And the Winner is....

Rebecca from Our Busy Little Bunch....

Thank you everyone for letting me know that you are still out there and still reading.

Have a great weekend!

Leslie

Scrap Happiness!!

This week i decided i needed a fast and easy project(i am talking 24 hours from piecing to binding). I also wanted to have a go at some of my scraps!! A personal scrap challenge, if you will, which I found to be harder than i thought. I just can not help myself, i always want to make the fabrics match!

In comes husband....i asked him for help. "Please Hubby, go through my scraps and pile up the ones that look good." He sure did and even snuck in a challenge piece to see if i would use it...can you find the pirate ship?

This denim wonky star is my favorite one. I always see scrap quilts and am stunned at how great they look when nothing is the same color and everything is random.

Right down to the bindings i used scraps...these had been in my bucket all ready to go from previous finished projects.

Today i want to say thank you to the blog friends out there that are still reading my blog. I would love to send you one of these mug rugs as a thank you!!! Please just leave a comment to let me know you were here and i will choose a winner by the end of the week.

Leslie

Ruby Stacks

Ruby!!

When i saw this new(ish) line i knew i wanted to make something with it...something that would live at our house.

Add Simplify with Camille Roskelley and i had the perfect combination. Her line of fabric and her book!

I am so happy to have a friend to quilt with so we are working on this quilt together...each in our own line of fabric. Makes it so much more fun!! Although she is much more motivated than me so she is a few steps ahead of me on this one.

I can not wait to see the finish on this!

Leslie

Hoarding? Addiction?

This post is not nearly as dramatic as i made the title sound!!!

However, i have a confession, i have somewhat of a quilt book addiction, hence i hoard them. So many are new, thanks to my wonderful husband who surprises me with books from my amazon list all of the time. Sweet , wonderful man! There are so many amazing quilts to oogle in these!

It is my grand plan to go through these this weekend and pick some things to make. There are a few i know for sure, from Jelly Babies and Block Party....and a few that are already in the works from Simplicity.

I have also recently overcome my mental block with free motion quilting. I will likely save it for the small more manageable things while i get better at it, but i tried it out...just went for it and loved it.

I had a ah-ha moment when i was getting this table runner ready to quilt. I
realized that when i had tried FMQ before i did not set my stitch length to the shortest i could. Man did that make a difference.

These little bags are the completion of my first money making sewing endeavor. I am relieved that they all are off to their new homes. It felt a little strange to get money for my work!!! But cool too!

Leslie

Not Just a Box

As all parents know, this time of year we often see our little ones having more fun with the boxes their new toys came in, instead of their new toys. Right?

I had seen this idea to make a box more fun one day when i was cruising around pinterest....wasting time. There was a surprise waiting inside this big box for Delilah when she woke from her nap the other afternoon.

That's right, this is no ordinary box.....it is Not a Box(check out the book it is pretty cute)...it is a box of lights, a disco box!!!

She entered hesitantly, but once inside she was amazed by it all. She makes the cutest sounds of wonder and amazement!!!

You can see the joy all over her face.

I love how something this simple can entertain and captivate a little one for so long. Even my big kids(9 and 7) were quite taken with it!

Lets be honest i want to crawl in there for a little while and just enjoy the pretty lights and let all the busyness of Christmas go away for a bit.

Merry Christmas to you all. Thanks for being such wonderful blog friends. I hope you all have a great Christmas with your families, friends and loved ones.

Leslie

In the Throws of it All

Time seems to fly by so quickly in the time between the holidays. The days get past before i even know what has happened.

There has been plenty to blog about, i have just been remiss in taking the time.

There has been a big birthday to blog about. Our sweet little has turned 1. There will be more pictures of this to come, for all the aunties that might want to see.... How has a year flown so quickly?




There is a new money making craft project to blog about!!! I have never made money from my sewing before but i am committed and in the throws of it now. I made one of these for a little neighbors birthday and they were a hit. 10 have been ordered!!!



There have been other crafts(crochet and sewing)made around here to blog about too!

And of course there all the yummy treats to blog about and share this time of year. I can not make my blog friends a plate of this goodness, though i wish i could, but i can direct you to the links where you can find the recipes and make them for yourselves. Both of these are to die for....peppermint bark rice krispie treats from Our Best Bites and below is caramel popcorn from Making More with Less.

Who knew making your own was so easy and fast? We saw her post and had it made and we were eating it within half an hour.

