Oh the Weather Outside is Frightful, but Sewing is So Delightful

As a major spring snowstorm has hit Wisconsin, we have camped out for the day. We're all on spring break, which means we could just stay in our pjs all day. Matthew worked on his school project in the morning. He decided that for his project he would combine paint colors to see what he would get. So he's been painting swatches with two colors and then mixing them to paint a third swatch. I'm having him paint on card stock and then we'll take a square punch to make squares of each color. He wants to hide the resulting color to make it a guessing game for the show. So we'll cover up the resulting color so people can guess what the result will look like. Today he chose to combine red and white, yellow and black and orange and green. It was so cool to watch him go through the process and excitedly trying to guess what the resulting color would look like. He knew that the red and white would make pink, but the other two were harder for him to figure out. Afterwards, his dad said that maybe he should have just stayed with primary colors, but I'm glad he didn't. He already knows the primary combinations, so I thought his project should be his way to explore color and how they combine together. It's his project, and so I just got out all the paint colors we had, which is a huge tub-full, and I let him choose what he wanted.

I was able to get quite a bit of sewing done today while Claire took her naps and Matthew and his dad played. I finished this quilt for newborn Charley, and hopefully I'll get it in the mail to him this week.

Spring in Wisconsin? Yeah, right!

Easter is tomorrow and it's snowing here in the Milwaukee area. Typical. We have no spring in Wisconsin really- it goes right from winter to summer. A couple weeks ago we did have a day or two of beautiful weather, in which I took all my spring/summer clothes out of storage. I don't know why I did this to myself. Every year I promise I will NOT bring out the summer clothes until May. But every year we get one or two nice days earlier, and I excitedly get out all the summer things and lovingly gaze at the pink and turquoise and aqua colors. And then, the temperature falls to 30 and it snows. And I am left depressed and I longinly gaze at all the summery items in my closet only to have to shove them aside for my black and grey turtle necks and sweaters.

At least I can use spring fabrics in my projects. That is my only solace at this point in the year.


I made these notecards for my friend Arran's birthday. They were alot of fun to make.

Yesterday we were visiting my in-laws in Racine and the Yarn Garden used to be right down the road from them. So I excitedly drove over to get soem yarn for a new project. But they had just moved to a new location, and the address was left of the door. I don't know the area well at all, so I was going to give up and go back, but then I decided that I NEEDED to work on something springy, so I stopped and got directions and I was on my way again. When I got there, they were unpacking and organizing and not really opened. But the owner let me come in and shop, which was so sweet and gracious. I got these colors in Cascade 220 to make the striped tote in the One Skein book. As you can see, I've already wound the first ball and I cast on late last night when we got home.

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.