Adorable "Medical" Christmas Wreaths

I wish I could take credit for the wreaths that I saw today at the lab while I was waiting for some blood work to be done but alas I can't.  I also wish I didn't look like the CRAZY lady taking pictures of Christmas decorations in a waiting room but I just couldn't help it - they were so cute!!

When I commented on the decorations to the lab tech, she said that they were given the go-ahead to decorate the lab BUT they couldn't spend any money, and all supplies they used either had to be previously used or expired.  I think they made some amazing things with some discarded laboratory supplies!

I noticed this one right away - they are the used 'orange drink' containers from the Glucose fasting test you have to take at 35 weeks of pregnancy - I remember that horrible tasting drink well! 

This one was paper cups and blood vials.

This last one was my favourite - those are pee jars!!  How genius!  

There were a bunch more decorations on the walls but I had already gotten some seriously strange looks taking the first three pictures and didn't want to encourage any more weird stares especially since I wasn't sure how long I was going to be waiting in the waiting room for.

Its nice to see that even in a really busy lab, they were able to take the time to decorate for the holidays and it looked fantastic.  

Thanks for stopping by - see you tomorrow!

Another Top Almost Quilted!

After last nights Drunk Monkey sewing fiasco I figured I needed to continue the finishing (because even though I hate the stitching - the Eye Spy quilt top is DONE!) and so I ran upstairs and grabbed the Party Monster Quilt that I need to finish the quilting on and got to work on that.  Thankfully this quilt is super easy 'stitch in the ditch' machine quilting and will be done in the next few nights!

Its a small crib sized quilt and fits through my machine SO MUCH EASIER than the Eye Spy quilt did - plus I used the dream cotton batting and what a difference in manoeuvrability!  

Hopefully I can get this quilt top done in the next few days and then I can do both bindings for both Eye Spy and the Party Monster Quilt done by the new year!  Whoot whoot!  Hooray for finishes.

Thanks for stopping by - see you tomorrow!

Drunk Monkey Sewing - Take 2!

After a few weeks of sickness, more sickness and a few kids Christmas Concerts I finally got up the energy to work on the Eye Spy Quilt or as I like to call it 'the Drunk Monkey quilt'.  I refer to it as the Drunk Monkey quilt because my machine quilting is SO horrible on this quilt it looks as though a monkey could have sewn it after a few alcoholic beverages.

From far away it doesn't look to bad:

The backing isn't too bad either:

But when you get real close - you can see the 'magic' of the Drunk Monkey in action:

There is nary a straight line to be seen......

That being said, I have learned MANY a lesson working on this quilt:

• My accuracy has improved over the course of the past year and a half that I have been working on this quilt.  Some seams are fantastic (my later work) and some aren't (the blocks that I did at the beginning of the quilt.  I need to take my time and continue to improve on my accuracy with piecing.  
• I will NEVER.EVER.NEVER.EVER purchase and use poly batting.  E-V-E-R.  I made the mistake of getting talked into it since the the quilt store did not have the cotton batting I wanted and I wanted to work on the quilt so bad that I just grabbed what was available.  
• I need to pull my quilt tighter when I am making the quilt sandwich - I think my top was a little too loose so I got some puckering when I quilted the top. 
• I need to lighten up on myself - every quilt is able to teach me a lesson or two (this one more than a few lessons were taught!) and I am a very occasional quilter.  Practice makes perfect and if I want to get better I need to put in some extra time and I will get better.  

Drunk Monkey sewing aside, I know the girls are going to LOVE the quilt when I get the binding on in the next few days (going to try to machine the binding on which should be interesting!).  

Thanks for stopping by!  See you tomorrow.

Finished Wings

Miss S's Winter Concert is tomorrow and I finished her costume tonight.  Its really nothing too special, since I didn't want to wreck a perfectly good (brand new) red long sleeved shirt - especially right before Christmas by sewing big circles on it!  So I did the oh so classy route of safety pinning the felt circles to her shirt.  She decided on circle placement - not me!!

The wings in the above picture were the 'spares' just in case the spray painted ones were too stinky.  

Below is the finished wings!  

Miss S didn't get to see the finished product before she went to bed so she is going to be very excited in the morning.  The concert should be cute tomorrow - she has one 'performance' at 9:10 that the family is going to and then another one at 6:30 that the grandparents and I are going to.  I figured the evening show would be way too busy for Mr C. to be running around and Miss L has been downright inconsolable past 6:00 most nights lately because shes so tired.  I believe in situational behaviours and if I put two very overtired kids in a room full of 300 parents they are going to freak out and I'd rather that not happen!  

