I'm Back- Finally!

Wow has it been awhile. It has been a busy fall for us, and unfortunately by blog has been low on the priority list- until now.


Right after we moved, it was Claire's 2nd birthday, so we had her party right before we moved.
It's hard to believe she's 2!

Even though I haven't been blogging since this summer, I have still been busy with many projects. I've been faithfully completing my Creative Mom Podcast Artist Trading Cards. I have not been faithful about taking photos of them. But here's one- I can't even remember which month it was, but the theme was around stories. So I created an image with fabric and machine stitching from my favorite story- the Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown. I included my favorite quote from the story as well.

My cousin recently had her baby shower. I made her this chicken rattle.

And part of the theme of the shower was to bring a book, so I made this chicken counting book. I had the pattern for both from Martha Stewart.







Then I made a quilt with chickens and letters.

And here's my December ATC- Gift is the theme. So I made the top a gift with fabric wrapping and then you lift it to reveal another card on which I wrote: Life, Love, Family, Hope, Peace, Health.

July ATC: A Midsummer Night's Dream

This ATC was a challenge for me. First, I usually do not work with human images, so that was a learning experience. I also used metallic fabric for the wings and another delicate fabric for the clothing, both which frayed easily. I machine quilted the hair, wings, clothing and background and I hand stitched the body pieces to make sure they didn't come off. With all those small pieces the fusible web did not adhere very well. It was a lot of work but I'm fairly pleased with the end result.

Summer Romance

It was a typical summer romance: girl finds house, girls sells old house, girl loses new house to a noncontigent offer and now has nowhere to live... So she dresses up and goes to a party.



Things were going well- we put an offer on a great house with a huge yard and a pool. Plus it had four bedrooms (can you say studio?) and a finished basement (can you say playroom?) It was perfect for us. So in a whirlwind we cleaned our house, put tons of things in storage and put our house on the market. The day after we got a call- the owners of "our house" got a noncontingent offer and we had 72 hours to decide what we wanted to do. We had only just put up our house- we weren't sure how fast it would sell... So Monday morning we signed the papers to release the house to some lucky people. And Monday night we got an offer on our house. What a sucky day. So we're set to close September 26th. But we have no place to live as of yet.

On a happier note, I finished my August quilts. I bought the below in a kit last year and never finished it but it is now done and hanging in the living room.

So I finished my coin purses from the Pick Up Sticks kit I got at Stitch DC.

Here's the brown...

and yellow... The orange needs a zipper yet.

And I also finished the bracelet from the other Pick Up Sticks kit I got at Stitch DC this summer. The top is from the kit and the bottom is from left over yarn from my One Skein tote. These were so much fun to make and I plan to make more.

I loved the Pick Up Sticks kits so much I ordered another one from Lion- it was on clearance.

I've also had fun making these hair clips for Claire. Of course she refuses to wear any type of clip in her hair at this point, but I'm not giving up hope. I mean, how cute are these?

What!?! School supplies already?????

So the bad news is, school supplies are filling all the stores, which means school is right around the corner. And I still have one more week of summer school before my vacation really can begin! The good news is, I've been very busy working to finish some projects and to start some new ones. Below, I finished the tote and felted it- it turned out great! I love the colors!

I also made a fabric envelope for myself. How cool is this fabric? I love the heads on the angels.

I used the same fabric to make a pin cushion. I was watching "That's Clever" on TV and one of the people had the coolest ring pin cushion and I thought, I could make one of those! So then I did a blog search because I knew I wasn't the first one to think to make something like this. Sure enough, I ran into a tutorial on How About Orange. I'm still perfecting my technique, but they sure are cute!

I also saw this tutorial, also on How About Orange to make these cool fabric push pins. It was so easy and I am addicted. I bought a whole bunch of supplies to make more. It's a good thing to keep my hands busy when I watch TV.

And here's my June ATC for the exchange. The theme was "At Water's Edge" and after several attempts, I ended up with this, called: "Throwing Pebbles." I quilted it with a metallic thread, which I had not used before because I always heard they were difficult to work with, but I had no trouble at all, and I like the effect it gave. I think I'm going to use it for July's theme "Midsummer Night's Dream." I haven't started it yet but I've got some ideas roaming around.

Long Time No Blog

WOW! The last several weeks have been a whirlwind, as is obvious since it's been over a month since I've blogged. We recently got back from a week's vacation in Washington D.C. It was such a wonderful place to visit. We had a great trip, but was it exhausting with two kids! Luckily the people in DC were so very helpful and friendly to us. Above is Matthew, Claire and I in front of the White House.

Here's Matthew running up and down a grate as we waited to go up to the top of the Washington Monument. The Lincoln Memorial is in the background.

