Getting Ready

Well, I've been keeping myself very busy in the crafting department getting ready for the arrival of Miss Emilee Jane. (yes, that was pretty much a name announcement) Emilee is my middle name, Jane is my mother's, and we've always wanted to use it! Very fun. Anyway, I've finished the bumpers for her crib. I fell in LOVE with this fabric when I saw it (Michael Miller 'kids toille'), and I love the bumpers so much! I've been waiting for a sunny day to take photos of them because it's been so dark and rainy, but it's not looking like there is even one in the forecast, so, here are some kind of dark photos. There will be a quilt out of the same fabrics to follow. I LOVE it! (Yes, I am well aware I have three months left to wait!)

I know they must be cute, because Gordon is suddenly suggesting we paint the nursery green! An idea I am all for. He even suggested we could do frogs on Chandler's side, and this on Emilee's. I love it Gordon! Don't be too surprised when I come home with the paint hunny! :)

Here is one more sneak peek at some sunshine that's being cooked up for a little girl. . .

Ohio Rose

Here is the finished project of the quilt that Nicole Heiney and I did together. While she was on bed rest with her twins, Anna and Grace (They're here!) I sent her the cut out applique' pieces, and she stitched them by hand onto the white squares. Then she sent them back to me and I put them into a quilt top, and quilted the whole thing free motion style. It's gorgeous! I definitely need to learn how to applique'! This is too cute!

This one's for the girls. . .

I put out that disclaimer, because I know if you are male, this entry will probably give you little to no thrill. But, I love crafting so I will share what I do! So, if you are a member of the opposite sex, feel free to skip this one, I'm not offended at all. I know how it works. After all, I am surrounded by males!

Happy Birthday to. . . who? This is a super fun quilt I did for a girlfriend's upcoming birthday. Is your birthday coming up? Maybe you are the lucky gal? I love it. It's the first quilt I've ever done that I'm giving away, that I think I might just have to make one for myself. It would look so delicious on my chocolate brown couches! Gordon mocked me royally as I set up my "photo shoot" for this one on the front porch. "We have neighbors, you know!" :) Well, now I guess they'll know how nutty I am for my quilts! I love the back too. I used extra scraps instead of one big piece, and I just love it. Yum yum yum. . .

And this just made me smile all afternoon. My sewing table looks so sweet with this little baby present hanging here waiting to be delivered. I love it when my friends have babies, so I can buy something sweet, and maybe even monogram it. So who do you know with these initials? Fun presents coming their way. . .

Like I said, if you're a male, you probably don't get this. But that's okay. I'm a girl and I like being one! And I understand. . . I don't really like watching football. . .

Pretty Blue

I almost forgot I could post these now! I did these quilts for Nicole Heiney's expected twin girls, and have been holding off sharing them because they were a surprise and I hadn't sent them yet. But, now she's got them! So what do you think? Is blue only for boys at your house?

Kindergarten Quilt

So this week we knocked out one more project on my list and got the Kindergarten quilt all finished up! "Graduation" is in a week and a half and the class will present it at the family picnic. Each child did a self portrait with fabric markers, and I put the rest together. It turned out so cute, and hopefully Mrs. Penner will enjoy "snuggling up" with all the kids this summer. I really enjoyed having the excuse to head over to my favorite fabric store and picking out all the materials and colors. We did "dick and jane" on the back. Parents from the class almost all donated either time to help with the portraits, a few dollars for the cost, or coupons to help buy the markers, so it ended up costing me almost nothing (but time, of course). Ethan helped me figure out how he wanted it quilted, and even came up with the idea of writing the words to the song they sing every morning around the border. "Friends, friends, 1. . . 2 . . . 3. . . all my friends are here with me!" Enjoy!

Quilting fun to come. . .