I'll post pictures of the concert tomorrow!  

Thanks for stopping by - see you tomorrow.  

Sickness, Christmas Tree and Ladybug Wings

Its that time of year again - Christmas you say?!  NO - that other time of the year; when everyone gets sick!  NOT my most favourite time of the year at all to say the very least.  Thankfully after most of us getting sick over the past week I'm hopeful to think the worst is behind us.

We did manage to put up our tree this week - sorry for the horrible picture but all I could find was my iPhone.  The girls did most of the decorating and they did a fantastic job.  I made sure that all of the breakable/good ornaments were out of Mr. C's reach since he thinks the tree is awesome and wants to redecorate all the time!!!

I have a few favourite ornaments but I'll post more about those another day when I have the good camera out and I can get way better detail.

Miss S has her Winter Concert this week at school - she is so excited.  Its about Bugs and I've been privy to a few of the songs she gets to sing.  Its going to be adorable!  They are allowed to chose the type of bug they want to be so Miss S decided she wanted to be a lady bug and I needed to figure out some kind of costume.

She didn't have a plain red shirt so off to Walmart we went today and scored one for $6!  Next up was dots and wings.  We had black felt that I figured I could cut dots out of and we had pink wings leftover from Halloween.  I've seen tonnes of people spray paint stuff on blogs so I figured I could just spray paint the wings and be done - which worked GREAT except for the smell!!  How do I get the spray-paint smell off the wings by Wednesday?!?!  If the paint smell doesn't come off by tomorrow I'll see if I can pick up another pair of wings and we can just put the black dots on the new wings and they'll be just as cute.

Sorry for the sideways picture - I tried to take this picture three times and each time blogger made it go sideways and I have no idea how to flip it so sideways it will be!!

Thanks for stopping by - see you tomorrow!

Christmas Table Runner - A Finish!!

I'm finally making some sweet progress on my Out Of Control UFO's that I posted about a while back. This table runner was fully quilted on top (I just stitched in the ditch of all the seams), had the binding sewn on I just hadn't hand sewn the binding down - and it had been that way for the past year!  I'm so bad for getting a quilt to a certain stage and abandoning it for a fun new project!

I don't have the energy to get all creative with my photo of my table runner tonight - so I give you an iPhone picture complete with my foot so you can admire my handiwork!  ;)

I really need to bust out my camera and my finished quilts outside on a nice day and get some really nice pictures of them rather than my late and night, dark and dingy pictures.  Oh well, a finish is a finish and I'll take it!!

Thanks for stopping by - see you tomorrow.

A VERY loved Quilt!!

A little over six years ago I made my very first quilt for my Niece's baby shower gift

I had no idea what I was doing but 6 years later and a LOT of LOVE it looks so well loved and totally soft and cuddly!  

I even attempted Free Motion Quilting on a sewing machine that you shouldn't FMQ on!!!  I had no idea that feed dogs could drop or what a FMQ foot was - all I did was latch onto the quilt and pull and push it with all my might and make some weird squiggles but it looked super cute.  

We have our three kids and our two nieces and one nephew over for a sleep over tonight - my niece brought her blankie over with her - it was so awesome to see how much she has loved it over the past 6 years.  On top of that it was almost as awesome that all 6 kids went to bed with almost no squabbling and fell asleep in record time. 

All and all it was an awesome day!  

Thanks for stopping by - see you tomorrow.  

Tis the Season - Christmas Card Season!!

After last nights epic machine quilting failure fiasco I decided to take tonight off quilting and do something that I have been wanting to do forever but have NEVER done - Christmas Cards!  Every single year I say the same thing and say that I am totally going to do the Christmas Card thing, and every year I manage to forget.  Not this year!  I managed to address 11 cards to family that still need a family picture and pictures of the kids and I have 15 cards to friends that don't need any pictures.  Hopefully I can send out the 15 cards tomorrow once I get stamps and I can get the other 11 sent off to family next week after I print off some pictures and figure out a way to get a Family Picture done this weekend.

