Cross Bookmark

Hey there!   I finished a tester pattern for Made by Mightymom. 

Head on over to see the beautiful cross bookmark!

He Has Risen!!!

productive monrings are wonderful!

I spent yesterday morning on the phone for about 3 hours just getting things taken care of. Appointments that needed to be made, insurance screwups that needed fixing, and getting all 18 of our family's routine medicines registered for the mail order service.

This morning I spent an hour or so between calls finally finishing our Winter Post-Advent curtain!

It is so much prettier in person! the colors are rich and dark, which is part of why it didn't photograph well, and the angels have a lot of detail that is just gorgeous!

I got the fabric for the Lent, Easter and Spring curtains in the mail this week!! So, if you need me.....you know where I'll be!

I'll end with a prayer request:

Local Friends and Family: On March 6th hubby willl be having his right knee replaced. He won't be able to drive for 2 months, and because I work nights I won't be able to get Sister to and from preschool during those 2 months. Would it be possible for anyone (or several ones) to bring her home after preschool starting March 19th till he can drive again? She's there Mon, Wed, Thurs. And we do live about 25min North of the church. If you're interested in helping us out, PLEASE let me know. We'll be happy to provide gas money.

It is Finished!!

The Birthday Curtain has been completed on time!!




I do hope Mimi is surprised!



The square with "Mimi" is held on by that big black button, and I have several other squares with other names to be put there when the correct birthday comes along :-)

We shall be heading off about 10am to Scottish Rite Hospital with Sugars to have her evaluated. Meanwhile the boys will be having a surprise birthday party with Mimi at home after school!!

These are the things that make memories!

I'll check in with everyone once we have answers about my girl.

Y'all make it a great day!

A Quilt for my Sister

Several months ago my sister moved into her first apartment. I made this quilt for her as a housewarming gift.

She loves music and cats about as much as I do!

Recognize the little pawprint binding??

The borders are quilted from the front...but easier to photograph from the back, so the images are mirrored in these pictures.

Do you recognize what they all are??

I had a lot of fun making this quilt for my "younger" sister (she doesn't like me to call her my kid sister anymore....even though she always will be!)

I even threatened to keep it for myself! But hey, a sister's a sister, right?

Happy Halloween!!

For the record. I don't care for Halloween much. You can read why and how we make it more fun here.

That said and explained, we looked quite cute Sunday night!



First up our two cats.

To make the cats I bought a grey hoodie and pants and a black hoodie and pants. All of these can be worn for the rest of the winter.

To the grey sweats and hoodie I loosely hand sewed felt "stripes". I had an old grey sweatshirt I'd cut a sleeve off of years ago, and used the other sleeve to make the tail and ears. The ears are 2 tall triangles of grey sweatshirt (and black felt) sewn together, with a triangle of pink sateen from my grandmother's stuff in the front then hand sewn on the hood. The tails are stuffed with a left over bag of stuffing I had lying around.

To the black hoodie I added a white tummy, made out of scraps from a pair of my grandmother's double knit pants. (yes, the woman [and I] saved everything!). The tail is made from black felt that I had left over from previous years' costumes. with more white knit at the tip. As the night wore on the knit frayed quite a bit making it look very "furry"

each tail had a felt strip sewn almost to the end that they could hang on their wrist to keep from tripping over it.

I added some of my all white socks over their hands and shoes to complete the outfit. I would've painted whiskers but these two won't have their faces painted.

Next we have our "Spooooky tree!" which, after the first two little kids were too scared to come and get candy from him (we had to send Mr Cat down the driveway to give them some!) He changed his name to "The SCARY tree!" ;-)

must've been pretty scary, none of the little ones would take candy from this guy!
the older kids loved him though!

To make his costume I bought him a pair of brown pants and a brown hoodie that will again be worn throughout the winter. I then bought a men's large brown tshirt ($5) and a package of men's brown dress socks. I turned a large Goldfish box inside out, cut it jaggedly at the top, and colored it with markers and crayons. If you ever want cardboard to look like wood: take a brown crayon and peel all the paper off of it, lay it flat and color across the cardboard. The texture in the cardboard will show the crayon and give it a LOT of texture! Add some brown marker here and there for a variegated look, then with a black sharpie draw your knots and texture lines. HINT! after you've drawn with the sharpie, take your crayon and color hard OVER the sharpie. It will blur the edges and make the whole thing look a bit more woody.

Then I took my sharpie and drew knots and texture lines on the t-shirt.

brown socks (that later were given to Dad) over the hands and shoes, painted face, and voila! a scary tree!

The brown hoodie has a big design on it that's covered by the tshirt, and the black one is a girl's hoodie with a sparkly heart design on the front that's covered by the white tummy, the inside of the hood is also a bright pink and purple striped that I covered with a piece of black cloth. So don't be afraid if you can't find exactly what you're looking for in making costumes. Many times things will work anyway, and they don't have to know what section of the store you found it!!

