L'Amour de la vie Tote

For the last eleven and a half months we have had the most fabulous intern at our office.  K is a graduate of one of our high schools here in McKinney, went away and got her Bachelor's degree and came back home for a year while she applied for graduate schools.  Over the last year, she has shadowed me, helped me and the rest of our staff on countless projects, worked countless early mornings, late evenings and weekends over the last year all for no pay!  She's headed to St. Edward's University in Austin for a Professional Science Master's Environmental Management and Sustainability in a couple of weeks and I am going to miss her terribly. 

I've been brain storming about making her something over the last few weeks.  The other day while looking for fabric, I came across the most perfect fabric for her.  This is L'Amour De La Vie by Hoodie and manufactured by Timeless Treasures

This fabric is perfect in so many ways.... First this fabric has cats on it... K loves her kitty.  Second, there's trees... what else could represent represent the environment and sustainability more than trees.  Then third are the Eifle towers, Sara is headed to France for her second year of graduate school.

After showing her the fabric, she said she wanted a tote so this is what I came up with. 

I used fusible fleece and then used my "darning" sewing foot to do some free motion quilting (first time to do that). 

I used a olive green polka dot to line the inside of the bag, added a small pocket for keys or cell phone.  This was such a nice break from the room swap we have underway.

I plan to make her a few other things to coordinate but it will be a week before I can sew again.  I am headed out of town for family funeral and will be gone for most of the week. 

Thanks for stopping by.

Room Swap in Progress

Didn't do any sewing this weekend. We've been busy doing some rearranging.   Micaela and I started the monumental task of swapping the paper craft room and her bedroom.  My paper craft room is stuffed to the gills and her room isn't far behind.  Believe it or not this was my idea.  I've needed to deal with the paper craft room for a long time and Micaela was ready for a complete color scheme change so here we go. 

We are about 15% so far... one wall and some of the closet.  Her room is going to be in transition for several weeks because I only have the evenings to work on  it with so much going on during the weekends. 

Here is the east wall with out her dresser.  I've always loved the wood picket fence flower border... so now I get to have it in the craft room.  Micaela wants a new color scheme now that she is seven, hot pink, lime green, and black & white; in her words:  "nothing spring".

Here is the same wall with some of the craft stuff in place.  That triple dresser is full of stamp sets. 

After much thought, I decided it was time to get rid of my beloved paper rack that held 8 1/2 x 11 cardstock.  I posted a picture on Facebook and it was spoken for in 15 minutes. 

This room transition is going to take us quite some time.  My goal is to get it done by the time school starts the 3rd week in August.   Thanks for stopping by....

Born to Deer Hunt Baby Sets

A couple weeks ago I was asked to make a baby set for a pair of twin baby boys... the theme I was given was camoflage & hunter orange because the Dad is an avid deer hunter.  Whis is what I came up with.

Here's the set for Micah, with the deer and turkey-- notice the scene on the burp cloth matches the scene on the bib.  I debated about embroidering the bibs but thought it might be to fru fru for deer hunting boys.

 Weston's set has the deer and a raccoon.

This was a challenge to say the least. The standard white burp clothes I use were too white for this so I slip covered them in a natural colored flannel then top stitched to make it look like a regular burp cloth.   The bibs I usually use were also too white so I made these using a premade one as a pattern.  The back is lined in the same natural flannel.  I found the fabric pretty quickly and then by chance stumbled across the Born to Hunt deer design when I was looking for something else.   Overall, I am pleased with how these turned out.  I hope the receiving family likes them as much as I do.  Thanks for stopping by! 



Finished Halloween Quilt

Ta Da... My first quilt. I started this on Saturday and worked on it several nights this week. It's not giant, about 45" square. Kinda did this lazy girl style, meaning it's not exactly quilted or bound the traditional way but most importantly it's DONE.

Troy suggested I add some buttons-- imagine that! I plan to just drape it over a table when we have our halloween party. Feeling inspired to make more of these-- perhaps one for each of my favorite themes!  Hope you are staying cool in this summer heat.  Thanks for stopping by!

First Quilt- Step 2

Here are the squares all stitched together.  This came together pretty quickly. 

Somehow between the floor and the sewing machine a few of the squares got moved but oh well. I am going to add a black & white dot border around this, then the binding.  I am so ready for Halloween, it's been between 105-110 here in Texas and I am really looking forward to cool October weather. 

Hope you are staying cool, thanks for stopping by!

First Quilt- Step 1

I've been bit by the quilting bug!  I've said that quilting something like a blanket was not for me for a long time but after going to the fabric & quilt stores on a weekly basis-- I think the quilt bug got me.  
Saturday Micaela and I were out and about.  She said, "Mommy you can do it!" when we spotted the Moda H"owl"oween line by Deb Strain and I thought well, I should try a small project.
So that is what we did, I purchased my first charm pack and Micaela and I spent well over an hour arranging the blocks on the carpet in her playroom during the evening.  It was fun listening to her reasoning for moving blocks around... "Mommy: spiders can be next to owls because they are friends and cats can be next to witch hats because they go together". 

