Happy New Year! (just 1 month late)

Life has been moving along with its usual busy pace.  Emily got her 7th ear infection, so she had to have tubes put in yesterday.  Overall it wasn't too bad.  Here she is yesterday afternoon no worse for the wear-

I completed one quilt since my last post, for my husband's coworker.  I love it!  I bought enough fabric to remake it.  Who doesn't love Dr Seuss?!

 My favorite part is the backing

I hope everyone's well!

Sort of obsessed

Since quilting's had a backseat these days, I wander around Etsy.  Here are a few of my new favorites:

This one is on my Christmas list- I've been told that Santa might have already bought it and to avoid opening packages.
Cold toes warm heart print.
http://www.etsy.com/listing/62740431/holiday-sale-cold-toes-warm-heart-print

Suddenly I feel the need to have a locket and love the idea of a vintage one or a steampunk version.
http://www.etsy.com/listing/43594464/steampunk-gears-heart-locket-brass-4

I have really small hands, so finding a metal thimble was very difficult.  My current favorite was found at a local "junk" (treasure) shop.  (Its the one in the picture above on the left) I think I need to find a back up for when I lose mine.
http://www.etsy.com/listing/83883992/vintage-silver-metal-thimbles

Metal cubby holes (just because)
http://www.etsy.com/listing/84309271/industrial-metal-parts-cabinet-bin

Anyways- happy Christmas shopping!!

Sweet Relief

Hello out there!  Where has the time gone?  I've fallen off of the face of the blogging earth.

Emily is over a year now and very close to walking.  She's certainly all over the place these days.  (This would be why I'm not quilting). Its been a total roller coaster ride of a year and she's been sick with ear infections, viruses, and colds more times than I'd like to count. We spent her birthday in the ER for 8 hrs thanks to croup.  Ugh!

Here's Emily on Halloween.

I've only made one quilt over the past 6 months.  Its a pattern from Moda Bake Shop called Charming Hearts.  I made mine out of a Fig Tree Millhouse Inn layer cake I had and added the purple for the background.  I called mine Sweet Relief :)

For the back I found some Fig Tree fabric from another line at 50% off! Woo Hoo!

I had it machine quilted by Quilting Sweethearts- again that whole time thing.  Hank seems to enjoy it.

Not too much else to report!  I've been ever so slowly hand quilting a quilt I made like 3 years ago.  One of these days it will get finished and one of these days I'll have time to quilt again!! (here's a picture of the quilt in this old entry)

I hope you are all doing well and I hope to have a chance to catch up on everyone's blogs- HUGS to you all and Happy Thanksgiving!!

Still Alive!

Its been ages since I've done any quilting or read any blogs, but I do think of all of you often.  Just wanted to say I'm still alive :)

I can't believe Emily's 7 months old now!  She has two teeth and sits on her own quite well.  Here's a recent picture.

 

I hope you're all well!! HUGS! 

Puxatony Phil and some Valentine's day love

I finally made some time to sew! Thanks be to God and my lovely husband!  He recognized I was going a little nuts (hmmm... was I standing there staring at my fabric stash again?) and he helped me have some time to myself.  Bless him.

I decided to use my Millhouse Inn layer cake and I've started on this project: Charming Hearts @ Moda Bake Shop.  I found a pretty pastel purple to pair with the layer cake and I finished all the pieced hearts.  Love an easy 4 patch.  Just the sort of easy project I need right now!

I love Valentine's day decorations.  It seems like when February rolls around I'm just about to loose it with winter.  Way to go Puxatony Phil! I really hope you're right!  This is totally not quilting/sewing related, but I really enjoyed this article about getting through the winter.  Its from MOPS and oriented towards mothers of young children, but most of it can be applied to anyone at any stage of life. 

Emily was sick with her first cold this week (pour on the guilt about her going to daycare) and she's lovingly shared this cold with me.  Its been an interesting few days.  But here she is sharing some Valentine's day love (she's still holding out on letting me snap a shot of her smiling!).

I think I need to make some chicken noodle matzo ball soup!

Inspirational

I feel like I'm on inspiration overload right now!  There are so many great projects out there that I want to dive into.

I'm really inspired by Carolina Patchwork's video game quilts.  My brother is a Nintendoaholic and this quilt is definitely in his future!  

Next up is this Tokyo Subway Quilt by Oh, Fransson that Tricia blogged about!  I guess I'm on a pixel quilt kick or something, but I think they look amazing!

Then my local quilt shop had this free pattern for a Jigsaw Puzzle quilt using 2 1/2 inch strips.  A great scrappy quilt.

I love these "Give Thanks" blocks at Jenny of Elefantz that Marsha blogged about.  If I weren't like 6 months behind on my Snowbound blocks, maybe I'd do this (who am I kidding!  I barely have time to blog! hahah).  I'll download them.  Top of the list of giving thanks is that I'm thankful I survived my first week back to work.

