Quietness.....

Here I sit alone in my living room.

The girls are actually quiet in their room (I still loathe the fact they share a room since bedtime can get a little more than chaotic at times but they love it).

Baby C is sleeping (for how long I'm not quite sure since he's teething and has been a bit ornery today but I'll forgive him since hes too cute).

Mr. Quitapotamus is at a hockey game with his work buddies since they got 'the good seats' and I opted to stay home since Miss S is getting over Scarlett Fever and I'd rather not unleash that on a babysitter.

So here I am, pondering sewing a little more today - I made 7 bean bags with the girls tonight, but thats a post for a different day - or do I stay sitting in my recliner with my chocolate covered almonds and chips......?  As Dr. Zeus would say "what would you do?"

I came, I saw, I CONQUERED!!!

Months ago - four and a half to be precise - my amazingly wonderful husband bought me a Bernina Serger for my birthday that could do pretty much anything I could ever want to do.

The problem is I had NO IDEA how to use it!!  

Over the past few months I tried a few times to thread it and with two kids running around and holding a baby I just couldn't figure it out so I put it away for a time when I could attack it when I was by myself.  Well last night was that night!!

Haha - yes that is the instruction booklet open beside my serger!!!

I'm so glad that my husband wasn't downstairs with me since I must have sounded like a raving lunatic talking to myself all alone in the basement but it worked - I actually serged something:

Since I hadn't been able to figure it out I didn't have any serged projects to start on last night so I just played with some scrap fabric that I had in one of my bins - and it didn't help that it was 11:00 at night.  I just might have to frame this little scrap as my proof that (when given a little bit of quiet time) I can actually figure some sewing stuff out without YouTube!  ;)

Now that I've got two different techniques (overlock and rolled hem) sort of figured out I get to add MORE to my WIP pile!  I forsee some dress-up clothes for the girls and maybe some play bags that will be made in the near future now.

Four Days in a Row - Go ME!

So my Quiltapotamus 365 Project is getting off to a fabulous start - four days in a row of sewing has actually been accomplished AND I'm making a serious dent in my Eye Spy quilt progress.  If I can keep this up I just might have the quilt top done in a week or so.

I absolutely LOVE the look of a work in progress quilt - it fills me with joy!

I kept messing up on a few of my squares so I made my own little cheat sheet so I would limit my mistakes to the absolute minimum:

I'm sure to anyone else it doesn't make a lick of sense but it was nice to be able to glance up at it and make sure I wasn't sewing the right square to the wrong side or the wrong direction.

I'm off to go downstairs to get a little bit more sewing done before I head up to bed.  Hopefully I'll be able to add to my little WIP pile.

Sickness and a little bit of Sewing.....

The sickness bug has struck our house and has knocked Miss S out for the count.  Yesterday she woke up with a sore throat, I told her that if her throat was sore she would be staying home from school.  Miraculously her throat got much better after that so we went to school a few hours later.  As soon as her teacher opened the door at pickup today she said Miss S was complaining of a sore throat all class (little turkey lied to me so she could go to school).  I took her temperature and it was pretty high - fast forward to this morning - and skip over the barfing last night and she had taken a turn for the worse.  Poor thing was all splotchy and super warm so we made a family trip to the doctors to get her checked out and she has Scarlett Fever, which is essentially strep throat with a body rash.  

Needless to say we picked up lots of juice, ice cream, popsicles and soup so we should be set for the next few more days at home since she's contagious and we don't want to get anyone else sick.

You need to squint to read it - but that does say 102.6F

The one nice thing about a sick kid is they want to be mellow, and the nice thing about sewing is the fact that it IS pretty mellow and its the perfect thing to give a mellow kid is fabric to organize!!!  I had Miss S help me with my Eye Spy fabric today when Miss L was napping (Baby C hung out with us too and 'supervised') and we managed to get a little bit done before heading out to the doctors.