Here we are at a spring on the grounds of the Capitol.

Here's Claire posing in front of a mural at the zoo.

I finished my May ATC well enough before the end of May but did not send it out until May 30th. The theme for May was Reach for the Stars. I stitched darkening shades of blue fabric and then hand stitched gold stars with gold embroidery floss. Rather than bind it as I did last month, I stitched around the edge.

It's so very hard to believe that six years ago we were blessed when Matthew came into our lives. He is becoming more independent every day. He's almost perfected tying his shoes and he is reading fluently and is writing sentences on his own. He has always been very verbal and still to this day it amazes me his memory for things and his vocabulary. He's got this wonderful smirky smile (ses picture with me a few above) that has such as charm about it. Happy 6th Birthday Matthew!

The art teacher at our school, who also was Matthew's teacher at his school, had her second baby right before school got out. I made this quilt for the baby.

I hand stitched the fish in the white squares with a variety of colors.

Here's a close up of the fish.

My sister-in-law had her birthday in June as well, so I sent off this fabric envelope with stitched fabric cards of coordinating fabric. I saw something like this on another blog and decided to make my own. It was easy and it turned out really cute. I'm going to make one for myself as well, and probably others for future gifts. Happy Birthday Carrie! We love you!!

We wanted to do something special for Matthew's kindergarten teacher, so Matthew drew a picture of her and then I stitched it on linen with black embroidery floss and framed it. It turned out so great and she loved it.

Got lots to do. I haven't started my June ATC yet. And I have to finish a quilt for my friend's baby girl (born in March-yikes!). I'm almost done with my knitted tote- I just have to finish the handles.

While in D.C. I was able to go to Stitch DC, a knitting store. I only had about 15 minutes, but I bought two kits. One for a felted bracelet and one for three felted coin purses. I'd like to get started on those. Plus I got a cross stitch kit of Mount Vernon while we were there. I've already started that. For some reason I've been on a embroidery kick lately, so I'll go with that flow for a while. Lastly, I just got two books I had ordered today int he mail. I'll take a look and talk about those next time. Hopefully I'll be back in a habit of blogging every week or so now that things have slowed down. I start summer school on Monday so I'm off to enjoy my last days of no work.

Too Much Life

Ever have too much life? That's how it's been these past several weeks. Things are always hectic at work at the end of the school year. There are last minute projects to finish, lessons to teach, paperwork to complete and the students check out for the summer early. On top of that, there's Teacher Appreciation, Mother's Day, Matthew's birthday, Father's Day, a vacation to plan and summer school to get ready for (I teach summer school and my husband stays home with the kids).

And inevitably, one or both kids ends up sick. This year it was a trip to the ER with my son after he had fallen from a slide at school and hit his head pretty hard. Everything ended up just fine, thankfully. And then right after my daughter developed Roseola, which is not too big of a deal really, just a low grade fever for three days and then a rash. But it meant staying home with her when we're already pretty close to being out of sick time for the year.

So, needless to stay, much of my creative time has been spent falling into bed exhausted each night. My knitted tote still needs several repeats. My wrist got sore after some marathon knitting and I had to take a break from it this week. I finished my May ATC and will post photos as soon as my husband gives up the camera. He's using it for a project with his class at school and apparently feels I may accidentally erase the photos from the memory card. Honestly, where's the trust? And I did make some fabric note cards for my mom and a small pineapple wall hanging for my grandma. I'm still working on the gift for my mother-in-law. But her and my father-in-law have been sick with the respiratory flu and we dare not see them until they're no longer contagious. So I'll be able to finish that this week. Plus, my friend from worked hired me to make 24 fabric note cards for her mother and mother-in-law. So life has been busier than usual. It always seems at this time of year there is definitely too much life.

But with those two adorable faces, who can complain!

Enjoy the Flowers Blooming Today

It's been difficult this past week and a half to keep motivated. I've been really tired and by the time I get the kids to bed it's all I can do to fall into bed myself. Partly its because its the end of the school year and things are so hectic at work. Partly because of the great weather the past few weekends and we've been outside finally and it's exhausting.

I did get my May quilt done, a few days before May even.

And I've gotten through two increases of the four on the tote. I'm loving the colors and the stripe pattern. It's been hard to take in the car though because of the constant switching of color. So it hasn't been going quite as fast as the bottom.

Since I've been too tired to do much sewing, I have been able to do some reading. I recently bought Crafter's Companion, a book which highlights many of the talented crafters whose blogs I read regularly. When I first skimmed the book at the bookstore I almost didn't get it. I went through and looked at the projects included, and many of them seemed pretty basic and very similar to each other. There are 5 totes/purses out of the 17 projects. But then as I started to look more closely and do some reading, I decided to buy it after all. Now that I've read about half the book, I really like it. Each artist talks about why they create, what inspires them to create and how they set up their workspace. So many of the points made connect with my own feelings about creating- and what's been interesting to me is there hasn't been just one or two people that I have connected with- but really all of them have made statements that sound like my own vision for my creativity. We all have creative strengths and weaknesses, and this book has really helped me to consider what I think of as weaknesses in me.