Leslie

Gingerbread House of the Century

My awesome friend JOnelle makes an amazing gingerbread house every year. This years, set to music, was awesome...no amazing...no fantastic. So amazing that i wanted to share it with any of you that were willing to watch it out there. You really must!!! She(and husband) is so talented!!!

Gingerbread House 2011 from Jonelle Yates on Vimeo.

Tree Pants....Destination Germany

I learned from Sew Mama Sew blog that this is tree pants, not a tree skirt. I guess because it is square not round.

Who knew?! :o)

This was finally done and a long time in the making for my very dear and wonderful friend Jonelle in Germany. She, many moons ago, asked me to make her a Christmas tree skirt in blue, white and some silver. Then she trusted me to make something for her. Time passed, a baby was born and 2 Christmas's later it is under her tree instead of in my WIP pile.

I made it reversible, not so much by design, but because i wanted to make sure to use all of the fabric i had bought for the project. Chris(hubby) suggested the straight line quilting, hoping that it would look a little like a snowflake(roughly). All in all i am calling it a success....mostly because i know she loves it and it has a wonderful home.

love you Jonelle

Leslie

Scrappy Rail Fence Quilt Complete

It is all done, and off to a new home! Auction complete. I love how it turned out.

This is my first experience quilting with minky and i think i am going to have to use it again. It made this little quilt go from cute to so warm and cozy and thick!!! So nice i might need one for me!

I had some concerns with how I was going to hand stitch the binding using the minky as backing, but i did not need to be worried. It worked out just fine. I think the only down side to using this stuff is the fluff and fuzz it leaves all over the house when you are cutting and sewing it. Oh my goodness.

I used simple straight lines for quilting. The best was the way the pattern showed through on the back.

Leslie

School Fun

Aren't my students cute!? This is how we homeschool with a baby. By the seat of our pants, with many hands on the baby and lots of patience.

This day we had begun reading a book about a little boy who took his first flying lesson when he was 10. Then i remembered that i had seen this cool paper airplane while i was stumbling around the internet.


The Soda Straw Plane, on this awesome blog called All for the Boys.

this is all you need....a soda straw, some tape, scissors and a 4x6 or 3x5 card.

Cut the card into three strips.

Tape two together into a circle to make one end of the plane and then tape the last piece into another circle to make the opposite end. Tape them onto the straw, putting the straw on the inside of the circle, as straight as you can.

Then fly that plane. It is amazing, and flies worlds better than your traditional paper plane.

The kids had so much fun. And that is how i want every hoemschool day to turn out, in a perfect world. :o)

Leslie

The Toughest Event on the Planet

So they claim!!

This weekend, past, Chris and his friends participated in the Tough Mudder. A long, wet, muddy obstacle race! They loved it! It is like a little boys, ahem, I mean big boys dream.

These first two shots are shortly after they had gone through the starting obstacles....wet freezing cold giant mud puddles.

The kids were all so excited to see everything they could and to cheer on the daddies. Good thing my friend, the other mom, was thinking and brought them things to make signs with, because shortly after this shot we saw them coming....

...filthy dirty from head to toe, in ears and across teeth, and everywhere else imaginable. Bumped, bruised and bleeding!
They say their feet have never been softer after running with shoes full of wet sand all day.

At the finish of the race they were given a beer and a headband to prove that they had done it. Delilah is modeling it quite nicely, and no we might have shared the headband with her but their is no Dos Equis for dos babies.

And the clothes, well they really will never be the same.

Hooray Chris, you did it. Months of planning and training are over. We are so proud of you, tough mudder!!!

Leslie

WIP Wednesday

When Wednesday's come around i always try to decide if i am feeling wordless or have i been crafty lately and do i have WIP's i can share. Mostly the answer is wordless, so i show you a cute picture of my kids. This week i have actual projects to share. Hooray!!!

I unearthed some of my Amy butler stash from the very bottom of the pile and put together this topper! I did it with strips(fast) but added the diagonals to make it a little more interesting. Husband thinks i should try to overcome my fear of FMQ and go for it. Do you think? Or hand quilting?

I have also been working on a baby quilt...it is a scrappy rail fence. I used the same fabrics i had in my fall table topper and just went for it...trimming as i went to get the right size and i really think i like how it came out. The blocks are trimmed to 6" making the quilt about 32"x40".

I think i will be backing it in minky to make it really cozy and a little more interesting, and then it is going to auction for my husbands work. I hope it finds a new happy home. :o(

it is the WIP Wednesday anniversary, go see what all those crafty ladies have made.

Leslie