Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

When Micaela was a baby I purchased a used VCR tape of the Mary Poppins movie at Half Price Books for one dollar.  We have watched it a million times, let's just say it was a dollar well spent. When I heard Mary Poppins was coming to Dallas, I knew I HAD to get tickets. 

Last night Micaela and I had a Mommy & Daughter Night Out.  I took Micaela to see the musical at the Music Hall at Fair Park in Dallas.  It was terrific!

We dressed up, had dinner and went to the musical, she loved it.   There was a few back drops around the lobby area and we snapped a few pictures.

I've taken Micaela to lots of shows and plays but this was our first time to go to Dallas Music Hall which is the largest venue in the metroplex.  I had hesitated because it's about an hours drive each way but now that she's older she can totally handle it and loves it.  I think it's time for us to be regulars and get season tickets to all the shows.  Hope you have a great Easter weekend, ours is off to a great start!

Dr. Seuss "Cat in the Hat" Zipper Pouch

One of my friends asked me to come up with something for her daughter's Dr. Seuss loving teacher.  I had some Dr. Seuss fabric from a baby project a couple of years ago so I used it to make a zipper pouch.

Here is what I came up with.

I used a black & white pin stripe for the top flap and black zipper.  

The inside lining is white and black polkadots.

I think it turned out pretty cute.  This is available in my Etsy store.  Hope you are having a great day!

Jiu Jitsu Suits

Commissioned embroidery.  Every now and then I get requests to do embroidery on random items.  These are Mother & Sons' Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu suits that I embroidered names on.

At first I thought these would be a piece of cake,  but looks are deceiving, these jackets weigh more than any 2 winter coats I own--- had to stand on my head and embroider these puppies upside down to make it work.  Nonetheless, I think they look cool and I hope to get more requests like this.  Grateful to have referrals like this. 

Midas is back!

News Flash!

Our "Elf on the Shelf" MIDAS is back on special assignment from Santa for the Spring. Micaela has been asking about him for weeks so she wrote Santa and asked for him to come back. (((We can't believe SHE still BELIEVES but we're going to have fun with it while we can))).

It seems that the elves raided my fabric shelves and stitched up an Easter Egg Suit for him and they stuck Easter egg clings all over the living room television... Imagine that!!!

Springy Owl Zipper Bag

Hi there--
Hope you are having a great day.  Does it feel like spring where you are?  We were doing great with nice warm weather then all of the sudden over the weekend we were back in the 30's-- Crazy Texas Weather.

I just made this little owl zipper bag for my Aunt Bettye who had a birthday last week.  She turned 85 years old!  Her birthday is the first day of Spring.  She has collected owl stuff since I was a little girl and she is my favorite Aunt on my Dad's side of the family.  I thought this little zipper bag would be fun for her to carry her glasses and stuff in. 

This fabric is from JoAnn.  I matched the owl pattern at the zipper opening of the bag.  I always like to do that if possible-- hate decapitating things with zipper seam...lol

I lined the inside of the bag with a fun bright pink polka dot.  The charm is from my friend Ruthie-- love it!  This is going in the mail today and I look forward to her receiving it. 

Hope the rest of your week is wonderful, thanks for stopping by!

Texas Citrus

Please allow me to ramble a tad bit.  Last week I got a care package from my parents, they sent a great big heavy box full of oranges and grapefruits from their trees in the backyard.   Have I ever mentioned that my home town, Mission is the Citrus capital of Texas!  Yes, indeed!

Citrus growing is one of the major industries in my hometown, we even have a huge festival every January to celebrate the harvest.  Obviously, I can buy fruit at the grocery store or even the Farmer's Market, but it just isn't the same.  This is the Rio Ruby variety, I am in heaven!  I love citrus, especially when its from my parents own trees.  Thanks for reading this far...lol.

Conoce Otros Blogs Link Party

 

Thought it would be fun to participate in a Conoce Otros Blogs Linky Party to get to meet other bloggers in Spanish so here it goes.  I am fluent in Spanish but I am really rusty at writing.

