Surprise!

I'm back!  Life has been crazy busy (and fun), but too full for blogging or reading blogs!  As I was looking thru for photos, I realized if I posted all I wanted to you'd be bored out of your mind.  Not to mention it's almost 1am and I don't feel like staying up that long!

When Breanna saw my last post she was upset- "mom, those aren't blog pictures; there's no fabric!!!"  So now you know how she rates your blogs!  =)  I used that as my filter, only talk about the crafty stuff.... so here goes.

A friend (Cristy) asked me to quilt a baby blanket she made from satin.

My first thought was yikes!, but it turned out nice and I decided to try some more with my own fabric!

A year or so ago, I made this fun tiny tote for Breanna from those fun 1930's prints.

And I finally got around to finishing the hexagon quilt from the same fabrics.

I still love that stair-rail!

Miss B has been sewing too!

This was a hotpad for Grandma Maryn.

I decided she needed to work a little more on seam accuracy.

She sews everything on her own now while I sew my projects, so she's doing pretty good!

She kept asking how to make a pinwheele block, here's what she did:

  Out of necessity, I've started making clothes again.  While they aren't quite as fun as quilts, they are quite handy on a daily basis! 

This fun skirt was out of clearance fabric from the local quilt store.

One to match for Mommy, I don't really have a good photo of my skirt.  Aunty Kylee took this while we were in Oregon.

Sunday kids.

Mom and the grandchildren.

I made up my own pattern for this one, and she loves it!

This started out a skirt for me.... but ended up too short and too tight.  So I added some elastic...

And Breanna likes it too!  I REALLY wanted this fabric for a diaper bag, but thought it might be a bit wierd with a baby boy; so was very disappointed when the skirt didn't work for me.  Breanna didn't seem to mind, tho!  =)

This jumper is almost identical to one I made for myself, but it's not quite finished yet.

There's lots of topstitching (which is far from perfect), that looks nice but sure adds a lot of time!

And while we were in Oregon, my sister got married!  She made her own dress, and it was adorable!

Levi turned 3 on their special day, so they celebrated with him.  When I asked him later what he thought of it, he said "Mom, it was awesome!"  Can you tell?

I sewed both of the boys' suits and ties.

And the dresses for Miss B & myself.

My Daddy.

For the rehearsal dinner, Chad's parents had all these fun aprons made for the immediate family!

You can't see them too well, but they are embroidered with "Chad & Anna" & the wedding date.

While in Oregon, I saw this striking quilt on a friend's bed, I love the pattern!

And I found these fun rugs at Ross (sure wish we had that store up here!)

Between the two rugs I spent less than $10!!

And they even go with the wallpaper border.  Sorry, the photo is very light; but the rugs finished up this fun little bathroom!

The new iron that Dad got me when they were visiting, somehow got tons of "gunk" on it that I coudn't get off.  So I tried this:

And it worked! 

The little tube was almost $8 so I was a bit hesitant to try it, but if you need an iron cleaner- it works great and there's enough for quite a few cleanings.

Miss B did quite the "chop job" on her hair back about January, and I've been fighting with it every day since.  It's finally growing out enough, and we found a way to keep it back out of her face!

She wasn't super impressed with the amount of time it took, but it stayed up a long time!

Almost forgot, here's a quilt top I finished awhile back.  Can you tell Andy likes fabric already too?

He's quite the little sewing "unhelper", but sometimes takes long naps that are helpful.  Here he is fresh from a good nap.

BTW, I got the mean mommy award from him yesterday. I wouldn't let him play with the scissors, eat the pins, OR drool and crawl on the fabric and pattern I was cutting out. The nerve!

And this is definately not fitting thru my "filter", but it's too cute to pass up.  They sure had fun playing together at Grandma Maryn's house, Zoe even came over one day to play.

And this one's for Grandpa Lee.  On our trip Daddy's glasses got broken, and this is the only pair of frames they had to fit the lenses till he can get a new prescription.  And of course, the trusty Suburban.

 

I just realized there are some clothes I made and didn't take photos of, but I am too tired for now and Blogger is being very annoying.  If it keeps working like this & so slow- I might just need to go on strike again!  =)

Happy crafting!

When the weather is nice.....

 Lately I haven't been sewing hardley at all.  Here is why!

This (shed):

plus this:

and this:

is this:

It hadn't been painted right originally, and soaked up 3 gallons of the first green we got!  We decided to go darker, and like it much better.

Now we're getting ready for more dark paint, and to add this:

and this:

and this:

(it's amazing how much trim was on that little shed!

We're also adding a covered area at one end of the shed, and correcting the poorly-built roof to extend over the side walls, and eventually new shingling.

We also took this:

minus this:

to get this:

Eventually all that will be replaced, but for now it's a great place for painting trim!

Today we are working on this:

minus this:

and these:

(when the new ones arrive)

plus these:

and this:

and some more of this:

and this:

and eventually shingles too; which means you won't recognize our house from the outside soon!  =)

Hopefully, these will survive the ordeal:

Almost forgot; although this:

is good for things like this:

We are looking forward to replacing it with a pretty little covered porch!

We bought this house a year ago, and have spent the past year on completely renovating the inside.  This summer we're working on the outside, and eventually doing lots of excavating too.  I'm so excited for the new look, that sewing has become not so exciting for the time being!  =)

Quilted Diaper Bag

As anyone who has a baby knows, a diaper bag is a necessity.  I've been using the black freeby from the hospital- it wasn't anything exciting, but it was very functional!  Unfortunately, from much use; the plasticky lining started to come apart, and there were pieces of foam coming out.  I hated to throw it away, so instead decided to tear it apart and use it as a basic pattern!  This is terrific, by the way, as I was able to add more pockets, and change a few things i didn't like so well!  =)

I started by quilting two batik fabrics together with a layer of Warm & Natural batting.

I quilted it fairly densely, to make it more durable.  I didn't like the inside fabric as well, but they were coordinating batiks- which should be nice for wiping off the minor spots as it gets "loved". The actual color shows better in photos further down. It also had terrible creases that didn't want to iron out, I can't wait to wash it.

Then I took each of the seams apart so that I'd have a basic pattern idea.

The zipper and strap with "hardware" were in great condition, so I re-used them since this is for me.

Instead of just one pocket on the front, I made two pockets (only one ended up on the front).  One is quilted and has a strip of binding on the top, while the one for the inside is just two pieces of non-quilted fabric; to avoid excess bulk inside.

I think the stripe created from the binding gave it a nice touch, Tyler suggested that!

What it looks like now on the inside..... I used the zig-zag stitch for finishing seams instead of the serger, there were some really thick seams because of all the batting and pockets!

And the outside (front).... This looks like a very "true to color" photo on my computer.

And back.....

End pockets (there are two now, the old one had one pocket and mesh on the other end).

And I still have this 15 x 20 inch piece of quilted fabric left, not sure what that's going to end up like.  I'm thinking a small purse or wallet to match?  The zipper on my wallet is broken, so I'm going to experiement with ideas.

My inspiration, Breanna took this photo of us!

And some more.  Some of you may not completely understand the magnitude of this photo.... three small children all smiling at the camera and once..... and it took less than 10 photos to catch!

Family.... there's nothing quite like it.