I wish I was a poet and could write something witty in my cards but they are all pretty simple.  The main thing for me is that I have them all addressed and I NEED to get them out by the middle of next week.  Mostly because if I don't by then, I will totally forget and just not send them and that would be a shame.

I'm hoping to get a bunch of cards this year, my girls LOVE getting mail so any time we get a Christmas card I tell them its for them and they are quite excited.  If any of my Blogging friends would like to send me a card, message me your address and I will do the same.  Its always nice to get mail that is not a bill!! ;)

Tomorrow I am hoping to tackle the Eye Spy quilt again, I just needed tonight off.  Tomorrow is a new day!

Thanks for stopping by, see you tomorrow!  

Machine Quilting Epic FAIL

I started this evening out all excited since I was going to begin the machine quilting on my Eye Spy quilt.  I got a few bobbins on the go and went to town on doing the column quilting and now I am sitting here on the verge of tears HATING what I have done so far.....My lines are worse than a drunk monkey attempting sewing for the first time.

From far away its not so bad....

But get close up - DAMN - what the heck happened?!?!?!  

Seriously it looks much worse in person.....

I have decided to push through and see how it looks with the other echoing done and if it STILL looks drunken monkey'esque I am going to attempt to cover it up or at least detract from it with attempting some FMQ in all the cream rectangles.  I figure by then nothing I do to it could make it worse so I might as well make it something interesting to look at!  I have done TOO much machine quilting to the quilt top to sit with a seam ripper for hours and hours and hours on end to rip it all out.  

I'm sorry, I usually try to be positive and happy on my blog but after laying my quilt out and seeing the mess I created I feel so deflated and bummed.  Thankfully my kids will love it no matter how weird the quilting is but I know its all that I am going to see....grrrrrrr!  

Ok - lets turn this into a learning experience for me........I know what happened - I'm not used to working with a quilt so big and it kept pulling, I am using a different batting (a poly batting that I have never used before and HATE and will never use again, its cotton batting only for this girl from now on), and I was in too much of a hurry to see the results.  There.  I have my reasons for my drunk monkey sewing BUT it still doesn't make me feel any better BUT I know that I can learn from this and hopefully I can keep the drunk monkey at bay so it doesn't make another appearance on my quilt tops anymore.  

Thanks for stopping by - see you tomorrow (and I promise I won't be such a Debbie Downer...).

Teaching the Young'uns

My oldest daughter, Miss S, asked me last night if she could 'hand sew' like I do. A huge part of me was SO THRILLED and honoured that she would want to be like me and part of me was trying to figure out how I could let her 'hand sew' something without drawing blood.  ;)   Then it hit me - Plastic Canvas!!! I don't remember playing on it when I was a kid but I must have since pretty much everyone does some sort of plastic canvas sewing when they are little.

I was going to get the girls just some big squares of plastic canvas to practice on then we found a little package of 10 stars and another package of 10 hearts and I thought those would be perfect for Christmas Ornaments for the tree this year.  Plus they are small enough for a good 20 minute craft and a few might make their way to some Grandparents houses for their trees if the girls continue to really enjoy making them.

Thankfully Mr. C took a long nap this afternoon and we were able to sit down in the living room and have a pretty good 'intro to Plastic Canvas 101' session.  Such concentration!!

I apologize for the picture quality - its from Instagram  

All and all they both did a fantastic job!  Miss S (my 5 year old) is really into patterns so I helped her keep her stitches all going mostly the same way.  We had a few mistakes but nothing a little reverse stitching didn't fix.  Miss L (my 3 year old) went with the 'wing it' method (I wonder where she got that from?!?!!?) and pretty much just went to town with putting the (very) bunt needle in anywhere and maybe pulling the thread all the way out, but most of the time it was a hot mess of jumbled thread but she was loving it.

Miss L's is on top and Miss S's is on the bottom - not bad for a first attempt!  So proud of my girls!!!

I have already had them get out of bed once to ask if they can do more hand sewing tomorrow - I guess it was a hit!  

Now that all three of them are in bed its time to clear the nook out and get going on sandwiching and pinning the Eye Spy quilt.  Hopefully I can complete and share that one soon.  

Thanks for stopping by - see you tomorrow!

Eye Spy Backing Complete

In the past the quilts that I have done have always been more of the smaller lap type variety.  Nothing over 40 inches wide so I never had to worry about piecing a back of a quilt.  My last two quilts have been the two biggest ones that I have done and I have had to piece the backs which as resulted in a lot of 'winging it' and thankfully so far it hasn't backfired yet!

