Crocus Quilt

After a year of nearly any sewing, my mojo has come back.  I decided that instead of working on new items, to pull out UFOs and old patterns (bought ages ago) and get them finished up.

So in late February, desperate for spring, I pulled out Eileen Sullivan's Crocus pattern.  It's a paper-pieced project.  I'm pleased with the way it came out.  I even got it up on the wall in late March and it really brightens my day to see it as I walk up the stairs.

In the Spring, a Young Man's Fancy Turns To...

Climbing trees.

And then falling out of them.

And ending up with a broken arm and a fluorescent yellow cast.  He can't play baseball or football until it's off.  But he is allowed to continue in tae kwon do.

And hey, at least he can still play video games. :)

This last picture has nothing to do with broken bones, but it is the entrance to our back yard. We had a good spring with no late frosts, and so the the wisteria is in full bloom, lushly draped over the arbor.  I really need to trim it back so you can walk through without having to duck, but I won't touch it until it's done flowering.  Down on the right is a lovely spread of coreopsis.  Ignore the fact that I badly need to prune back all of the abelia. 

Happy Easter

We've had a busy week around here.  The boys were on spring break (and fortunately I was between work projects), so lots of time to have fun.  My in-laws arrived on Wednesday, so more fun and spoilage for the boys.

Our pool is open and the boys have been swimming 20-30 minutes or so on warm days.  (The water's only about 68 degrees, so they're only in for a short while.)

We all went strawberry picking on Friday morning - got some gorgeous sweet berries.  Most have been frozen and put away, but we've been snacking on some, and I made a strawberry pie for our dinner tonight.  We've learned to have the kids wear red shirts when picking to minimize staining.  Jeremy was so proud of himself "because I finally broke my bad habit of eating ALL of the berries and I'm putting some in the bucket."

Of course, last night we dyed eggs.  All the standard colors, plus the traditional "ugly" eggs made when you mix a bunch of dye together for a lovely shade of yuck.

I tried to add rub-ons to the eggs.  It turned out that only one brand (Maya Road) of the half-dozen brands I tried would adhere.  But the ones that worked sure came out cute!

I hope you all have a happy Easter.

Raspberry Lime (a baby quilt)

 One of my neighbors recently had a baby girl, and I've (finally) finished a little quilt for her.  The pattern is "Giselle" and was published in Quilters Newsletter Best Weekend Quilts, a magazine that was published in the late fall of 2010.  I only made 9 of the blocks (instead of the 30 in the pattern).

I fell in love with a bubbly dot print in lime, pink, and raspberry, and paired it with some coordinating fabrics.  I haven't been fabric shopping in ages, and discovered the patterned Kona cloth, so picked up a bit of that in pale pink as one of the coordinating fabrics.  The rest was from my stash.

I used a green dot minkee on the back.  I just cannot make a baby quilt without using minkee on it.  It is a "summer weight" quilt, with no batting.  But the minkee gives it a lovely weight and drape, and the quilting lines just sink into it and give the back a lovely, almost sculptural, quality.

This is it on my porch, under the mound of pansies.

And 4 of the blocks so the fabrics can be seen:

Back in the Saddle

Last year I struggled with creativity.  The one thing I did rather well last year was read - I probably read at least 300 books, and countless magazines.  But I had no mojo for any type of craft or hobby at all.  I barely took any pictures.  I really struggled when I had to complete something.  It was frustrating and depressing, and created a negative feedback loop.  When I look over what I did manage to get done last year, I can almost feel the complete and total lack of inspiration, imagination, and creativity in the work. 

But the New Year brought back the creativity to my life!  I've been non-stop making things since the holidays ended.  Lots of sewing, quilting, needle felting, and scrapping.  And I'm trying to take more pictures again.  This past Sunday, I spent the day scrapping with paper and for the first time in over a year just enjoyed the creative process, playing with color and design, and truly finding joy in what I'm doing again.  I was so happy and relaxed at the end of the day.

This is a layout of Matthew, trying to learn to dive.  He had the first parts of the dive pose down, but when it came right down to it he'd end up jumping into the water instead, arms and legs flying everywhere.  I had created the framed bits and extraction sometime last year, but stopped at that point.  They were technical steps, and I could manage that.  But I was stumped at how to actually complete the layout.  So I left it in my in-progress file.  I came back to it yesterday and it all just flowed. 