Because I mostly used either things that could be worn again, or things I already had lying around the house, the total I spent on this year's 3 Halloween costumes is the $5 for the brown tshirt!! And the sewing I did was MINIMAL.

here we are.....waiting for the kids to come! once it got dark we went and sat on the porch.
it was so much fun for the boys and I, Sugars decided she wasn't interested in the kids and spent the evening indoors with Dad.

And we have 3 bags of our favorite candy left over, so fear not, we're not deprived by not going house to house!!

How was your Halloween??

week behind, week ahead....

anyone have one of those days?

yeah, we did yesterday. It started off great! After dropping Sugars off at preschool I had a wonderful coffee date with a group of Moms from church/preschool. Then the day slid right down a muddy hill into a pile of poop.

Oh well, today is another day, right?

I've been off work for the last 6 nights and have enjoyed doing some different things with the kids.

One of the things I did was to finally take them to the Heard Museum.

Which I am TRYING to upload pictures from. I guess that'll have to be a different post because they're not loading this morning. The kids and I had a lot of fun and it's one more thing crossed off my "places to go" list!

Sonshine can't wait to go back!

Now, as for my goals for the week




in the fitness department, I didn't make my 20 mile goal.

But I rode the bike for 11.15 miles on Friday night, then Saturday at the Heard Museum we went for a mile long hike which was big fun! So I'd say I made good progress.

My other goals were:
6) make cover for my new stethoscope. it's about 4 inches longer than my old one so the old cover ain't quite cutting the mustard. done! :-)



5) finish marking the quilt. more progress made, but not finished.

3) make meatloaf. it's been too hot to cook during the day and I haven't made meatloaf in forever. Plus it's one of my hubby's favorite meals so I thought I'd make it overnight when I'm off. done! it was soooo yummy!!!

This week I work Wed, Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon, and Tues.

my only goal for the week will be to survive working so many days in a row without losing my religion.

how about you? any goals for the week??

Thesaurus Thursday 2010 #3

I just LOVE quick and easy and super cute projects! These baby blankets take about 2 hours to make each. They're soft and sweet and the perfect size and weight! Makes me feel so PRODUCTIVE!

This one's for SherryTex's January baby girl.

This one's for Jill's January baby boy.

Now, let's see, last week our words were:

chebec - A small grayish bird (Empidonax minimus) commonly inhabiting fields and groves of eastern North America. Also called least flycatcher.

cheddite –noun Chemistry .
an explosive for blasting, composed of a chlorate or perchlorate mixed with a fatty substance, as castor oil.

NO SMARTY PANTS WINNERS THIS WEEK!

Winners of the Silly Goose Awards are:

Roger with: Chebec - a liberal version of Glen Beck, he's all the rage in the jungle.

and Lori with: cheddite---a religious group similar to Hutterites and Mennonites. They worship cheddar cheese, wear cheese hats, eat cheese curds, and carry a cheese slicer at all time. They milk goats to make and sell cheese.

Congratulations Roger and Lori! Thanks to all of our players for the laughs you gave me this week! Please pick up your award from my sidebar before you leave...


This week's words are

busticate

attar

If you're new to Thesaurus Thursday, the T-T scoop can be found here.
Please take a second or two to get the scoop before you leave comments entries!

Now get out there and exercise your BRAIN and your FUNNY BONE at the same time!!

goals

HEY! time's running out to put up a guess on this week's Thesaurus Thursday!!

Time to check in on my weekly goals. Last week's goals turned out to be quite ambitious!

a) get money order and passport photo and fingerprints ready to send for La license. nope.
b) mark rest of quilt nope.
c) make baby blanket well, turns out I have TWO blankets to make! I got one of them done.
d) mail stuff to Steph ready to go out soon as the other baby blanket is done.
e) complete and post 3 favorite prayers meme that Lisa tagged me for. done.
f) complete and post 5 favorite devotions meme that Sherry tagged me for. done.
g) edit and post the Absolutely Awesome pictures my brand new camera took at the water park last week. done.
h) survive my stress echo tomorrow morning....for some reason running on a treadmill immediately after working for 12 hours is NOT appealing...but rather appalling done, all is as well as ever.
i) enroll my middle child in KINDERGARTEN!!!! done.
j) take the kids to the Dallas Aquarium!! nope. looks like we won't make it before school starts....maybe one weekend here soon. we'll see.


Here's the baby blanket I made. kinda cute huh?

Friday we are finally getting our headlights fixed! yeah!! then I'll be able to get back to the gym!

So, next week's goals are:

z) get to the gym

y) to the post office

x) get stuff for La license

w) mark rest of quilt

v) make other baby blanket

When old and new collide......