Then there's this fun Millhouse Inn fabric that I got for Christmas two years ago that I love:

This time of year I always feel a bit down because of the cold and dark.  Its great to look through all these pretty projects to feel inspired.  Plus, I always pull out this book- Remember this one?  It came out a few years ago.  If you've never seen it, its basically a list of 14,000 things like "kneading dough" or "flashcards".

I love this book.  It really does make me happy and I always think I should write out my own list of things. Such as this deliciousness!

 And Em's first smiles (yet to be captured on film). 

What's inspiring you?

Lookie what the postman brought!

I am so touched today.  Beth (my creations) told me to expect a package.  Today it arrived and I am shocked at what a beautiful keepsake she sent Emily!!

Look at this beautiful blanket!! Emily was so excited it was hard to get a good photo!

Also included were a beautiful note, a rattle, and the cutest pair of elephant socks.  We put the blanket right to use!

Beth, I love love love them (so does Emily)! Thank you ever so much!! 

Warm and cozy

Thank you everyone for the warm wishes after my last post.  I hope to get caught up on everyone's blogs soon! 

Over the summer I made a few projects from Lotta Jansdotter's book Simple Sewing for Baby.  One of the projects was a swaddler. It turns out Emily will only sleep when swaddled (Lord help me when she starts rolling over and we can't swaddle her anymore!!)  So, I made her a new snazzy swaddle wrap for daycare.  It was sort of pre-daycare therapy to make something cute for her. Of course, this project took forever to finish!! hahah!

Here she is swaddled in her bassinet:

 

 Sleep?  What's that?

Check out this wild animal!

Once again, I would highly recommend this fun book.  This is a great simple project (as long as there is no baby around). 

Stay warm everyone! 9 more weeks until spring!

Moving along

Hello out there my long lost blogging buddies!  How I miss you all! I hope you all had wonderful Christmases and New Years!

As expected, life has been absolute craziness since little Miss Emily came along.  With her coming 5 weeks early, life was turned upside down even more than expected.  I'm happy to say she's growing as she should and sleeping (a little) more each week.  I have one more week left on my maternity leave- eeeek!!  I'll be going back to work 3 days a week, but working two 12 hr days.  I'm not sure how I'm going to manage.

I haven't done any quilting except this little quilt that I made for her for her first Christmas. Its all my favorite scraps and took me an extraordinary time to make.

 And here's the back:

She's had lots of photo shoots with her new quilt:  Here's Christmas morning:

 Wearing the dress I wore for my first Christmas (it was cold so she just wore it over her onesie):

And stretching out:

Happy 2011!!

Back where we belong

Thank you very much for all the well wishes and prayers for our little one!!

I'm happy to report that Emily came home on Tuesday and is now a whopping 5 lbs!  Yippie!! We're trying to adjust to our new schedule (sleep? what's that?? hahah!) and enjoying every minute with this little one. 

As soon as we settle into a routine, I want to get out all my girly flannel scraps and get to work on a Christmas present for her.  We'll see if this plan comes to fruition!

Emily Hannah

I haven't posted anything on here in such a long time!! Here's a non-quilty post.

On Friday my water broke so off my hubby and I went to the hospital.  Emily Hannah was born Saturday morning, 5 weeks early.  She is doing well, but is in the NICU working on her feeding.  We're hoping and praying to get her home soon!!  :)

I hope all of my friends in blogland are doing well.  I'm not sure when I'll catch up, but hugs to you all!

Pumpkin Spice & Everything Nice

Not too much quilting going on these days so this isn't a very quilty post.  A bunch of people have asked to see the nursery so here are a few pictures.  The furniture hasn't been delivered yet, but here's what we have so far:

My husband loves giraffes :) The dresser and crib will go on the wall to the right of the picture.  We also hung  these cute moon and star decorations my mother-in-law bought us at a craft show.

I can't wait for the furniture to be delivered!!!

My friend picked up the baby quilt yesterday and, Hallelujah!, she loved it!  I've never know what to charge for quilts and hadn't heard what others charged.   What do you charge?  I charged her $120 and she paid me $140.  I was quite surprised with that! :)  I'm calling this quilt "Fabuland".  Does anyone else remember these legos?  I loved them.

 

 

And lastly, since I'm a pumpkin obsessed pregnant woman, here is another recipe I made today for pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.  Soooo yummy!  Here's the link to all recipes where I found the recipe.  The only thing I changed was I used 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice instead of 2 teaspoons cinnamon. 

Oh and I almost forgot!  Thank you for everyone's well wishes.  Some of you might remember that I was being monitored for a partial placenta previa.  Well at my last ultrasound, the placenta moved out of the way!! Now I'm cleared for a regular delivery and I won't have to schedule a C-section.  Life is good :)

Hmmm....how many cookies is it acceptable to eat today?