Summertime Boy.  Supply list:  Paper: Summer by Tracey Ann, Cabana Boy by Dani Mogstad; Labels (borders recolored): Pick-nics Alphabetized Summer Labels by Jen Wilson; Title: Pick-nics Sticker Wordy Titles by Jen Wilson; Overlay (modified to keep distressed edge only): Everyday Challenge 7/26/09 by Katie Pertiet; Brushes: Scriptease Summer 1 by Anna Aspnes; Staples: Something Springy by Anna Aspnes; Font: CK Ali's Writing.

Jeremy's been creating lately, too.  His class took a virtual  drawing lesson from Mo Willems, who creates the Pigeon books.  He learned how to draw Pigeon and Cat.  Here is his drawing of Pigeon eating a hot dog.

 And now I'm finally updating my blog again, and will try to post at least weekly. 

May your Thanksgiving be filled with all the blessings that family, friends, and feast can bring.

Halloween Fantasy Land

The boys love rich fantasy worlds.  Jeremy tends to prefer tales of magic, while Matthew prefers game-oriented shows, and their preferences are reflected in their choices of Halloween costumes:  Harry Potter for Jeremy and Dan (of the Bakugan series) for Matthew.

We had a great evening walking through the neighborhood with friends and neighbors.  It was a beautiful evening, no full moon this year but plenty of bats swooping around to give that nice, spooky feeling.

A few pix of the boys:

Got Mummies?

I do!  I found a little tutorial for making these adorable mummy pops (candy covered oreos) at How Does She and decided to give them a whirl.  I did order the eyes that were used in the tut, but they didn't arrive in time, so I substituted some small candies instead.  I found it takes 2 14-oz bags of candy melts to make 25 mummipops.

And they came out just adorable!  Here is a closeup:

And here's one of them in the spider clothesline basket I made last Halloween:

For Halloween this year, Matthew went as Dan (from Bakugan) and Jeremy as Harry Potter.  Matthew's in that "don't take my picture stage" and it's driving me nuts to try to get a decent picture of him.  But I keep telling myself that it will be good blackmail material in a few years...

We went to trunk-or-treat at the school last night, and the kids had a ball.   This is a picture of one of the witches hosting a trunk - hands down, my favorite adult costume of the night!

Everything But the Kitchen Sink

I've spent little bits of time playing with my craft machines in the last few months: sewing machine, felting machine, die cutting machine, and computer.  Mostly just playing to try different techniques.

I wanted to do a small fall piece with the colors of the turning leaves.  I used wool fleece and wool roving to make a mixed-colors sheet of felt, then cut the leaves out of it using some of Papertrey Ink's leaf dies.  The digital images were layered and printed directly onto the canvas.  For the tree and ground, I needle felted wool fleece and roving directly onto the canvas and burlap, then quilted it to batting and backing fabric.  I attached the leaves last, using a single line of stitching as a vein to anchor the leaves to the surface but allow them to move a bit when there's a bit of a breeze.

Every Leaf.  Digital Supplies: Word art: Fall WordTransfers
No. 1 by Anna Aspnes, Designer Spotlight Sept 2007 by Sue Cummings;
Paper: Autumnal No. 2 Paperie by Anna Aspnes; Dies: Leaf Prints Collection
by Papertrey Ink; Canvas: Sticky-back Canvas by Claudine Helmuth;

Other: wool fleece, wool roving (Living Felt), thread (Valdani, Superior),
sewing and felting machines (both Janome), die cutting machine (Provo Craft).

Potion Making

My guys love all things Harry Potter right now, whether it's the books, the video games, or just make believe play pretending to be Harry and the other characters.  Jeremy will be HP for Halloween.  And the new HP Lego sets are some of the top items on their Christmas lists.

Since they're having such fun with it, I made these potion bottles to add to our Halloween decorations.  The yellow bottle contains Petrification potion (will turn you into a stone statue), the green holds Aconitum (will turn you into a werewolf), and the purple has Time Freezing potion.  The boys love pretending to drink the potions and acting out what would happen.

Supplies: Alcohol Ink (Tim Holtz/Ranger), ColorBox Fluid Chalk,
Silhouette SD Digital Cutter, Labels from Silhouette store,
glass bottles with cork stoppers (Michael's).

Other than getting costumes and preparing for Halloween, we've been getting necessary outdoor chores (like planting pansies, pruning and garage cleaning) done while we have some gorgeous fall weather.  I guess planting pansies in October may sound quite strange to my northern readers - down here in the south, they just can't handle the summer heat.  But they do quite well through the winter, and bring a welcome burst of color on dreary gray winter days.