For my Eye Spy Quilt I had some great flannel that my SIL gave me on her travels to various quilt shops (which when I really think about it seems silly since she doesn't quilt! - She just loves me that much!) that I knew that I wanted to use for the backing.  Originally I thought I would do a small Eye Spy quilt so I could use a single width of fabric but then I figured that I should go big or go home and decided to make a larger quilt.

I left the backing way larger than I needed it since I'm still not 100% sure the right  way to piece a back.  I have been just laying the fabric over the top and if I have a few inches on each side I figure its good and move on to the next fabric I want to piece together.

I have way more of the monkey fabric on the right hand side that I should probably trim off before I tackle the quilt sandwich.  I really want to show the pieced back rather than a TON of the monkey fabric and just a tiny bit of the piecing on the left hand side of the quilt.  I think the main thing I am going to run into with this quilt is making sure that my backing isn't off kilter when I tape it down.  Everything needs to be pretty straight on this quilt or its going to show the mistakes pretty clearly.

Well I am off to my Moms house for the afternoon and dinner with the kids soon - although tonight will be full fledged quilt sandwich type of evening.  I foresee a lot of pins and a slightly sore back from being hunched over pinning all night in my future!  ;)

Thanks for stopping by - see you tomorrow.

Playday Friday!

After a long week of School for both girls, quite a few rough nights of not sleeping and heading into a weekend with Mr. Quiltapotamus working nights (weekend nights worst part of shift work - ever) I was all set for a quiet Friday at home with the kids.  Miss S had today off school so we hit Michael's in the morning for a sweet deal on some plastic storage boxes that were on killer sale!   I got 4 for myself and 4 for my SIL to keep her yarn in.

I keep my WIP in my totes (the four on the left are for my SIL and the top four on right tower are my new ones that I got today).  I find they are great for putting finished blocks, backing, coordinating thread, layer cakes or pretty much anything related to a single project in as long as the quilt isnt too big. As you can tell I label what I have in them which helps keep things organized especially when the little ones want to 'help' me organize my fabric!!!

Anyways - getting back to the Playday part of Playday Friday.  I got a text message from a friend right before lunch asking if I wanted to go sledding with her and her two kids after lunch.  Normally I would say heck no and run for the hills since I'm so outnumbered with the three kids and just me but I figured that today is the day I need to start doing more stuff like that with all three kids rather than waiting for my husband to be off work to do the fun stuff with them (I am Mom - hear me roar!).

So after getting all the snow stuff together - who would have thought the amount of snow stuff three kids would need?!  Plus mine (which was 80% of my husbands stuff!) I remembered that one of our sleds didn't have a great handle for pulling it back up the hill.  Last year I put a small pink ribbon on it but it was too short so I knew I had to do something about it before we went out today since I would have three kids and three sleds and only two hands.

Enter: Duct tape:

Did I make a duct tape handle for the sled??  Oh yes, yes I did!!  It took me 10 minutes to fashion a really simple handle out of a bunch of duct tape but WOW did it ever do the trick and it made it way easier for the kids (Mom too) to pull the sled up the hill (and hold onto it at the top so it didn't slide down without its +1) once we finally made it out the door.

The hour between the text message and heading out to the hill was killing the girls so I brought the sleds inside so they could 'practice' sledding and I could figure out the duct tape handle.

But we finally made it to the hill!!!

The big blue blob in front of me was Mr. C.  It was his first time sledding and he did so well.  He loved it, and really enjoyed being hauled up the hill each time we went down.  I even had him go down beside Miss L and I in his own little sled and he really liked that too.  Miss S was a little speed demon and I think after today that she just might be ready for the ski hill that Mr. Quiltapotamus is dying to take her to.  

Our afternoon was unshockingly quiet considering the kids went super hard on the hill for an hour and 15 minutes, its amazing what fresh air and hill repeats will do to a 5, 3 and 32 year old!  The 1 year old was his awesome 'get into everything' self this afternoon.... ;)  

Now that everyone is in bed and the house is quiet I am going to try my darndest and keep away from the chips and start on my binding for the Eye Spy Quilt.  I would love to have that done for my next Guild Meeting in December.  

Thanks for stopping by - see you tomorrow.

The Best of Intentions......