 

Nos Vemos!

Swap from Australia

Back in January I signed up for the Sweet Pouch Swap by Ros at Sew Delicious in Australia. 

I sent a swap to Austria and today I finally got mine from Australia.   We were all worried that my swap was lost between here and there but it turns out that it has been sitting at the post office here in McKinney since February 23.  Somehow I never got the notice that I had a package, it had been sitting there for almost a month! 

I went by today to pick it up and look at what I got!  Not one but two zipper pouches!  Louisa sent one for me and one for Micaela.  Isn't that super sweet. 

And, she sent a bunch of candy and chocolate.  I had to test one immediately...lol

Thank you so much Louisa, I love everything and it was very thoughtful of you to send Micaela a pouch too!

Daffodils Mt.Pleasant, Texas

On the way home over the weekend,  we took a detour through Mt. Pleasant, Texas to stop at the Kridler Farm to look at more daffodils.

Yes, I am nuts about daffodils and since the blooming season is short I have to see as many as I can while I can.  LOL

Here are the three of us standing in the middle of Keith's "side yard".  Isn't this amazing?  So beautiful, lucious and green! 

 Keith Kridler is someone I met through the Texas Daffodil Society a few years ago.  He is an authority in the US on Daffodils and a Texas Master Gardener. I had him speak at my Daffodil seminar for the city back in January.

He has more than 1000 varieties and about a million bulbs in the ground! 

While we walked around, Keith would pick a flower and rattle off the name like it was his ABC's.  I wish I could remember all the names but these were some of the ones I was fast enough to snap a picture of.

 

It's a total of 20 acres and we only saw the front. AMAZING!!! 

Hope you are having a great week!

Gifts for Friends...

Wow, what a busy week we have had.  Our daughter has been off for Spring Break and poor thing we have been shuffling her between us while we had a crazy week!  At the last minute, we decided take a last minute trip to visit our dear friends in Arkansas a few hours away.  I have a rule about never going to anyone's house empty handed, here are a few things we made our friends for hosting us. 

Our friends have a daughter six months younger than our Micaela, we say the girls are God Sisters since the parents (our friends) are our daughter's God Parents.  Micaela helped me pick out some fabric to make the daughter a few things.  First we made a purple plush blanket embroidered with her name and an appliqued an M.  Micaela picked out the cupcake fabric. 

The second item was a matching little zipper case.  I used the same cupcake fabric and a swirly purple fabric for the top.

We made the parents an Easter hanging kitchen towel and some matching coasters.  Sorry these are such poor pictures, I literally took these before we left their house.   The coasters match perfectly IRL but look quite bright in these pictures I took with my phone.

Troy made the Dad, our compadre- a couple of pens on his lathe. The first one was wood and made from Olivewood from the Holy Land.

 The second pen was acyrlic and dark green-- his school colors. 

 

We had a wonderful time in Arkansas and we look forward to having them visit us soon. 

Hope you had a great weekend.   

Arkansas Moments

Here are a few favorite moments from our fast and furious weekend trip to Arkansas.

The Wye Mountain Daffodil Festival.  Here are the God Sisters, they are soon to be 8 and 7 1/2-- we know the days of coordinating outfits and bows are so numbered. 

 The fabulous dinner at Mathers Lodge and the incredible Sunset at Petit Jean Mountain

 A new family picture to remember the trip.

I also have a new picture of Micaela and I with the sunset in the background in the about me section of the blog.  Thanks for letting me share. 

Another Tote

I have been making lots of totes bags lately.  I guess I have alot of stuff to carry these days, LOL.  Here is a tote I made to take to Austin a few weeks ago.

It is hard to tell in this picture, but the bag is quite large.  I used Hometown fabric by Sweetwater from Moda.  I love this fabric!  The funny thing is, I actually bought this fabric months ago (Thanksgiving weekend) in a scrap bundle by accident when I meant to buy another collection by Sweetwater.