Here's what we came up with.  In the next couple of days I will show you all the squares pieced together.  We'll see how all this comes together.  I don't usually embark on long projects that take more than a day or two to complete, thanks for joining me on this ride....

Another Pop Monkey Set

This has got to be my most popular item in my Etsy store.  I think I have made about 10 of these Pop Monkey Burp Cloth & Bib Sets.  It all started with one set I made for Micaela's preschool teacher 3+ years ago and I have been making these ever since.  I am glad this fabric is still available. 

This order was headed to California, not sure of the ethnicity of the family receiving it but this was the exact spelling they specified. 

I did something a little different this time on the raw edge, instead of a rolled edge with zigzag stitching, I  added binding made from the same fabric.  I like this look even though it's a little more time consuming. 

This set was a piece of cake, but last week I got a challenging request for a burp and bib set for twin baby boys with a deer hunting theme...  I am almost finished with that set and I will be posting it later on this week.  Hope you have a great Monday!  Stay cool in this summer heat.   

Double Rainbow

Yesterday was pretty hot.  By late afternoon a storm blew in with lots of wind and rain, then quickly after the sun was shining again.  We had a gorgeous double rainbow.  Here's a quick snapshot of Micaela and Oreo in the back yard, you can see the rainbows in the background.  Hope you have a great weekend!

St. Louis weekend

We spent the weekend in St. Louis.  It was a fabulous weekend, we visited a few places and spent lots of time with extended family.

Here we are at the Gateway Arch

We also went to Grant's Farm.

Anheuser Busch Clydesdale Stables

And, the Butterfly House in Chesterfield

The butterflies were incredible.  This is a collage of our best shots-- wish I could identify them! 

Thanks for letting me share!

Cousins Reuniting

While in Missouri for the weekend we were able to reunite Micaela with 5 of her cousins that were all born within a 12 week time span.  It was fun to see how grown up they all are now that they are seven!  All the kids looked at the camera, smiled, sat still and had their hands in their lap!  Look at the difference!

Happy 4th of July

Happy 4th of July from my family to yours!

We started the day by attending the Hometown Parade in Beautiful Historical Downtown McKinney!  Be safe everyone!

I'm back!

Yikes, I did not mean to be away for 10 days plus! 

I had to attend the Keep Texas Beautiful conference in San Antonio all of last week and then I blinked and four days have gone by!
Can't believe it's already July 2nd!

Trying to be a hip Mom

This weekend we went to the Allen USA Celebration on Saturday.  This is a huge event in our neighbor city that draws 75,000+ people.  We went last year and loved it.  This year the big band before the fireworks show was The Bangles! I listened to The Bangles all through high school and loved them, I was so excited to share the music with Micaela-- our 7 year old.

I tried to prepare Micaela for the concert by downloading their most popular songs off iTunes so she could become familiar with them.  She loved Walk like an Egyptian, Manic Monday and Eternal Flame. 

When the concert started she begged me to take her closer to the stage. Trying desperately to be a hip Mom, I walked Micaela all the way to the stage to see The Bangles up close. We had to tip toe around thousands of people to work our way to the front.  In the end, we got about 15 feet from the stage.  Here's a picture snapped by someone in the crowd,  that's Vicki Peterson above our heads.   (you can see we are pretty close). 

Micaela was so excited to be so close but I burst her bubble when I had to say no when she asked me to put her on my shoulders. No way I could handle 50+ lbs!   I am hip but I am not that strong...lol.  Thanks for letting me share!

Micaela sews again

This weekend we were at the fabric store and Micaela asked to buy fabric to make a dress.  After much discussion, we settled on some smocked fabric that could easily become a dress.
Here she is sewing the single straight seam along the back.

Here she is during her fitting...  She wanted the dress to be strapless.  I am a mean Mom and said no...lol. 

Here she is ironing the straps--- remember she wanted strapless.  Not happy, but is thrilled to get the opportunity to iron.   

The finished dress. After much discussion, settled on v straps that attached to the dress in the back (she did not want them to tie). Had to bribe her to add ric rak. Embellished with yo yo and button (nuts about yo yos these days).

She looks too grown up, what are we going to do!!!  Nine dollars on fabric, very well spent!

More Sewing Room Artwork

Here is my second artwork addition.

Hard to tell in the picture, but it is 20 inches wide and 12 inches tall.  I have had this idea in my head for several months and finally got around to making it. 

Here is a brief tutorial on how I did it:

• I used a 12 x 20 oval embroidery hoop that I purchased at Hobby Lobby.  I spray painted the oval black. Before I spray painted it, I removed the screw so that it would be silver.
• I cut the sewing machine out using my Cricut Expression 12x24" mat and the Heritage cartridge. I tried several sizes before I settled on this size.  I backed the black fabric with Thermo-web and cut it out using the flip feature.
• When I placed the black sewing machine on the red dot fabric it needed a little something so I decided to mat the sewing machine cut out using white fabric. The single layered fabric turned out to be too transparent so then I backed it with heavy interfacing. I had to cut that out manually because it was too thick to run through the Cricut.
• I did not intend to stitch the project at all, but the fabric didn't seem to stick on the edges.  I did a straight stitch on the white layer and then zig zagged on the black layer. 