Sometimes I have the absolute best of intentions when it come to a night of sewing - I get all my fabric out (in last nights case it was the backing to my Eye Spy quilt), get out the iron, ironing board, cutting mat and get as far as this:

Yes, that would be my quilt laid out on the floor with some of the backing that I am auditioning laying on it (I'm planning on doing a pieced back with some of my leftover/scrap/extra flannel fabric), and I'm sitting on the couch looking at it with this in my lap:

Oh yes, those would be Creamy Dill potato chips in my lap and thats pretty much as far as I have been getting with my quilting the last few nights.  I get everything out and stare at my fabric and munch away on something salty!  So BAD, but so tasty.

I'm hopeful tomorrow night will be more productive in the quilting department - tonight I'm off for a very long awaited dinner at the Olive Garden with my SIL.  Soup, Salad and Breadsticks here we come!!!

Thanks for stopping by - see you tomorrow

Amaryllis

Years ago, I worked with a lady that marked the stem of her Amaryllis in her office every morning with a sharpie and we could see by the end of the day how much it grew - I was 19 and thought it was the coolest thing ever.  So I think that my 5 and 3 year old would think its out of this WORLD to do the same thing!

The kids and I were shopping on the weekend and we came across a plant-it-yourself Amaryllis in a box.  It had the little black plastic pot, the Amaryllis, and two little peat pods.  The girls and I planted the bulb and now we wait for it to take root and start to grow.

On the weekend the triangle-pointy-top-thingy (I believe it will be the flower) was green, over the past day and a bit its changed to a pink and will eventually be the red flower - or so I think.  How can you tell that I really don't have a green thumb?  I wish I did, I'm learning, but I'm pretty clueless when it comes to plants, flowers, or almost any kind of greenery.

I'll post some pictures over the next few weeks of the Amaryllis' crazy growth (unless I kill it before then!).

Thanks for stopping by - see you tomorrow.

Eye Spy - Top finished!

I posted a few weeks ago about all of my UFO's that I have on the go (here) and it has totally helped to kick my butt in gear to get a move on with finishing some stuff up! 

Domestic Handbag is done!  Hopefully I can post some pictures of that one later this month. - So that's 1 off the List! 

I finished the top to the Eye Spy quilt this evening - its roughly 64x54 inches and I think I am just going to piece some flannel that I have in my stash to keep with the 'scrappy' look.  Plus its for the kids and flannel is super cozy!

The seams match up fairly well for how many squares there are although some seams that look like a drunk monkey was sewing them but the nice thing is since the quilt is SO busy you don't notice the off seams too much.  Once I have it quilted I'll show you some of my favourite squares.

I did mention that there were a few drunk monkey seams - it took a TON of trimming to get the rows un-wavy before I sew the top together.  I pieced most of this very off and on over the course of a few months last summer and fall and I know I didn't pay nearly as close attention as I should have, I paid for the lack of attention to detail in trimmings! Every quilt has a lesson to teach and apparently this quilts lesson is PAY ATTENTION to seam allowances....  ;) 

Tomorrow I need to hit the LQS and pick up a package of batting since both packages that I currently have are too small and then I can work on piecing the backing together.  Hopefully I can get to doing the sandwich one night this week. 

Thanks for stopping by - see you tomorrow.

Its been a bit! Sorry!

Hi there, sorry for the break.  I needed a little mental time out after blogtoberfest and carrying on into November for a week and a bit.  I'm back now and hopefully can share some fun stuff everyone.

First things first - I FINISHED the Domestic Handbag quilt!  Finally and I LOVE it!  I made it for my SIL and in return she is making me a granny square afghan and mine is a surprise just like hers is for me.  Once she finishes my afghan I will be able to give her quilt to her and then post a plethora of pictures that I hope you enjoy.  Its killing me that I can't post pictures of it yet but I hope I you can hang in there for a few weeks then I can post away.

On a totally different note Its not like I needed another hobby but I've been wanting a portable craft to be able to come with me in the van while I wait for Miss S to be let out from Kindergarden or to do while I am at a drs appointment or something to keep me away from texting or just surfing the net or pinterest on my phone.  I want my kids to see Mommy creating with what little spare time that I have rather than filling it by starting at a little white phone whenever I can.  Don't get me wrong I do love my phone and keeping up with friends and family but I don't want my kids to always be associating Mommy = Cell Phone.