After I got home and unrolled the jelly roll, I realized I had the wrong collection.  Oh well, I wasn't even familiar with this collection but I loved it because of all the cities and family oriented words.  Nonetheless, I set it aside to work on something else and spent the next few weeks looking for yardage

When I started to make this bag, I started with a pattern but frankly in the end I drifted far away from the original look.  The original bag had charm squares at the bottom, a band across the center and solid at the top.  I obviously did solid at the bottom and vertical strip piecing at the top.  When you look at the verticle pieces, you'll notice the widths are random, that is because I used the strip as it came in the bundle. 

I only had one strip of the city print so I placed it front and center on the bag it was my favorite out of the bundle.

 

Finding fabric for the lining was difficult because I could not get the reds, greys or creams to match.  In the end, I found this newsprint looking print from Mama Said Sew (which was the original collection I was after) at my LQS.  The MSS print matched beauitifully.  I made a pocket for the inside of the bag using some strips and included the selvages.  I love how the pocket, which no one can see turned out. 

The tote measures 22 inches tall and 18 inches wide.  It's real sturdy because I used fusible fleece on both the lining and the body of the bag.  Thanks for stopping by and I hope you are having a great week. 

Dallas Blooms

Good Morning,

The Texas Daffodil Show happened over the weekend at the Dallas Arboretum & Botanical Garden.  While there I snapped a few pictures of the gorgeous gardens.

Dallas Blooms runs March 2 to April 7.  More info here. 

Noteworthy Set

I love the Noteworthy line of fabric by Sweetwater for Moda. 

I fell in love with Noteworthy the minute I saw it and loved the Bucket List print more than any of the others.  I quickly purchased some in the vanilla colorway, I am not sure what I am going to make but I have a few yards in my stash waiting for the perfect project.

 

I read Sweetwater's blog and discovered the story about how the Noteworthy line came about.  Here's a link to the blog entry.

A few weeks ago I found out that one of my classmates from high school has breast cancer and is starting chemotherapy treatments immediately.   I talked to one of our mutual friends to get an idea of her favorite colors because I wanted to make something.  After two trips to The Quilt Asylum, one of my local quilt stores and many texted pictures of fabric to my friend, we settled on the Noteworthy Bucket List in the Blue Mist colorway and the Be Happy Multi Dot fabric for her projects.

 

This is the Noteworthy set I made, a tote bag, zipper case and bound a purchased plush throw.  I hope the items will come in handy as she goes to her chemotherapy treatments in the coming weeks.   

Here is a close up of the tote name embroidery and the button closure on the tote bag.  The flap has a magnet closure hidden under the button that allows for a quick snap. 

The blanket was a plush throw that I purchased.  I added binding with the same two fabrics pieced randomly along the edge. I had never done this before and it was more difficult than I anticipated.  The plush fabric stretches and twists so it was not exactly easy to top stitch and finish, nonetheless I finished it and I think it adds a nice touch.

The blanket fits nicely in the tote.

The last thing I made was a simple zipper pouch.  I used a silver ribbon charm with the word hope for the zipper pull.

I used the same two fabrics, the Bucket List fabric on the outside and the dot fabric for the seamless lining inside. 

I think the set turned out pretty cute.  I am hoping the bucket list fabric will be fun, uplifting  and inspiring for my friend and I hope the items will be useful.  Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a great week!

Weekend Fun: Suessical The Musical

One of my friend's daughters is in the production of  Suessical The Musical at the Art Center Theater in Plano and she invited us to see a show over the weekend. 

The Art Center Theater in Plano is a small community theater.  We had never been there before but I was extremely impressed with the production.  All of the kids were great.  

 

We had fabulous second row seats and I was able to film the last 50+ seconds of the musical with my iPhone.

Here is Micaela with JoJo and Cat in the Hat.

The whole cast!

Here is a list of upcoming shows.