We've Been Crafting

Finally, I have a blog post that isn't about the trials and tribulations of the past year!  Aren't you excited!?!?!?

We've been doing some things here since the new year started and I have some exciting news coming up but not ready to share it quite yet.  You'll have to come back and check to see what it is.

The first thing we did was make a new headboard for the bed in Nathan's old room.

I bought an old door from a local treasure place several years ago with the intent to make a new headboard for the bed in Nathan's room  A while back we got queen size beds in all the rooms where the kids have moved out (which means we have great accommodations for friends and family when they visit) so the bed didn't fit the headboard anymore.  We gave Adam the headboard from this room for his extra bedroom at his house after Christmas so we needed to replace it.  Oh, and I DID get new pillows so it looks a little better now than it does in this picture.

So we (and by we I mean Craig) made this awesome headboard .  It isn't attached to the bed yet so this picture is still a little unfinished.  But I love the look and love the paint after we started out with the WRONG color.  This one works great.

I've also been quilting pretty seriously since the holidays.   I made this little table topper that I will use NEXT winter since I finished it after the weather already started to get nice.

It was fun to make since I love to do hand work.


Another fun project for me was to make a baby quilt for friends of Adam's. Their little girl was born just before the end of 2015.  Here is the quilt I made for her in her room's colors.

The next project has been several months in the making only because I was scared to start on the painting.  I saw this project on Pinterest and wanted to make it SO badly. Because my husband rocks and can make ANYTHING he put the wood together for me and stained it.  Then I aged it with blue and green milk paint like the original person did per their instructions.  But painting the wording was going to be difficult because I didn't have access to the fonts that she did.  So again my husband came to the rescue and went to someone he knew who paints signs locally and she made a stencil for me.  I didn't really stencil the letters on but painted them in with chalk paint from Walmart that I found in the craft section.  I LOVE how it turned out and it is now up on our mantel where it belongs

I'm working on another quilt right now but I will post that when it is finished.  I've been needing to do something to be active since my life changed greatly after Adam moved back to his house.  I struggled with depression and wondering what to do with my life (we don't have grandchildren WINK WINK).

Thanks for putting up with all my postings.  I'm having fun being creative again!

Evolution of a Quilt

Today is my youngest child's 17th birthday.  It is really hard to imagine that she is that old already.  She's been ours for 14 years this coming August.  

Today is also the day that I have accomplished something I've been wanting to do for years and that is to make each of my children a special quilt.  I finished up Anna's quilt early this morning around 12:45.  It didn't HAVE to be done on the day, but I wanted it to be done.  I'm kind of bad about gifts not arriving on time because of my lack of thinking about how long something may take to be shipped.  So since I had control over this, I wanted it done.

This quilt has been growing in my mind for a few years since I saw a picture of one that was similar with this darling matroyshka fabric. I found the fabric on amazon and it came from Japan.   I've had it for a couple years but just didn't know where to begin to put it all together.  So this fall I decided that I needed to just do it.  The original quilt had red and white checked fabric where I have the chevron and the dots.  I tried and tried to find the right fabrics but could not find the right gingham.  When I found the chevron and dotted fabrics I realized that I  really love them even more.  

Then I just found some colors similar to the original quilt--a green, a purple and a yellow and a darling turquoise print with which I fell in love.  It took me only an afternoon to cut out the strips and sew them together.  But it has taken me WEEKS to quilt it on my machine with my new walking foot.  I love the finished product.  It took much more time than I imagined it would but I'm thankful that I was able to do it myself.  There were a few days that I spent 7-8 hours simply quilting.  

 It was a labor of love.  It makes me feel like I truly accomplished something.  I hope one day each of my children will appreciate the love and care I have put into each of their quilts.  

Here are some pictures I took this morning after I put on a label.  Mostly this is for my mom who can look at my blog to see how it turned out.


Enjoy!

Love the movement of those zig zags.

The fabric that started it all.   Love those little Matroyshka girls.( Ooops, there is still some disappearing ink on those parts that I couldn't see very well because they were so close to the background color.)

It took some imagination to come up with quilting patterns to fill in all of that space.

I added a hand sewn pop of red to this purple.  Zippidydoodah.

I like to personalize my labels.  This proves that my work is not perfect! :)

Lots and lots of stitches.

Can't wait to give it to her.

Making My Deadline. . .Better Late Than Never

I did it!  I made my deadline with a day to spare.  

Well, sort of.

About 15 or so years ago I found a pattern for some Christmas stockings that I FELL IN LOVE with and have never stopped loving.  It may have even been before we moved into our house and that means that I actually moved that book of patterns with me. And then that book has been moved a few times in my house over the years.

I was always going to make them  but didn't really know how to get started.  For one thing, I wasn't sure where to get wool in the colors that I wanted.  So, if it is too hard to do easily, I don't do it.  

