve totally been getting into quilting recently and I just love how they pull together many online, blogging, modern quilters.  This is just the resources that I need right now.  I wish I could give them a huge hug.  I have a couple of books, and love them.  But this month of quilting, ah I’m ecstatic!  This is great.  Sometimes these days I feel like I have so many creative ideas just bubbling under the surface waiting to explode into reality.  I have more sewing aspirations than time that’s for sure.  But I’m so thankful for this resource.  I love Sew, Mama, Sew, its the best. Gush, gush. 

Valentines

A day filled with fun cards from grandparents, lunchtime hearts, sweets and a valentine for my love. 

            

             

            

             

   

These days Alice consistantly stops, takes notice of who she’s with and says in her enthusiastic little voice “we’re to-ghe-ghe.” (hence that word on Bob’s valentine)  I love that us being together as a family is something that already brings joy to her little heart.

And when we return from Kentucky, I must take some pictures of the valentine Bob sewed, glued, and printed for me.  Intrigued?  Its wonderful!

Mixer

                             

I’ve never owned a mixer in my married life.  We got a hand held mixer when first married, and that’s been replaced once, but we’ve never had a real live heavy duty mixer.  That’s part of the reason I don’t bake much.  The other part is that I can’t eat sweets.  Its just hard to smell freshly baked cookies and pass them up.   But that will be changing. 

Because I’ve been given this amazing kitchen aid mixer!  My grandfather has moved south and is in the process of selling his house.  I know its been a hard transition for him, he lived in his house for 62 years!  I’m just so thankful that I could have some of the things that he has held dear over the years.  We were given my grandparent’s first bedroom set, lots of baking items, a beautiful quilt that is still on its way to me (I’ll post a picture when it comes), and this mixer.  I love the color and how it goes with my kitchen cabinets.    But more than that, I love that this is the mixer lovingly used by my grandmother and grandfather for many years.  Their Christmas tradition for as long as I can remember was to make and give away Christmas cookies.  I think they got up to making about 15 different kinds of Christmas cookies every year.  I remember the thrill and excitement as a child when they came in the mail.  What special memories.  So now I have the opportunity to continue making special memories with my family as I use this mixer.  I’m so thankful. 

Baby Brown’s Quilt

Our good friends adopted their precious baby boy in December and we had a baby shower for them yesterday.  I had fun making this one, and it went really fast too, which is always nice.  This brown squirrel fabric is a super soft baby flannel I found at JoAnns.  There’s just something about those little squirrels, so cute.  This blanket is not quilted but tied instead; though, not with actual ties, since its for a baby.  I just used a machine stitch on each corner.  I forgot to measure, but its around 40 inches square.  I also used the cheat method in doing the binding.  I cut the backing fabric (squirrel fabric) big enough so that I could double fold it around to the front and then machine stitch the binding in place.  Wow that went so much faster than any other binding I’ve done before.  Its simple piecing and simple quilting for a simply beautiful little boy.  We’re so thankful for Brown!

          

                   

The Closet is Done!

                              

                      

I started this closet cleaning challenge back in November.  It turns out you shouldn’t start projects like this right before Thanksgiving and Christmas when you’ve got a million other things to work on.  But hey, we finally finished it and I love it!  We can actually walk into it a bit now, instead of the contents pouring out of it.  I love, simply love, how organized the tools and cleaning supplies are with the peg board.  It may not be pretty, but hey that stuff is practical!  Bob painted the closet for me using a bright blue we found in the basement, free paint is great.  I got the shelving at Lowes, with the kids by myself.  That was a bit of an adventure.  Its press board covered with formica, but it works since the span of the shelves isn’t too wide.  Its sold in 12 foot lengths, so we got it cut before we brought it home.  I love that you can have Lowes cut something exactly the size you need it.  It just saves so much project time once you get home.  Overall, I’m super happy with how the closet turned out and we are totally inspired to take on our other closets.  Yes we have others that look like a bomb went off inside.  We’ll get there.  I’m just greatful to have the storage space!

Sara’s Quilt

                  

My good friend Sara just had a baby boy and I made this quilt for him.  I made it out of baby flannel so its super soft.  The quilt is a little less than 40 inches square.  The fabric has little owls on it, some with mama and baby owls together.  I love it!  I found the fabric at JoAnn Fabrics in Lexington, KY over Christmas.  Oh how I wish we had a JoAnn’s close by here.  The selection is amazing compared to Hancocks. 

I wanted to try some more complicated pieceing for this quilt and I had fun doing it.  I cut out tons of little triangles, and learned a lot about piecing them together.  I used this free pattern to make it, I definitely needed to follow a pattern for a design that was this complicated.  I used Joelle Hoverson’s book and Denise Schmidt’s book a ton for tips and help in the quilting process.  I’m so glad I got these books.  I know I’ll use them a lot in the future. 

Making this quilt was a lot of fun, and made me realize that I’d really like to take a quilting class sometime in the next year.  I’ve heard of a store over by the Rave that has classes, maybe I’ll look them up.  I’ve also been thinking about making some cute things to sell.  But for now I have so many new babies to make cute things for, so esty will have to wait.  But maybe someday?