Pumpkin shortage?

I can't believe its been almost a month since I posted last.  I'm so behind on everything these days!  I apologize for being so behind on reading everyone's blogs!

I'm now 29 weeks along and I can't believe how fast time is moving.  We're still waiting on the delivery of the baby furniture, but we've made good progress getting the baby's room ready.  Its amazing how much money we've spent on this baby between baby monitors, furniture, etc!  And it hasn't even been born yet! Crazy!

The past few weekends we had company visiting.  One of those weekends my best friend came for our seasonal girly get together.  We had such a great time watching chick flicks, shopping, and sewing.  I got started on making 4 of these fall place-mats- I still need to get the binding sewn on.

I also made the second quilt top for the woman who is paying me.  I had originally picked out blue/green/red dog fabrics and she thought it was too boy.  Well she was right and her sister-in-law had a girl!  So off I went to the shop and found some new fabrics.  I requested she go shopping with me to avoid what happened last time, but she said she just wanted me to pick it out.  I sure hope she likes it!  Here's the top and the backing fabric.

I love the animals!! :)

Then I finished up my project pure quilt.  I was so flattered that Vickie at Spun Sugar Quilts was inspired by my orange/Pure combination and wrote a post about it!!

I went with a brown minkee dot border since I'm obsessed with the stuff.  I quilted the top to the batting to give it some dimension, then tied the top/batting to the backing which is also a brown minkee that has lines on it.  I was really happy with it until I washed it and the yarn I used to tie the quilt frayed into a mess.

So I cut the ties and redid it with a white yarn I had used in the past that I know won't fray (Patons Grace 100% mercerized cotton).  I was happy the ties didn't show on the back side at all.  I guess the minkee is plush enough to hide the white.

Now I love it!!!  It doesn't seem like tying is done all that often, but I really enjoy this method when working with minkee backs.  Here is my tutorial if you are interested in giving it a go.  Its my new favorite snuggle up quilt and completely puts me in fall mode.

The weather is gorgeous today and all these fall projects put me in the mood to bake pumpkin orange spice bread.  I thought this would be a simple task, but 2 grocery stores and about 10 phone calls to grocery stores later I learned there is a canned pumpkin shortage!  What?!  Apparently 2 years ago, there was a problem with the specific pumpkin used for baking.  Libby's, the main manufacturer of canned pumpkin, production is 2 years out so this year is the year where they can't keep up.  I finally found a store around here that had some and I bought 7 cans.  I suggest stocking up now for Thanksgiving (if you can find it)!! 

Here's the recipe if you'd like to make this delicious dessert like bread:

Pumpkin Orange Spice Bread
Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons cinammon
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup orange juice
1 egg
1 tablespoon orange zest
4 tablespoons butter
1 cup sugar


1) Preheat the oven to 350 deg
2) In a large blow, combine flour, baking powder, cinammon, baking soda, cloves, salt, and ginger.  Mix well and set aside.
3) In a medium bowl, whisk pumpkin, milk, orange juice, egg, and orange zest and set aside.
4) In a large mixing bowl, beat together butter and sugar until light a fluffy.  Gradually add flour and pumpkin mixtures alternating each, beginning and ending with four mixtures.  Blend until smooth.  
5) Pour into an 8" loaf pan that has been coated with non-stick spray.  Bake 1 hr or until a wooden toothpick comes out clean.  Cool completely. 

Well I hope to be back caught up soon in blogland!! :)

Growing

I'm ready for borders on my Project Pure quilt.  I'm thinking brown?  Suggestions?  I know I want to do brown minkee on the back.

I'll definitely be making this pattern again!  The question is how much sewing I'll be able to do once the little one comes.  I'm definitely growing!!  Here's Hank with a paw on the baby.  I wonder how much the baby can hear him purring.

Pure + Orange = love!

My guild is having its first challenge using a charm pack of Moda's "Pure".  Well I decided to bend the rules a bit and use two packs (shhh....don't tell anyone).  I met up with Julie for dinner on Tue to pick up my packs and we had such a great time chatting and catching up!  She even had a present for me!! A tote bag and a charm pack of Collections for a Cause-Hope.  Thank you Julie!

I've been itching to make a whirlygiggle quilt and found the perfect tutorial (thanks Katie!) over at Quilting on Turtle Hill.  Off I went to the quilt shop and came home with a surprising  fabric.  I must be really wanting fall, because I came home with orange and I'm loving it!

I've made 16 blocks- here's a peak at one of them:

My poor snowbound blocks are falling behind!

I also realized I never posted pictures of Karen's blocks!  They are so pretty- thank you so much!

Off to watch Project Runway~