We went from 8 squares with boarders to 12 - its not a ton but at least its progress and it was awesome to get some sewing done with Miss S helping me.

She also helped me with fabric selection - all the squares on the left she picked out of the pile for me to sew in the strips.  

Hopefully the medication will help Miss S out and I'll have my rambunctious little girl back soon, until then I'll cherish my calm little sewing buddy the next few days.

****On a totally different note my 1 year blogging anniversary is coming up this weekend and I've decided to celebrate with my very first giveaway!!  Stay tuned for more info!!!****

The great clothing purge - Round 1!

So my husband and I are pondering buying a new (to us) house in a little bit so I've started going through all the kids clothes that they've out grown and taking stuff to the donation bins.

After a few days of purging I had 19 small kitchen BAGS of clothing to take to donation:

Sorry about the grainy picture, Blackberries aren't fabulous picture takers.

Not bad if I may say so myself!  I still have a bunch more stuff to go through but now that all these clothes are out of my house I'm feeling much better (and happy that they are going to people that hopefully need them) and ready to tackle the next round of clothing purge that needs to go on in this house.

Now to hit publish (and not really proof-read, sorry!!!) so the little two and I can go pick Miss S up from preschool.  Hope you are all having a super fantastic and productive Monday!!!

Quitapotamus 365 Project

I must confess, I LOVED Blogtoberfest!!  

I managed to blog almost every day (I think I missed 3 days out of 31) and it helped me get on top of my sewing that month and keep in touch with my followers.  So that being said I am starting the Quitapotamus 365 Project - I'll try my best to blog every day (or as much as possible) for the next year.  I can pretty much guarantee that its not all going to be about sewing, it might be some family stuff, random pictures, food stuff, organizing....pretty much anything that I have going on but I'll try to keep it mostly to sewing or at least something crafty most of the time!

Hopefully you'll all enjoy - and maybe even learn a thing or two over the next 365 days and I'm sure I'll learn a ton along the way!

I've got my post for today done and I even have a few more in the 'ol inbox ready to go for the next few days!

See you tomorrow

Friday Night Sew In - I actually Sewed!!

Another Friday Night Sew In is in the books and thankfully I got to work on a little bit of my Eye Spy quilt (I wrote this last night but fell asleep before I posted it, hence why I keep saying tonight instead of last night throughout the post).  


I left Baby C (whos almost 5 months and not so little anymore!) to sleep on Daddy while he watched the Barrett Jackson Auction on Tv for a little bit so I could get a little bit of sewing done in the peace and quiet and I can honestly say that an hour of quilting was EXACTLY what I needed to get my head on a little straighter.  I've been feeling horribly guilty for not touching my sewing at all in what feels like months but between finishing a basement, Christmas, a family vacation to Disney World for 10 days and life with three little kids it seems like sewing is beyond the last thing that I can find time for.  Being able to sit down and get even a little bit of sewing done (I got an hour in before Baby C needed mommy for food) was so awesome.  

I think my major downfall when it comes to sewing is that I tend to 'wing it' a little too much - tonight was no exception.  I'm the type of person that wants IMMEDIATE SATISFACTION and I want to see the finished product after I've been working on a quilt for 5 minutes.  Rather than sitting down and doing the math for how many squares I need to do each part of the quilt I did a few of each step so I could see how its going to turn out.  Sometimes it works, and sometimes it bites me in the butt.  Tonight thankfully I only screwed up on one square (and really whats a quilt without at least ONE screw up?!?!  ;)) and since its an eye spy quilt I figure it will blend in, or I'll just put it somewhere near the bottom and hope the kids don't notice!  

I got a whopping 8 squares done tonight, its more than what I've done in the past month so I'll take it.  Hopefully I'll be able to sit down and get some more sewing done this weekend - its good for the soul. 

Its Friday Night Sew-In Tonight!!!

Yippie!!  Its that time again - time for the Friday Night Sew In hosted by Crafty Vegas Mom!