• After all of the stitching and adding the heart button, I hooped the fabric, trimmed and glued the fabric to the inside rim of the hoop and held it in place with clothespins to dry.   

Here is how the completed hoop looks on my wall. Thanks for stopping by.

New Sewing Room Artwork

Allow me to share what Micaela drew for me the other day. 

In case you can't tell, it's a sewing machine.  The heart item in the lower right corner is scissors-- I am told.  Isn't this adorable!  I had to frame it and hang it in a prominent place in my sewing room.  Love that girl!  Here it is on my wall above my shelf with my shrimp glasses full of buttons. 

Thanks for stopping by, hope you are having a great week!

Owl Needlecase

Eeek, I did not mean to be MIA this last week.  I made it to the Needlecase Exchange at my LQS, Quilt Asylum (last Monday) and the rest of the week flew by!

The Needlecase exchange was fun,  in all the excitement and rush, I barely took photos of the needlecase I made.  I made this owl...

This is a duplicate of the owl I made back in April, the wings open up to hold needles and the pocket holds scissors and other small accessories.   This is an In the Hoop pattern from Embroidery Garden.   I love this grey and pink color scheme.  It's hard to tell in this picture--  the pink fabric has a needle and thread design.  The recipient was a new lady that I had not met before and she was very happy to get my little owl so that was fun.

As I mentioned last week was nuts, during the week I was preparing for three workshops I was coordinating and hosting at work..... Composting, Rain Barrel Building and Firewise Landscaping, chaufering Micaela to art camp and I am getting prepared to go to a conference for a week with work so I have been busier than usual.

I've got some fun projects I am finishing up and I am looking forward to posting them in the next week or so...  Stay tuned, thanks for stopping by.

Oreo Sculpture

Micaela is attending an art camp this summer.  Last week they created with clay..  Today she came home with a 'plate full' of sculptures.  The frog shaped business card holder for me and the 'vase' are quite lovely but my favorite is one of her dog Oreo.

Here is my favorite of all the masterpieces.  Do you see the resemblance?  We do!

She is so proud of all of her creations. 

Thanks for stopping by... hope you have a great day.

Sunday Sewing

We've been so busy on weekends lately.  Yesterday we had the afternoon free and guess what Micaela wanted to do?  Sew!  I liked to sew when I was young but, I don't remember bugging my Mom to do it quite as much as Micaela bugs me.  LOL.  I might need to put a padlock on my fabric stash cause she's bound to get into it sometime.

Micaela wanted to sew yet another pin cushion, aka little square pillow to fill with walnut litter.  She has like 6, one for every season and some of her favorite themes. 

She begged to use my Janome machine instead of hers, claiming better lighting in front of the window.  Maybe we'll move on to pillow cases this week.  Hope your weekend was great.  Tonight I hope to post pictures of my Needlecase Swap at the Quilt Asylum.  Thanks for stopping by. 

Cup Cozy

I am not a fan of coffee but I do like hot chocolate/cider in the winter.  When I saw this coffee cozy on Pinterest, I thought it would be fun and easy to make some for friends and family.

Source: kimberlykesti.typepad.com via Martha on Pinterest

I followed the tutorial by Kim Kresti on her blog and decided to use some strips of fabric I had left over from the pleated pillow a few weeks ago.  Here is the completed cozy flat.

And here it is on a cup (please pardon the dust on my shelf).  I think it turned out pretty cute.  I look forward to making more of these.  These will definitely be teacher gifts next school year.

Thanks for stopping by.

Back to sewing

This week we've had a lot of rain and since I couldn't spend time outdoors, I decided to catch up on some of my sewing projects.   I've been wanting to make a sewing caddy for a while and finally got around to making one.  I used some of the same fabrics I have used throughout my sewing room on other projects, mainly the Sew Now, Sew Wow fabric from Alexander Henry I used on the sewing sewing stool, lamp, cornice and embroidery machine cover. 

The picture is not great, it was raining outside and had very little natural light.  I sorta followed a  tutorial for an ironing board caddy by Sew4Home featuring one of the other fabrics I am using in my room Half Moon Modern by Moda.  I am happy with the way it turned out, now Micaela wants one for her machine.  Thanks for stopping by.

Dallas Children's Theater

We've been back from the valley for more than a week and were busy with end of the school year festivities the first week.  To celebrate the end of the school year my friend Kristi and I took our daughters to see "Diary of a Worm, Spider and a Fly" at Dallas Children's Theater over the weekend. 

The show had great music and was very educational because it profiled not just the worm, spider and fly but also the monarch butterfly, bee and ant.  We sincerely loved it, this was our first time at DCT and we will definitely we back for more shows.

Here are some pictures of the girls with the spider, fly, bee, butterfly, ant. and of course the four of us. 

  Hope your weekend was great.