Today I have two fun projects sitting on my desk (that is actually a mountain of fabric and paper drawings of quilts, etc) The first is the beginnings of the Kindergarten gift for Mrs. Penner, Ethan's teacher. I've been helping to organize, and all the parents have been great! All but two of the kids have completed their squares of a self portrait, and now I get the fun of putting them together in a fun and bright lap quilt. . .

The next is a collaborative effort with my dear friend Nicole, who lives in Cambridge, MA for the next three weeks. She is on partial bed rest with her twin girls, and needed something fun to do with her hands. She shares my obsession with cute things made of fabric, so I sent her some pieces that I sewed to the printed interfacing that she appliqued onto the background fabric. I just got them back today, and I will put them into a quilt and then send it back for her to do the hand binding. This is great! I get to have all the fun with the machine, and she does all the dirty work. (did I say dirty work? I meant handy-work. :) Here are the cute squares. She is so good at this stuff! She's working on a second set for "baby B" now.

Stay posted for finished products!

Quilts for the Humanitarian Project

I finished these two cute quilts over the last week, and I promised to post them, so here it is! This first one is a panel that I did free motion work on, which is just so much fun! I love it. It's like drawing on the quilt, and it's so fast. I think I quilted the whole thing in less than an hour. I've had this one sitting around forever so it was nice to finally get it finished.

This next one I did after the same pattern (well, mostly) that the quilt from Jenn for Chandler is. I love that quilt. I used leftover fabric from Chandler's airplane quilt, as well as a couple of extra pieces I just bought. I LOVE it! This one is quilted just like Jenn's, on the diagonal through the squares. Love it! (almost too much to give away to a stranger, but hey, it's for a good cause, right?) The other great thing about this quilt, is I FINALLY figured out how to blind stitch, so the binding is actually attractive! WOW!

Here's the original from Jenn, with Chan man!

Quilting Victory

I finally got brave! After getting my machine in working order, and a lot of help from my friend Shari, I finally worked up enough courage to start free motion quilting Chandler's airplane quilt, and it was such fun! I can't beleive how easy it was once I got the hang of it, and how fast it went. Watch out Gordon, this opens up a whole new world of sewing project possibilities!!! :)

Stuff and Things

Today was a fun day, despite my cold, Chandler's teething, Chandler's cold, and a cake that fell. (I get to remake that again tomorrow). Thank heavens for Grammy who let me call and whine for sympathy several times. First, my quilt is ALL DONE! I can almost not believe it! This is my favorite picture of it, with Chandler sliding down like he always does. I love that his bum is the only thing in focus. . . He always slides down this way, but likes it better when the sheets are all messed up so he can really hang on and slowly lower down. Very fun. . .

Next in randomness, we got Aidan's four year picture taken today. It was the first time I've been to JC Penny for pictures in years and I must say they've improved greatly. They have the cameras off the stands and in their hands, so if you kids move instead of having to tell them to sit still and reposition the camera, they just move with the kids. It was fantastic. A very positive experience. He's a very rough sampling from the proof sheet. I love it. Kind of crazy, I'm actually looking forward to going back for Chandler's 1 year pics!

And finally, we got a very exciting package from Grandma and Grandpa in Alaska today for Aidan's birthday, and when he saw it was for him there was just no stopping the fun. Why not spread out the goodness anyway, right? He was so excited to get some fun mail, and LOVED the contents too! Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!!! We had fun with this all afternoon. We are very excited about this soccer ball birthday! We made the cake part of the soccer ball cake today for the party, and are really looking forward to the frosting fun tomorrow! Hopefully Chandler's teeth will calm down and he'll let us actually do it!

It's back!

Here's my quilt, back from the quilter! I am so excited! Although the task of binding it seems a bit daunting, it's fun to see the "almost finished" product! I've been working on this one since a month or two after we moved back from NY. So fun!

In the works

Here are the quilt blocks I'm working on for Chandler's quickly approaching 1st birthday quilt. I thought I was all inspired and doing well, but now that I have half the airplanes done, I'm thinking I need twice as many. Typical me project. . . the good news is, I think they are darling!