My Step Sister has been stitching (what cool people call Embroidery these days) for years and it was always something that I admired but didn't think that I could ever do, but after talking with Sherry for a few days and watching some tutorials online I was super pumped to give it a try.  She sent me a lovely parcel with everything that I needed to start off in the wonderful world of Stitching to create this amazing work of art:

How cute is she?!?!  ;)

Ok, so Lady Monkey isn't a total work of art, but it was the first time I've ever attempted any kind of Stitching and she turned out really cute.  I worked off a Sublime Stitching transfer and did a back stitch along the lines.

After I finished Lady Monkey I decided to keep the Monkey thing going and transfer on two bananas and a Boy Monkey to keep Lady Monkey company.  Next time I need to keep the iron on the transfer for a few seconds longer but it will work ok for this go round.

I am just stitching onto a scrap piece of cream backing that I hadn't used.  I might just fill the whole thing up as a sampler piece and try out as many stitches as I can as a good practice before I start working on the girls clothes or pillow cases or anything.

I mentioned that Sherry sent me an amazing parcel - she went all out!  An embroidery hoop, 4 Sublime Stitching pattern packages, thread, thread bobbins and two needles!!!

Oh the lovely thread!!!  I picked this package up on Tuesday and I may have purchased a few more colors at Michaels because I couldn't help myself!  ;)  Soooo pretty!

Now that I am DONE the Domestic Handbag quilt, I can throw that up in the Finished pile!!!  Now I think I am going to move on and get to work on the Eye Spy and my Crazy Cat quilt and hopefully get those off the WIP pile.

Thanks for stopping by - see you tomorrow!

Almost done....!

I totally felt guilty for not blogging yesterday but then realized that unless I have something earth shattering to share, or if I am just not in the mood to blog, I am not going to stress out about it.  Blogtoberfest was awesome but sometimes a day off is totally allowed - yesterday was my day off and I totally enjoyed the family time and a quiet evening.

After a quiet Sunday (and a REALLY busy Saturday with family) I managed to get some quality time in with the Domestic Handbag quilt - and I only have about 1/4 of the binding to finish sewing on and then its  DONE!! Like finished, finito, donezo, completed.....!!!  I still have to wash it (which I will admit that I am a little scared to do but I figure a color catcher should do its job and it will be ok!) so it will look its best when I give it to my SIL.  I am hoping to swing seeing her on Friday and then I'll be able to give her the quilt then - once she has it I can post away with a ton of pictures so you can all see it!  Hopefully that post will be on Saturday.  Who am I kidding, with how much I have talked about this quilt I will totally be posting pictures about it for weeks to come.

Once I finish the Domestic Handbag quilt, I am going to jump in and finish my Christmas Table Runner so its good to go in a few weeks when we start busting out the Christmas stuff.

I might add a boarder or something to it since I didn't realize how big my table is and the runner looks a little puny hanging out in the middle of the table like a lost over sized placemat.  I might also try out some FMQ on this to see how it goes - I'm feeling adventurous lately!

Thanks for stopping by  - see you tomorrow. 

TGIF

Yes everyone - TGIF - and that is all that I have to say before I head to bed.

 

After continuing Blogtoberfest into November I couldn't bring myself to go to bed without posting SOMETHING today....hopefully tomorrow I will have something a little more inspiring to share! 

 

Thanks for stopping by - see you tomorrow.

I hate sewing on Binding....

I just finished machine sewing on the binding on the Domestic Handbag quilt for my Sister-In-Law tonight,  I still have to hand sew it on the back though.  I've made quite a few quilts and I ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS

ALWAYS

seem to screw up when I have to join the ends.  This time was no different - it took me THREE (3!!) times.  So not cool, thankfully I didn't cut the tails until I knew I had it right but it just made for a frustrating experience.

I have no idea why I always turn into a space cadet when it comes to binding but it always throws me for a loop.  Anyone have any tricks?!?

Now that I have that off my chest I can go to bed and attack the hand sewing tomorrow on fresh eyes and hunkering down from the snow storm that is blowing away outside.

Sorry for the dark picture - its just after 11:00 out and pretty dark.  I'm already dreading shovelling that snow in the morning, but thankfully my van is warm and dry in the garage so we don't have to freeze dropping Miss S off at school tomorrow.  I foresee a stop at Tim Horton's (a Canadian coffee place for those that don't know) on the way home from school for a very LARGE hot chocolate to keep me toasty as I shovel the sidewalk.

