Fall Quilt Festival

Park City Girl is hosting a Fall Quilt festival.  So I decided to join the party!

This is Midnight Sun/Polar Night.  I took a Jan Krentz Lone Star class in March 04, in which I made the diamonds.  I then put it away because Jeremy was born two weeks later. When Jeremy was three, I began having about 30 minutes here and there when I could actually *do* something, so I started quilting again.  I decided to start with finishing up a few UFOs, and the lone star was the first quilt I thought of finishing.

I pulled it back out in Jan 08 and got it finished up. The animal patterns were traced, scanned and blown up from the batik print in the outer border. They are hand appliqued.  The piece is machine quilted. Because the animals are all North American, and cold country animals as well, and because the colors are essentially sunlight and midnight, I named it for the endless day and endless night experienced in Alaska and Canada.

Just Add Water

It's a nearly perfect slogan for the boys.  Whether it's a sprinkler, bathtub, hose, or pool, they're happy if there's water.  Even frozen water - the ice that collects around the backyard in the winter - can keep them busy for hours.

But the best is the water at the beach. We spent the weekend in Myrtle Beach, with Ryan's family.  The weather was perfect - low 80s, sunny, no humidity.  We walked on the beach at sunrise, did a lot of wave jumping, played mini golf, went to the water park, and had lunches and dinners out together.  Here are a couple of the 540 pictures I took in the 2-day trip:  Jeremy walking on the beach at sunrise, and Matthew leaping into a rather large wave.

It really was a relaxing weekend. Good thing we did it then, because it looks like summer's last gasp is happening here now.  We'll be into the 50s and 60s next week.

Bikes, Jedi Training, Pampas and Scarecrows

Most schooldays, the boys can't play with their friends because of late school bus times and homework.  But on Wednesdays, the local schools dismiss an hour early, and so the boys get a chance to play with their friends.  Yesterday they had an impromptu bike rodeo.  Here's Matthew mugging for the camera - again!  I can't get this one to give me a nice smile anymore.

 

The rodeo didn't last very long, but they all had a good time.  Then Matthew was off to do his homework, and Jeremy decided to do his Jedi training.  Apparently having an angry face with hard, staring eyes is part of the whole Jedi business.

 

It was a lovely fall day yesterday, temps in the low 70s and dry.  The pampas grasses look really beautiful at this time of year.

And Ribby was - for once - willing to sit still and let me take her picture instead of bouncing around being excited by the attention.  Love this shot of her - those deep, soulful, sad eyes make you forget that she's really a scarecrow (if she only had a brain).

Lazy Sunday

Just enjoying a lazy Sunday today.  We've all done some reading and played video games together.  The boys played outside in the backyard with their friends for several hours, and I did some stamping.  The dog decided that the screen door would be much better with a flap in it, and created her very own dog door to the sunporch.  Ryan was not terribly happy about her decorating idea!

Ryan mowed the lawn, and when he was done let the kids drive the tractor a bit.  Ear-to-ear grins on both of those boys' faces getting to drive for the first time!  And they didn't run over any trees, or the garage, or the tool shed.

I've got a few more layouts of our trip to the Cape done in the last week or so.  The first one of Jeremy running to catch up when he saw Uncle Bill showing Matthew his fishing gear.  (Credits can be found here.)

And this picture of my niece, Tori. She's a lovely, confident girl and held her own with the boys.  Not "tough", but secure in herself and able to stand her ground when necessary.  (Credits here.)

And this layout of Jeremy, playing last February in Asia at the Animal Kingdom at WaltDisneyWorld.  He's so good at entertaining himself and having fun!  Over the years I've become used to how roughly the boys play, but I have to admit that him throwing himself onto the pavement at multiple points in the game he invented did get to me once or twice! (Credits here.)

Shelob's Lair - Bwa ha ha ha!

Just when you thought it was safe to reach into the candy bowl on Halloween...  not in my house!  Shelob is guarding her web, down at the bottom of this delightfully scary treat bowl. 

Ok, well, maybe it's more terminally cute than scary.  But I love the new bowl I've finished for Halloween.  Based on Susan Breier's It's a Wrap: Sewing Fabric Purses, Baskets, And Bowls, this bowl is made from clothesline wrapped in fabric strips.  The white stars in the black and white fabric glow in the dark.  And I could not resist pairing it with the neon lime green spiderweb fabric.  You can see that Shelob's already caught a few critters who are bug-eyed wondering what's going to happen to them...

But for my money, what takes this over the top is the big furry spider with her glittery legs!  I used a Crop-a-dile to punch holes at the end of each of the legs, then sewed them directly onto the edges of the bowl.

And yes, I'm a Tolkein fan and decided that she could be named for his famous (or is that infamous?) spider.  Hmm, that reminds me, I haven't re-read LOTR in quite a while - maybe it's time to pull that out again...

My Military Month

So mid-August through mid-September has been a military type of month for me.  I have a great respect for members of our military, and their families.  They all give up so much to secure and maintain our freedom.  I figured that the least I could do was support our military, in one way via cards that go to our men and women serving overseas and in another way, to support a humanitarian effort spearheaded by one of our servicemen.

I spent most of the month making cards for the Cards For Heroes drive at ScrapStreet.  On Thursday I packaged up and shipped the 154 cards that I made.  Christmas, birthday, miss you, and other types. 

