The fury before the cold...

This may sound strange, but...you know how women go through "nesting" when pregnant? Well, I go through the same thing whenever I'm about to be very sick with a bad cold. On Friday the 16th I came home from work and had this burst of energy, which is very unusual for me on a Friday; usually I can barely get the kids to bed before I crash. Anyway, that night after the kids were in bed I did all the week's laundry and cleaned the whole house, including washing the kitchen floor. That NEVER happens- unless I'm about to get sick (or give birth). Sure enough, Saturday morning I woke up with that tell-tale tickle in the throat which turned into a stuffy nose and headache by noon which turned into "Who put these ten bricks on my chest?" by evening. It got worse from there. All week I suffered from extreme congestion and a terrible cough which no cold medicine known to man helped. That meant little-to-no sleep and of course it had to be one of the busiest weeks at work- and with two little kids, I'm down to like almost no sick days left.... so I suffered through the week and relied heavily on my wonderful significant other (Thanks, hunny!). And needless to say, no sewing or knitting or anything of any kind got done. Thankfully I seem to be on the mend, and only go through the occasional coughing jag, which of course still happens as soon as I lie down to sleep. But this week I am determined to get SOMETHING done.

One minor accomplishment- I did sign up for the March ATC exchange with Amy from the Creative Mom podcast, one of my favorites! I'm really looking forward to trying this out. It will be my first ATC and I'm really excited to give it a try. I'm looking forward to hearing what the theme is- she'll be announcing it today, I think.

Project Planning

A month ago I bought a few fabrics to start my Celebration tote from the Quilted Bags and Purses book. Well yesterday I headed over to my LQS to look for a few more and to get some fabric for the binding of my Turning Twenty as well as some more for the border and binding for my Charmin' Monkey. Well, I got everything I needed except for the monkey fabric, so I came home and ordered it online.

I also ordered two patterns from Hillary Lang on her Wee Wonderfuls Blog. I got Spaceboy & Robot and Kitty, Bunny and Bear. My five year old son Matthew is so excited to start working on the robot and spaceboy. At least a year ago I took one of his drawings and turned it into a stuffed creature for him. He's loved it so much I've had to make several "repairs" on it. Then a few months ago I was relaxing at the bookstore in some rare time alone (hubby watched the kids) and I came across the book Plush-o-Rama by Linda Kopp. I bought it and brought it home to show to Matthew. He immediately fell in love with Onimushi, designed by Jen Rarey. I made it for him and he has given it lots of love as well. Since, then, I've been checking out a lot of other designers of cool creatures. I really like Lizette Greco because she uses her children's artwork as inspiration for her designs.

In the meantime while we wait in earnest for my orders, I will try to tackle the demon that is my Turning Twenty quilting dilemma.

Little Projects

So I've been busy working on a few "little" projects to give myself a break from some of the "bigger" things I'm doing. I made this bag from the pattern in Quilts and More Winter 2006 Issue. The pattern is designed by Bonnie Kozowski. What's really cool about it is that the handles are two different lengths so that you tuck one handle through the other and that closes the bag. It's got pockets inside to put little things and I've been using it to carry my socks I'm knitting so I can knit on the way to work. I used fabric from the new Kaffe Fassett line. LOVE the colors!!!!

I got the idea for these cards quilted with fabric from the Denyse Schmidt Quilts book. I made 8 of them to give to a friend I work with for her birthday. They were alot of fun and didn't take long at all. After I made them I bought a whole pack of cards so I can make a bunch more.

Other than that, I've been working hard on the Charmin' Monkey quilt. No photos yet. I basically used the pattern for the applique, but after that I've done my own thing. I decided I didn't like the monkey set on the diagonal, so I put him straight. In the pattern the borders around the monkey are same sized charm squares. It looked too, well, square for me. So I varied the size and alternated the pieced shapes with 3 inch strip borders. It's looking really good so far. I'm almost done but I've run out of the fabric I was using for the strip border so I was thinking of ordering more so I could maybe put one more strip border on and then the binding. The quilt is going to my friend's newborn daughter Chloe. She's 3 months already so I have got to get this done!

Figuring it all out

So it's taken me some time to get my photos on my blog. I'm still trying to figure out how to do all the things I want to do. Here's my Turning Twenty quilt. Still at a mental block about what I should do for the rest of the quilting.

Here's an up-close of the quilting I did for the square blocks...

So the quilting really sets apart those squares. I really like how it looks. If I do quilt the rectangles, I'm not sure what design to use. I was thinking about doing one or two and seeing how I like it.

Sew Much to Do, Sew Little Time

So does anyone else have grandiose plans of all the things you will accomplish one you get home from work only to find that by the time dinner's made, kids are in bed and things are organized for the next day that you're too exhausted to even think, let alone sew? This is the story of my life right now. I have so many UFOs sitting around begging to be completed, I could probably never start a new project for the rest of my days and still die with things unfinished! Sigh! I did manage to knit about 10 rows on one of my socks in the last two nights-pretty pathetic though.

Right now I'm in the process of machine quilting my queen size Turning Twenty quilt. I got the Bernina 440 QE with the BSR about a year ago, right after my daughter was born. I did quite a bit of piecing and sewing on it but just didn't have the time to sit down and practice with the BSR. Finally I decided I was going to learn. I had never free motion machine quilted before, so there was a huge learning curve for me. I got tired really quickly of just "practicing" and figured I might as well just quilt a "real" project and let go of the fact that it would not be perfect. At least I'll be able to say, "This was my first quilt I free motion quilted. Look at how much I've improved since then." So I went on over to my LQS and bought some templates and just started. I've quilted all the square blocks with a large flower. I used a variegated thread and I like how it turned out, although there are many zigs and zags where I lost control of the fabric. Now I'm stuck because I like how the squares stand out. So I'm not sure if I should just leave it or if I should quilt something in the rectangles. And if so, what?

In the meantime, I've been appliqueing the blocks for my daughter's Paper Dolls quilt. I started it before she was born, and she's a little over a year now, so this had been a slow project. There is just a lot of applique and I find I get bored of doing the same thing. I just can't work on one project at a time start to finish. So I've been working on some other little things in between the two quilts.

I've been slowly making the Through the Year Quilts from Art to Heart. I made all of them for my mom and mother-in-law and finally started mine. I finished January in time to put it up and now I've appliqued February and just have to put it together and quilt it. Maybe I'll have enough energy to get it done tonight, since February is almost here...


Did it!

Wow, that was easier than I thought!

So I finally decided after many months to take the plunge and start my blog. I am a 30 something wife and mother of two. And I am an avid quilter and knitter. My wonderful husband bought me my ipod for Christmas last year and since then I have been listening to almost every podcast on knitting and sewing/quilting. It was during the last year that I also began reading many blogs. But for some reason I felt at a loss when it came to starting my own blog. It was when I listened to Alex Anderson's BIG announcement in her 48th podcast episode and then in her 50th episode when she talked about learning new things that I decided I would just dig in and learn along the way. So here goes...