Then last year I decided that I was going to get it done.  No more procrastinating!  

I started to look for wool fabric and didn't have much luck.  Remember this?

So once again, my fantastic sister in law came to my rescue and introduced me to the beautiful world of wool.  She gave me samples and I chose colors.  I instructed her to buy them  at one of her quilting expos and I would pay her back.  

Well, she bought them.  But like the wonderful person she is she GAVE them to me and tried to make it seem like she owed me for letting her stay here for a few days.  She's super terrific like that. I tried to pay her but she wouldn't have it. Thanks, Susan, you are the best!

For over a year I've again been procrastinating DOING what I've dreamed of doing for 15 years prior.  OY!

So, I gave myself a deadline because I have a bunch of sewing projects that I am doing for Christmas this year.  I wanted to have the stockings done by November 1st so that I could get on to the next project.  

I not only met my deadline, but I BEAT it by ONE DAY!

Lest you think I'm some kind of super woman, that means I have one day to clean my house before I start the next project tomorrow!

Easy Art

One of the things I've done this summer is to make some easy art for cheap!

I'm hoping that one of my sons will want these. 

You can buy a  whole book of scrapbook pages for only $5 and the canvases were $11 each. 

I simply used mod-podge after painting the canvas with some spray paint I had on hand.

Voila!  Art.

What do you think?

Finished!

I finished up the quilt last night (except for an ID on the back).  Feels wonderful to have it done.  But not nearly as wonderful as it will feel to hand it to my son!

Quilting Up A Storm

 Maybe with all the bad weather we're having that was a bad choice of words.


Anyway.  I was away from home last week for 5 days attending the funeral of my dear Uncle Bill who passed away on February 26th.  I got to spend some quality time with my mom and see my sister and her family a bit, as well as many extended family members.


I was going to blog about how my uncle was the last of our family patriarchs but my cousin Steve stole my thunder when he gave such a sweet message to our family as part of the funeral service.  Maybe another day.


So I've been back home for 3 days.  The night I got home Anna was at a ballgame so when SHE got home she ran to me screaming and whooping it up.  As she hugged me she said, "I felt like I didn't have a mother!"


Well, now she does.  All week. No daddy either, since we are tag teaming it and he is gone this week.  So she'll be sick of me by Wednesday.


I started back working on my quilt for Nathan as soon as I could when I got done with laundry and other household chores upon my return. When I got home from church yesterday I was going to go great guns and get it ready to lay out when my machine decided to be  difficult.


That's the thing with sewing.  You have to deal with machinery that for no apparent reason decides to malfunction at the worst of times.  But, thanks to my amazing sister-in -law
 I got it up and running in no time (after some grumbling and complaining on my part).


Speaking of  my sis (People!  She has INVENTED two different quilting tools and has sold tens of thousands of them) she gave me this awesome tip for getting my cutting table up at a height that is comfortable to use standing up.

See those black things?  Those are the things you can use to raise a bed up higher and it works perfectly for a cutting table.  I'll give you a couple other angles.



















And if you are just a little shorter than me (ahem) they are the perfect height.  They've worked great for me.

Here are some of the squares I cut out in preparation to make my quilt.

And there is the pile of little squares that will make one of the borders.  That's a lot of squares!

And then a pile of triangle squares begins to appear...

Laying out the quilt body.



So, it is coming along quite nicely now. I'll have to look at this for a while to make sure I like it.   I'm not sure I have a space big enough to lay it all out but it WILL  happen somehow.

What are you working on?????

To Owl A Goodnight. . .

Remember that little pile of fabric I was excited about?  Well, things are happening around here in the creative design department once again.


I can see now that my original intent to make this and give it as a graduation gift last May was totally unrealistic.  But I'm hoping by Christmas I will get it done.  


Here's a sneak peak...

Anticipation

Getting pretty excited about this little pile of fabric!

Halloween Fun

Well, we made it through another Halloween.  I think this one was favorite one yet.  


Katrina and I worked on her costume (mostly Katrina) throughout the day on Saturday. She was still sewing and such when Anna and I walked out the door to go trick or treating with my friend Judi and her two youngest girls.


Judi had something to attend that evening so we had about an hour and half to take the girls to houses.  It was perfect.  The weather was great--almost didn't need a coat.  And at 4 o'clock in the afternoon there are no other trick or treaters out.  There are also very people home to hand out treats which is okay.  


The girls were adorable.  Judi is an amazing seamstress and made both of her girls' costumes.  Gracie was Little Red Riding Hood and Mollie was a modest, beautiful Jeanie from I Dream of Jeanie fame.  My Anna was Bugs Bunny.  I had only to hand sew some "bunny belly" onto her sweat shirt and made a tail.  Craig fixed her mask from ebay (that's another story).