And through my friend Michelle I learned of IBOL - that's Iraqi Bundles of Love.  From the website created by Maj. Art LaFlamme: 

Iraqi Bundles of Love is a short-duration project, set to last about six weeks, originally intended to surge fabric and sewing (and knitting!) materials into the area around which I live in Iraq.  It is timed to coincide with both Ramadan, and the departure of my units from Iraq.

The general premise is this.  I am in Iraq, and I can get mail through the US Postal System.  Willing contributors can send to me a flat-rate box of sewing / quilting supplies, all bundled up.  I’d open the box, pull out the fully-contained bundle, and hand it off (with others) to our counterparts in the Iraqi Security Forces (Army and others) or the local police, for them to distribute.  Some of the bundles will also be delivered by US Soldiers. The stated intent of this operation is to put sewing and quilting and knitting supplies into the hands of two types of recipients:  locals who desperately need such things, and local sewing co-ops and other small businesses who have received grants or loans (typically to purchase sewing machines, rent space, etc).

Maj. LaFlamme's original goal was to receive 50 packages and deliver them to folks who need them.  As of this morning, his website count stood at 1921 packages received.  One of them was from me.  More are still arriving since the mailing deadline was last Tuesday and it takes a while for mail to get there.

Life Lessons

It is ok to be a 5-year-old in WalMart and want everything you see.

It is not ok to throw a fit when you're told (reminded actually, as we told you before entering) that you're not getting anything, that mom and dad are just looking at tv stands before we go out to dinner.

It is appropriate for mom and dad to decide that you are not going out to dinner, that because your behavior is continuing to be unacceptable, instead you and mom are going home for pb&j sandwiches while dad and your brother go out to dinner.

It is appropriate for you to lose privileges, such as Playstation and Leapster, in response to your continued poor behavior.

It is not ok for you to run to the back of the van and try the old "I'll only come out if you give me my games back". Tthat meant you lost them for the remainder of the week, instead of just the next 24 hours.

It is not ok to have to be carried, kicking me for all you're worth, into the house. (I don't know if it's ok or not, but I had to suppress every instinct I had to not burst into uncontrollable laughter - for some reason this struck me as unimaginably funny.)

It is ok for you to slowly begin calming down. I appreciate that you apologized to me without having to be prompted. And no, your apology is not getting any privileges back.

Sometimes parenting sucks.

It would be very ok for dad to bring me back a very large ice cream when he and brother return. I could use that tonight.

Sneak Peek - Paper Trunk

Each month, ScrapStreet.com Magazine has a column named Showroom. A sponsoring company provides the ScrapStreet Pit Crew with the product(s) they want to feature. September's sponsor is Paper Trunk. They sent us the Maybe Baby, Socialite and Wrangler lines to play with. Here's a sneak peek of what you'll find in the Showroom column in September's edition, which goes live on September 1.

A Bit of Silliness

I made up a bunch of cards today for the Cards for Heros drive that ScrapStreet is conducting.

One of the paper lines I was working with is by Cosmo Cricket, and the name of the line is Mr. Campy. Sort of an earth-toned, camping/outdoorsy line of papers and embellishments. First I used one of my favorite Stampin' Up! stamp sets, Best of Cluck. The "just chicken in" stamp makes me smile every time I see it. I colored the chickens using Copic markers in shades that worked with the papers.

Then I moved on to using rubons, chipboard, and stickers that are designed to coordinate with the Mr. Campy papers. There are many kind of silly phrases, like "I love you s'more" that I used. I even did one card that says "you light up my life" above a (lit) flashlight. Go ahead, groan with me!

Lastly, I had a few Christmas images that I had stamped in black on kraft paper. So I used them to create these simple cards.

Off to get the mom taxi running - it's time to pick Matthew up from school.

Carpooling and the Bird Quilt

This year, with Jeremy getting out at noon and Matthew at 3pm, I have three trips to school every day. It takes 20 minutes each way, except in the morning, when it takes 35-40 minutes to get there during rush hour.

Until today. Today I and another mom who lives about 5 minutes from our house begin carpooling for the afternoon pick-ups. She has the double afternoon pick-up like I do. So, one of us will do the noon run and the other will do the 3pm run. We'll switch every week or so. I am very excited about this, from a time perspective and because of the rising costs of gas.

I thought I'd show you my second applique quilt today. (I know, beat me up, but I don't have a picture of the first quilt I made with applique.) It's named "Birds Outside My Window".

This one was a present for my brother Bill, who loves birds and spent many hours of his childhood trying to catch them. I drafted the patterns from a Dover coloring book, simplifying as necessary to get the look I wanted. The birds are cardinals, chickadees, grackles, and blue jays, all frequent visitors in eastern MA where we grew up. The blocks are placed in the attic windows set.

There is hand and fusible applique and a very tiny amount of free-motion machine embroidery to make the buds on the branches on which the grackles are perched. The bird's egg fabric in the outer border was found in the Portland, Oregon area. (I traveled nearly 100% in a former job, and often had time to stop in local quilt shops.) I had just started working on the quilt and when I found that fabric I almost levitated - I knew it would be perfect for this piece.

I am one of those fortunate crafters whose family truly appreciates handcrafted items. They use and/or display them. I feel so blessed to have this kind of acceptance and appreciation for my work!