Two Happy Birthdays to Me

So January 28th was the first birthday of my blog. So hard to think that I've been doing this for a year! And tomorrow is my 37th birthday. I think... Every year I sortof forget how old I really am and as the day approaches, I have to calculate my age-to-be based on my birth date. I try not to get to philosophical about the whole thing. It's a standing joke that every year I say I'll be 29. The year I turned 29 was very emotional for me. I got drunk, sat around and listened to all the music played in the 90's when I was in college and bawled. Since then, my birthday age has not bothered me. I think because at 30 I had my son, and since then I've been too busy to care about my increasing age. Besides, how can you be depressed on your birthday when presents are involved? Seriously!

So in celebration of my birthdays, I knit myself a cupcake from the One Skein book. I've wanted to do this since I bought the book, and now I'm hooked. It took a couple tries with needle size. I am a loose knitter and therefore had to go down to a size 2 for the base and 7 for the top. I made the base 2 1/4 inches tall as the pattern said, but it ended up being too tall, so I had to sew the top on further down. The next one, which I've already started, I'll make slightly shorter. It was quick to make and a lot of fun, so I can't wait to make more.

The theme for January's ATC was Beginning. I titled mine, "Beginning a New Day." A reminder that every day is new, and to live it that way.

And with the new year, I've been giving some thought to my word for 2008, something that will help to inspire me in my life and creativity.

com·plete

–adjective
1. having all parts or elements; lacking nothing; whole; entire; full

2. finished; ended; concluded
3. having all the required or customary characteristics, skills, or the like; consummate; perfect in kind or quality

4. thorough; entire; total; undivided, uncompromised, or unmodified

-verb (used with object)
5. to make whole or entire

6. to make perfect

7. to bring to an end; finish

8. to consummate

Resolutions and...

My 2008 resolutions:
1. Walk at least 3 days a week during my half hour lunch at work.
2. Reduce my caffeine dependency (I am a coffee and Mountain Dew addict- my excuse is that caffeine is the only thing that keeps me, well, alive, at this point with two young children, a full time job and my sewing, knitting and crafting.)
3. Finish my UFO's!!!!
4. Start what I have planned- This is a major one for me because I am a perfectionist and this can really hold me back. I'll have a plan but will be afraid to experiment. Or I will avoid cutting into fabric until I have the "perfect" project, which never seems to come along.

I'm trying to come up with a single word to encompass these goals I've set for myself but it needs a little more thought.

Fabric bought for bags...

and kitchen accessories for Claire.

We set up her kitchen where the Christmas tree was and I made her a tablecloth. I want to make her towels and an oven mitt, placemats and an apron too.

Starting to piece together the bocks for a queen sized quilt I'm working on.

A dino quilt finished for a new baby.

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.