They all seemed happy with their time together and for the fact that the family down the street was giving out "big" candy bars again.  Judi's husband Charlie (who also happens to be our pastor) reminded the kids before we left --'Forget all that candy stuff girls.  Go for the chocolate!'
I am in his camp for many reasons!


Anyway, they looked cute and Anna LOVES being with Mollie and Gracie so it was a home run all around.

Then a family from church came trick or treating and said they had seen Katrina downtown so I called her.  She and her friends came by so we could see them in their costumes before we left town.

Katrina was Max from Where The Wild Things Are.  She is a wonderfully creative girl who goes against the flow of culture so this was classic Katrina.  


It was a fun night.  Anna and I went home for a while and ate something.  Then at 9 we drove back over to our friends' Coffehaus for pumpkin pie spice shakes.  


One of the best Halloween nights yet for me.

I'm Not Going To Make Another Costume.......

Today is the dreaded Halloween.  I loved this day when I was a kid. My mom and dad (mostly my mom) helped us make really cool costumes or else mom sewed one for us.  We had parties at school, a community club meeting with costume contests, and went trick or treating in the little town where my parents were born.  It was all so sweet and innocent.  


It was so fun to be creative with costumes and to spend time with my cousins trick or treating.  Community club was kind of like PTA I guess.  I think it met once a month at our grade school gym. It was a great time to get together with all the families in our community and share a potluck meal, have a program and just fellowship with other human beings.  Too bad we don't do that today.  Of course, as a kid it seemed so simple to just go and play all evening (after the program was over).  I'm sure for my mom it was stressful to prepare food, get the kids ready, and just get there.  I know this now that I've been a mom for a while.


Anyway, one year I decided I wanted to be a McDonald's trash can.  For those of you who are young, there was once a very cute TV Mickey D's commercial with singing and talking trash  cans.  So, my dad helped me find a box and paint it up to look just like the ones on TV.  It  was so simple.  But I actually won a prize at community club that year.  I'm pretty sure the prize was a 50 cent piece which tells you how incredibly old I am.


Over the years we've tried to make some fun, creative costumes for our kids.  My husband made an awesome R2D2 one year for our Zach.  He was pretty little.  The only down side apparently was that he couldn't move well in it and he didn't have his arms for balance so his brothers told me that he fell down a lot while out treating.  


Another year my boys wanted to be characters from Narnia.  We used to borrow some old videos from our church with episodes from different Narnia books.  So I made them knight costumes or some such one year.  One kid was Peter Pan that year too.  I think they mostly liked it because daddy made them sweet looking swords out of the plastic he used to make sleds for his combine header.  


My mom made some great costumes for my kids too.  She took an old fake fur coat that we found in the basement of our newly bought house and made the coolest leopard costume.  Of course my kids also wore a couple costumes that mom had made when I was a kid and kept for all eternity.  When Katrina was in first grade she made the most awesome Dorothy costume that will live on in our minds forever.  Anna and all of the girl cousins as well as a friend have worn it.  You can see it
here.

Probably the best costumes I ever made were Furby and Larry Boy.  Furby has been worn by one of my kids or a friend's kid almost every year since I made him.  This year he languishes in the box in the store room.


Larry Boy was a labor of love by both Craig and I.  I made the costume and Craig jerry rigged the innards. I think there was a helmet involved which held up the two real plungers that stuck out of his head just like the real thing. 

Sadly, Larry perished in a box in our basement when some hungry mice found him unsuspectingly without his super powers.


Last year my Anna wanted to be a hummingbird.  I spent countless hours and thought it was okay but it was no Larry Boy.  No pictures available due to the fact that one person at a costume parade thought she was a cyclops.


This year it seemed so simple.  Anna wants to be Bugs Bunny.  So I bought some gray sweats and found what I thought was a cute mask on ebay.  Alas, she wasn't overcome with joy over the mask so last night Daddy helped her to overhaul it a bit.  Now I just need to stick a tail on her pants and be done with it.


Katrina, however, wants to go trick or treating with her friends even though she is almost 17 years old.  So yesterday morning she and I went to Walmart to buy fabric, a pattern and all the extras to make her a costume for tonight.  I haven't used a pattern for years and I have never made a costume with one.  So we laid it out, cut it out and she began to sew it late last night.  By the time we went to bed she could try it on.  There is a lot of detail work yet to do today but she is diligent and I know will get it done.  She is really an amazing sewer for having never been trained by either my mom or 4H.  


Though I was hoping to never have to make another elaborate costume again it has been fun and kind of satisfying to see my daughter do most of the making.  It didn't hurt that Zach and Adam came home last night and entertained us with their personalities while we were working.


I'll try to get a picture of the costume when it is done.  For now, its identity is a secret.  And after this year, surely, I'm never going to make another costume again.  


Right.