Thanks for stopping by - see you tomorrow.

With the awesome progress that I'm making on the Domestic Handbag quilt I should have it done and to my SIL by next weekend - then I'll finally be able to post some pictures of it after she has it!!!  I can't wait!

Celebrating the Small Stuff

I wasn't going to post today, since I didn't have much on the go that seems 'worthy' of a post but since I got in the habit of blogging every day with Blogtoberfest it was eating me that I hadn't posted anything yet!  ;)  As I thought about it - I DO have some worthy stuff to share today!  It might not be earth shattering but sometimes I need to stop and celebrate the small stuff to help remind me that small stuff IS important too.

Lets highlight some of the high points of the day:

• Miss L is feeling MUCH better - hooray for a not so sick 3 year old!
• The girls had gymnastics today and both had a great time.
• The kids tried out their sensory box I made for them and loved it (I'll do a post on that sometime this week to explain a little more in detail). 
• Mr C is loving to give face hugs when he gives kisses now (so cute!!)
• Last but not least:  Mr. Quiltapotamus had the girls 'help' him organize the garage this afternoon - and I am now able to park in it after a YEAR of not being able to.   The icing on THAT cake is that is supposed to be snowing later tonight and I WILL NOT HAVE TO BRUSH SNOW OFF MY VAN in the morning to take Miss S to school......that in it of itself makes today an amazing day in my book! 

Its a little tight in there but it FITS again!! 

I'm sure you can tell that this post evolved as I was writing it - I had thought of re-writing it a few times but I try to write as I think (which is SO scatterbrained but it is who I am).  I think this whole post is a  gentle reminder to myself that my days don't have to be filled with gourmet dinners (um, I have three kids, they don't 'do' gourmet!), a perfectly clean house (see previous comment!), or have to finish an entire quilt in a day to have it be a 'good' day.

Its days like today that I can head to bed knowing that the kids were happy, I was happy, Mr. Quiltapotamus was happy and everyone is looking forward to tomorrow.

Thanks for stopping by - see you tomorrow. 

Catastrophe Avoided!

I was all set to get some serious work done on the top of my Domestic Handbag quilt last night when all of a sudden in the middle of a quilting pass my machine makes a horrible noise (you know the one where all you can do is freeze and not breathe hoping that the tangle won't be too bad!) and I look down to see my needle has jumped out of its shank (is that what the needle holder is called?!?!) and is lying BENT, partially under the walking foot.  I wanted to die - this was so not what I needed!!!

The needle on the right was the one that bent - and boy did it ever bend!!!  The one on the left was the replacement and I thought that I would just be able to throw it in and be back on my merry sewing way. 

Not so.

I put a test strip of fabric in just to make sure that everything was hunky dory and sure enough my machine ate the test fabric and made some serious chunking noise.  Thank goodness it didn't eat the quilt - I would have cried and probably proceeded to beat my sewing machine!  I tried fiddling with tension, re-threading it, turning it off and back on (hey, it works for my computer) but it wasn't working so I decided to take it one step further and busted out the tools!!

Its been a year and a half since I serviced my machine and WOW was there ever a lot of lint in there - I've never taken it apart before but I saw a post in the last few days on machine maintenance and figured that I should give it a good lint cleaning.  Oh my heavens was there ever a lot of lint in there in addition to a few random long threads.  After I took this picture I took a clump of lint out that was almost the size of a Canadian Twoonie from under my bobbin case, it was crazy just how much lint got under there.

Also I took off the side cover to see if there was anything up there that was causing the thread to be tight or something - it looked ok.  Or so it did to my very un-educated sewing machine repair person eyes.  ;)



After I put it back together - all in one piece I should add - I did a few test strips and my machine didn't eat my fabric but I just didn't trust it for the night and it was already getting late. Its been my experience that major mistakes usually happen after a minor mistake and when I'm tired so I thought it would be best for all parties involved if I just went to bed.  I'm hoping that it will behave this evening, I will do quite a few test lines to see if its fully fixed before I start back at the machine quilting.  Wish me luck!  ;)

Thanks for stopping by - see you tomorrow!