I haven't sewn in a long time (as I hang my head in shame) but tonight I'm hoping to get going on my Eye Spy quilt for my kids.  Miss S and Miss L helped me lay out some random patterns for it before Christmas so I have a good idea of how I want it too look.  Now I just need to hope and pray that my girls go to bed at a decent time tonight so I can get some sewing in!

On a different note we just got back from Disney World earlier this week so I'm hoping to upload some pictures from our trip and my maiden voyage to Joanns!  Is it sad that hitting a Joanns was on my list of MUST DO's when we were in Florida?!  I showed some serious restraint since I could have bought half the store although I'm kicking myself for not taking advantage of getting a few AccuQuilt Dies that were on sale for 25% off.

Anywhoo.  Time to get some stuff done around the house so I have some time free tonight for my Sew In sewing to take place.

New Years Sewing Goals

Happy 2012 everyone!!  I hope the new year brings health and happiness to you and your families.

That being said I'm totally giving everyone permission to start kicking my non-posting blogging butt since I've been so bad for not posting lately!  Sorry about that and thank you to everyone that hasn't abandoned me yet!  ;)

I've always believed that New Years Resolutions are made to be broken so I will create a list of my New Years Sewing Goals to get accomplished for this year.  Actually I'd love to set up a monthly sewing goal but I'll get into that come February.

I've got a TON of WIP's that I need to get accomplished soon:

• Crazy Cat Quilt - my Mom has been waiting a very long time for this to be finished and I really need to get on it.
• Dirty 30's Quilt - I've changed my mind on how big I want this one to be so hopefully I'll be able to bang it out with it just being a lap sized quilt rather than a twin sized quilt.
• Tumbling Rubies Quilt - I have the top finished and now its just on to the quilt sandwich and then FMQ and binding.
• Christmas Flower Table Runner - is my paper pieced project I'm still not super happy with but I'd love to have it done for next year.
• Party Monster Quilt - I just need to finish FMQ the top and put the binding on and then Baby C has a super cute quilt to party on!  

I do have quite a few projects that I would love to start on, including figuring out how to work my serger so I will be keeping quite busy in the new year. 

We are heading to Disney World in a few days for an awesome family holiday so I don't foresee getting much sewing done before the middle of January BUT I am hoping to hit a JoAnn's while I am down in Orlando .  

Thanks for stopping by and I wish you all the best in 2012!!!  

Christmas Bow Wreath Tutorial

I have been dying to make some sort of wreath to hang up that Miss S could help me with and after looking around the house for something to use I discovered my huge bag of bows!

The final product!

I wanted the wreath to lay pretty flat so I decided to use a cardboard backing - and like most families with a baby and 2.5 year old at home I have a TON of diaper boxes so I used one of those.  I found the biggest circle I could (gotta love big fruit bowls) and traced around it with my good old sharpie.

Then I used a corel soup bowl to trace out the inside of the wreath.

I looked around for an exacto knife but I couldn't find one and I really didn't feel like wrestling with scissors so I found the next best thing - a steak knife!  I'm loving how this is looking very toilet seat'esque right now!  ;)

Next I grabbed my bows and my glue gun and Miss S and I glued the crap out of the cardboard.

A ton of bows later and a few glue sticks and this was the end result:

We hung it on our front hall closet door since I don't think it would hold up too well in the -10C weather we have outside right now.

Note to self - buy a better camera....!  ;)

 We added a few bows on top of the bottom layer to give it some depth and it actually looks pretty good if I do say so myself.

Seeings how it is Occupy Your Sewing Room week over at Cat Patches I thought that I should do an update on what sewing I've gotten done this week:

• I did get a Christmas Table Runner (mostly) finished this week but I haven't sewn the binding on yet. Thats my tonight project and I'll post pictures of it tomorrow.  
• I'm also working on cutting the fabric for my Eye Spy quilt, hopefully I'll have that cut up and ready to go so I can start on that in the next few days.