I have always had a need to create, as far back as I can remember I enjoyed making things. I remember going to a wedding when I was fairly young. I took an empty shampoo bottle, cleaned off the labels and washed and dried the inside and I made it into a gift, writing some messages and putting them in the bottle. After the wedding, I got the loveliest thank you note. It was the best validation a young girl could have gotten, and that memory is with me still.

On the flip side, I also remember my struggles with "art" classes in school. I had (and still have) terrible penmanship and limited drawing skills. It seems my hands just cannot translate what I see. As a seventh grader, I remember working so hard on a project and being so proud of it, only to get D grade. It really was at that point of my life that I considered myself to be a non-artist. It is difficult still to think back on the frustration I felt at my hands not being able to do what I wanted them to.

It is these experiences, along with so many others, that have shaped my creative life and to some extent, have placed limits on my creativity that I still to this day have a hard time breaking though. I see myself as a literal artist when I so want to translate what inspires me into something new, yet me. Tami Palladino, who sent me her ATC for April entitled "Enjoy the Flowers" had written "Enjoy the flowers that are blooming today" on the front of the card. And for some reason that made me right away think of my children. Before that; however, I thought about April's theme "A World in Bloom" so literally. I thought of flowers. And after I saw her card, I realized that I missed so many possibilities.

And so the growing as an artist and a mother continues.... I will enjoy what is blooming today.

Could It Be? Yes, It Is! SPRING!

Finally some wonderful weather here in Wisconsin! It was a great weekend of playing outside after a crummy week of being back to work. My husband and my brother went fishing so I took the kids to the zoo today. It was so crowded but we had a great time. It's great having a zoo pass and being only 10 minutes away because we can go there for a couple hours and we don't have to feel like we have to get our money's worth.

I finished the doll quilt for my niece's birthday. Another wonderful reminder of spring. I sewed on two flower buttons- so cute. I embroidered a ladybug...

and a butterfly...

and it turned out really cute. I made a pillow to go with it.

I also got some knitting done on my felted tote. I did most on my way to and from work- it's about an hour drive to drop off my daughter at daycare, my son at his school and then my husband and I drive to our school. The base is done and I'm ready to start the stripe pattern.

And yet another inspiration from spring... My son painted this at school, and I was so wonderfully shocked! His favorite color always seems to be black and most of his art work is done in ONE COLOR ONLY. We try to encourage him to use a variety of colors, but he has his own mindset. That is why this piece is so precious to me- the vivid colors plus the stripes and dots. I'm definitely going to frame it.

Teapots and Tiny Quilts and Aprons, Oh My!

Tomorrow I'm back to work after a week off. Sigh! The good news is that I finally finished this Teapot Quilt that I started last summer. It's from the Fons and Porter Love of Quilting May/June 2006 issue. It wasn't a hard quilt, and it's small, so there's really no excuse as to why it took me a year to finish. It sure feels good to have it done in time for this year's spring/summer season. I need to find a good place in the kitchen to hang it now.

I also completed my April ATC for the Creative Mom Podcast exchange. The theme: A World In Bloom. I used the same fabrics as the Teapot Quilt. Then I embroidered a ladybug and a flower. Remember, this quilt is only 2.5 x 3.5 inches. It's tiny! It was a real challenge to work in these small proportions. Instead of traditional batting I used Timtex as the middle layer to keep it very stiff, like a card. The backing is the red polka dot fabric and then I bound it with the green floral, as you can see. I machine quilted it around all the middle squares and the border. What fun!

I also finished an apron for Matthew. He picked out the colors and I worked on it after he went to bed so it was done the next day. He posed for this still in his pjs. We then got out all our pretend food and set up restaurant in his room. The red square in the middle is a big pocket. I was going to make one for my daughter as well but she had no interest in his, so I may hold off on hers a while. I am working on a jumper for her that I started- you got it- last year. I'm not even sure if it will fit her this summer. But if it doesn't, I'll give it to one of the moms I know who could use it. Right now I'm stuck because I have to put in 3 button holes, which I HATE doing- even more than zippers. And I haven't done any button holes on my Bernina yet. So I read the manual trying to figure it out. I'm just going to have to sit down one night and practice- not how I really want to spend an evening when I have so many other projects to do. I still have a baby quilt for my friend Lori's daughter and a birthday gift for my niece to make.