I finished the top for my Mommie Quilt.

This quilt is huge! it's 106X84 inches. I"ve decided to quilt it from the back in an all over scalloped pattern.....wish me luck to ever get it finished!

This quilt is composed of pieces of my children's infancy.

This section is extra blocks from Sonshine's baby quilt, with his newborn footprints. (yes, 3" from toes to heel...at 37 weeks gestation!)

This section is blocks from Gator-boy's baby quilt with his smaller, more premie footprints.

This section is blocks from Sugars' baby quilt...with her footprints that, while more narrow, are the same length as Sonshine's....except that she was born more than a week earlier than him!

The pieced part of the quilt's sides are the slipcover I made for the terribly boring bumper pads I'd been given.

And this fabric found around the edges is what I used to make the crib skirt and curtains for the nursery.

I've never been one for matchy....I prefer (loosely) coordinating!! Should the day arrive that I actually finish quilting this thing I'll bind it in the green from Sugars' quilt...I THINK I have enough of it left.

Unveiled! Sunshine on the Water.

Diana of Sunshine on my Shoulders and Walking in Sunshine is a dear friend of mine. We've been bloggy buddies for a couple of years now.

2010 has been hard for her. I mean to say H.A.R.D. She was diagnosed with breast cancer, underwent lumpectomy and earlier this week had chemo treatment number 3. After chemo there'll be radiation too.

She's had to face her worst fears and give up those things we women take for granted...like hair. God Bless her, female baldness is NOT for wimps!! She has faced this journey with her customary courage, faith, love, and joy. And I admire her.

My 2010 Spring to Finish Challenge Quilt is for her. Originally from California, Diana loves the ocean. Despite the many years she's lived in Colorado, she's said the waves call to her, the sights and sounds and smells of the beach bring her peace and joy. As she put on facebook back in January "I don't think I can ever get enough of the salty-flowery smell of southern California."

This was the inspiration for this quilt. Back up from the monitor...squint your eyes....can you see the waves?





Many prayers are stitched into this quilt, Diana. Prayers not only for your recovery, but also for strength, hope, faith, love and JOY to follow and surround you along your journey.

Hang tough my friend, and enjoy your quilt!

Sarah.


P.S. all prayers on her behalf are appreciated!

Finally!!

You might remember Jacquie's Spring to Finish Challenge.

Well, 8 weeks and 3 days later...

I have FINISHED my surprise quilt!

While working on this quilt I have listened to the following books.

Dracula by Bram Stoker
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L Frank Baum
and am currently listening to
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain

Love love love the free audiobooks app for my iphone!!

I'm very pleased with how this quilt turned out. It represents many FIRSTS for me.

It's the first quilt I've made for someone who wasn't a member of my family.
It's the fastest I've ever finished a quilt.
It's the first time I've labeled a quilt.
It's the first quilt I've made that represents something...almost like an abstract painting.
It's the first quilt I haven't delivered by hand.


And, it's a prayer quilt. Many prayers have been said for it's recipient during it's making. I hope it will bring her many smiles and comfort on hard days.

Now, as soon as I can get to the post office (probably Friday) it will go winging its way to some (hopefully) unsuspecting lady. I'd sure like to see a picture of her face when she gets it. Barring that I shall take pictures of it before I ship it and once she lets me know it's been received I'll post them. So stay tuned.

A Finished Project!

Here's the baby blanket I made for a co-worker! I have to be at work tomorrow during the day for a skills checkoff so I'm going to try and get it to her then

:-)

On to the next sewing goal - the footprint blocks for my Mommie Quilt!


TEA TIME!




This Tea Party is hosted by Ruth at Celebrate Friendship. Stop by and tell her hi!

Today I'm going to show you one of my hubby's cups. The logo seems to fit my mood lately as regards a) getting to the gym and b) my weekly goal list!




My tea is black cherry with a spoonful of sugar

I'm excited about our upcoming party. ALL of our immediate family will be there as far as I know. Even my siblings!!

When the well runs dry remember a rainstorm is right around the corner. :-)

Sugars' Apron--Updated with new pics!

You may have seen on the Todo List that the apron which was to go with Sugars' Easter dress is finally finished!

She hasn't worn them together yet...I think I'll put them on her for school pictures... :-)


But I thought you might like to see the apron.


Almost a year ago now I think a friend of Stephanie's gave her the ruffle off of a bed skirt that the friend had inherited. Stephanie mentioned that she couldn't think of anything to do with all that eyelet lace. Well, anyone who's known me for about a week will find out that I'm a HUGE SUCKER for eyelet lace! Stephanie was sweet enough to mail me a portion of that bed skirt.

This apron as well as the bottom ruffle on her dress are made from that very bedskirt!!







Now, that's MY kind of recycling!!!