Rickity Rack...Don't Talk Back

I had seen the Tie One On monthly apron themes and was really inspired. March/April's theme is rick-rack. And since my neice's 5th birthday was in March, I decided an apron would be a perfect gift. I made it reversible to double the fun.

I also made a matching hot pad and oven mit to go with it so she could play kitchen. Along with it, I made a recipe book. I just bound together some blank card stock pages and then stitched a spoon from the green fabric on the cover and wrote Recipes on the cover. I think she'll have a lot of fun with it.

My 5 year old son agreed to model for me with the promise that I would not show his face. He was embarrassed to wear a "girl apron," he said. But then he turned right around and asked if I would make one for him.

It's a Girl!

I've been so inspired by all the doll quilts shown on the Wee Wonderfuls blog and others. Plus, my daughter has become a "little mother" as of late, and she has officially named her baby doll Jenna. (She calls every baby Jenna now). So to celebrate, I made Jenna a quilt of her own. Claire loved it and promptly put Jenna to bed, as any good mother would. I actually had planned to make a doll quilt for Claire out of the leftover fabric from the quilt I made her, but I've been undecided about the design- should I mimic the design of her quilt but smaller, or do something different? In the meantime, I found these great fabrics that, I swear, jumped off the shelf and into my arms begging to be made into a doll quilt.

As promised earlier, here are two of three rows from the Paper Dolls Quilt I'm making for Claire's room. Haven't done much on it this week-after a weekend of marathon sewing and applique on it I sort of burned out. Hopefully this weekend I'll be back on it.

And here's the two fabrics I ran across at least a year or more ago. Haven't decided what I'll do with them yet.

Wanted: Photographer

OK, so just to remind everyone- I am NOT the photographer in the family. And here's proof, in case you doubted my lack of skill. I took at least 10 photos of my first ATC card for the Creative Mom Podcast March exchange. And the one below is the ONLY one that turned out. The rest ended up blurry or completely washed out...

Well, you get the idea of the card, right? It was a lot of fun and I'm excited to make more. I sent it out but have yet to hear from my recipient. And I have not yet gotten mine, but I am very excited to see it.

As promised, here's Charmin' the Monkey. My husband took this one for me, so it turned out much better than my own attempts. Hey, I can only get better, right?

I've been anxiously awaiting the two Japanese craft books I purchased from YesAsia.com. I got notice a week ago that they had been shipped, so they are on the way.

On Saturday I took Claire to the doctor for the third time because of a recurring ear infection. So she's now on her third antibiotic. And this one is upsetting her stomach, so she has been crabby and clingy since Saturday. Matthew ended up needing tubes when he was 18 months, so I keep wondering if she's on the same path. Hopefully after this round we'll be done. At least she takes it willingly- and it stays down. We used to sneak Matthew's into apple sauce and yogurt, and often he would throw it up as soon as he had it.

Miss Independent

My husband is the photographer in our family. The only thing I know how to do is turn on the camera and take a picture. The pictures I've posted have been taken by me but altered by him so that they will upload. The problem is, I have to wait for him to find some time to modify whatever needs to be modified. And his time line for doing this is not the same as mine. So I need to learn to do this for myself. I spent the morning trying to figure out how to do this, but with no luck. And I must not have the correct key words in my Google searches, because I just keep coming up with how to crop a photo, which is not what I need to do. Anyone have a resource for me? I could ask my husband to sit down and show me, but that takes time and he is swamped with school work right now. I am a smart person, you'd think I could do this on my own...

I've finished the Charmin' the Monkey quilt and it was delivered last week. I've got photos- once I figure out what to do, I'll get them on. I've also made a lot of progress on the Paper Dolls quilt. The applique is almost done and I've begun trimming the blocks to sew them together- pictures soon. I did buy some paper dolls from the B. Shackman Company. I bought the Two Little Girls by Queen Holden. There's two dolls and lots of clothes for both, so I think I will frame one with some clothes and keep the rest for when Claire is old enough to play with them.

I also finished my ATC for the Creative Mom Podcast's March exchange. And, once again, I've got pictures on the way. The hardest part was getting started, but thanks to some advice from Heidi at heidicrafts.blogspot.com, I was able to overcome my anxiety and just get started.

Paper Dolls

I've now finished 6 blocks of the paper dolls quilt and I'm really liking it. It will be perfect for Claire's room. I found a couple different paper doll fabrics that I'll use to make pillows and who knows what else for her room. My goal at this point is to get it all done before she moves into her toddler bed. I think that's a realistic goal since she's not quite 18 months!

I was taking a look at some blogs that are "new" to me, and coincidentally I took a look at the Angry Chicken blog. Lo and behold, Amy has a picture of some paper dolls she framed, and I fell in love with that idea! So I am on the search for some paper dolls I can frame to go in Claire's room.

I came across Amy's blog because I was looking up info on the Crafter's Companion, a book I've wanted to get my hands on. Amy was one of the contributers. Along my searches, I came across two other books that I preordered: one is Amy's book that's due out early summer I think: Bend-the-Rules Sewing: The Essential Guide to a Whole New Way to Sew and the other is Lotta Jansdotter's Simple Sewing: Patterns and How-To for 24 Fresh and Easy Projects, also not due out for a couple months. I'm looking forward to all three books, but alas, I have to wait for them.