Down Time Monday

I used to LOVE the "fall back" time change - I used to love it until I had kids and I have the type of kids that get up at the crack of dawn so a time change means they get up BEFORE the crack of dawn!!  Thankfully for me, my kids spent Saturday night at Grandma and Grandpas (and not so good for the grandparents) and got them up at the crack of dawn. I really didn't plan it that way at all, it just happened.  After a REALLY early morning yesterday and then a full afternoon playing with cousins at my nephews birthday party the kids were pretty tired. 

They proceeded to get up at 6:00 this morning (but not before each child being up at least three times last night - which made for a very tired Mommy today!).  Miss S had Kindergarten and as soon as we all got home from picking her up and I finished unloading some groceries from the car I saw this under the chair:

That would be Miss L trying to take a nap at 11:30 - little stinker.  Mr C was already out cold for his nap so Miss S and I were able to sit down for a little big girl crafting! 

 

I got her a foam penguin set a while ago and she has been desperate to do it.  Since the little ones were asleep I gave her the go ahead and I got a tiny bit done on one of my quilts which was fantastic multi-tasking!!  

Once Mr. C woke up he proceeded to get into everything like he normally does.  Little turkey wanted one of the play remotes off the end table and after stretching from the couch to grab it he realized he couldn't get back. I couldn't resist a picture to capture how much of a turkey he can be!

When Miss L woke up after her impromptu nap I knew something wasn't right - I think the poor little thing is getting sick.  Shes super warm (102.1F fever) and doesn't want to eat.  There is one thing about Miss L - she ALWAYS wants to snack on something so when shes not wanting to eat, you know something is up. 

I foresee a relaxing afternoon and evening at home tonight.  Hopefully Miss S stays healthy and Miss L is OK to go to school tomorrow (she loves preschool) and if not its off to the doctor we go if shes still this sick.  Poor little bean.

I hope you all have a great and restful Monday, ours will be restful at least! - see you tomorrow. 

Progress Progress Progress!!!

I posted the other day about my UFO problem and since Thursday I have managed to put a serious dent in my Domestic Handbag quilt!  Its KILLING me that I can't post pictures of it since its a surprise for my SIL but with the killer progress that I have been making I might actually get to show it off to you all much sooner than I had thought.  After that is done I can get back to sharing my finishing of my other UFO's/WIP's (for those of you scratching your head a UFO is an Un Finished Object and a WIP is a Work in Progress - they are quilty terms for your quilts/projects that you are still working on).

Grandma and Grandpa took the three munchkins last night and Mr. Quiltapotamus and I were able to head out with my Step Brother his lovely soon to be bride for a delicious dinner but before I headed out I was able to get some quality one-on-one time with my lovely sewing machine.....

.....yes, we are pretty tight....!  ;)  I was actually working again on my Domestic Handbag quilt again this evening but after a few crooked seams I figured I needed a quick break and will be heading back downstairs to work on it.  I have my sewing area set up in the bonus room for piecing everything together but I have found that I need the space of the kitchen table to lay this quilt out on while I am quilting the top otherwise it hangs off my small sewing table and the seams start to get really tight from  being pulled. 

I think I've got enough of a break in and I can go back to tackling more of my machine quilting before bedtime. 

Thanks for stopping by - see you tomorrow!  ;)

Getting my Sandwich on!!

No, not a yummy ham and cheese sandwich - a yummy quilt sandwich!!!!

Last night I managed to get the entire Domestic Handbag quilt sandwiched and begun the quilting. So far I LOVE it! I can't wait to show it to you but since it's a surprise for my sister in law I have to keep it under wraps until its alllllll finished and I give it to her. Since I can't show you a picture of the sandwich I can sow a before picture of my dining room! 

 

I was having trouble with the tape that I tried earlier in the week (it was painters tape) and the fabric kept peeling up off the tape and the tape kept peeling up off the floor so I busted out the duct tape - WOW!  What a difference.  I might have to keep duct tape in my quilting cupboard for sandwiching from now on. 

I'm hoping to get the whole quilt finished in the next few weeks and after giving I to her I can show it to everyone. I can't wait to take it outside and get some winter pictures with it (hanging somewhere clean of course!!).

My awesome Mom and her husband are taking the kids tonight for a sleepover. Thanks again Mom! We are heading out for dinner and then hopefully I can get a bit more quilting done on the Domestic Handbag quilt!!  After posting about all my UFO's I'm rather inspired to get at least a few of them crossed off my WIP list and into the DONE pile!

Thanks for stopping by, see you tomorrow.