Tornados in the area

April 3rd-- yesterday was an eventful day, lots of tornados in the area. Long story short, the tornados did not hit our area but I did get the opportunity to spend more than an hour in the storm shelter (aka music room) at the school with 120+ of Micaela's classmates. The kids did great and I was impressed about how well the staff had complete control over the kids.

I had just purchased a new umbrella and rainboots over the weekend. The umbrella came in handy for Micaela and her friend Caroline as we exited the school. They thought the whole tornado episode was alot of fun. God willing we will not have to go through that anytime soon.

Here are the girls as we left the school, they look like they just came out of a party with big smiles on their faces...

Easter is coming

Easter is around the corner. This is a basket got for Micaela last year. I embroidered the liner and added ribbons for ties to dress it up a bit.

Covers for cans

I use spray adhesive and starch pretty regularly in my sewing room and my cans are always out. The other day I had a crazy idea to cover them. At first I was going to modpodge them but then realized I would have to do that every time I got a new can. So instead I decided to make covers that I could remove easily.

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This is what I came up with.

These are quilted and fasten with velcro in the back. I really like the tiny pompom fringe on the edge. The black & white sewing machine fabric is Brittish from Makower UK - The Henley Studio . The frame with text is appliqued on. Now they have little outfits and match my room perfectly-- crazy I know! Thanks for stopping by!

Texas Wildflowers

Micaela spent the week of Spring Break with my parents in South Texas. This weekend we drove "half way" to pick her up. The traffic traveling across central Texas (from San Antonio to Dallas) was tremendous so, we detoured north up some rural hwys for several hours to avoid stop and go traffic on the interstate. In the end, we didn't save any time but it was one of the most enjoyable drives we've ever had home. The wildflowers and bluebonnets painted incredible scenes for us, a couple of times we pulled over to take a few snapshots of Micaela. This snapshot was one of my favorite.

That's not her usual travel attire, we had that red dress in the suitcase by chance because she went to a fancy party with my parents. Hope you had a great spring break, thanks for stopping by!

Cover for Janome 300e!

I finally made a cover for my second embroidery machine, the Janome 300e and I love how it turned out.

Red scissor fabric is from Moda's Half Moon Modern collection, got it at HIQ. The Ruler fabric is from My Mind's Eye, got it at HIQ. The Black & White button fabric used on the M is Brittish from Makower UK, the Henley Studio--got it online. And the black & white striped fabric is from Butterfly Swirl by Jackie Shapiro for Windham Fabrics, got it at QA. I love my two local quilt stores Happiness is Quilting & Quilt Asylum.

I actually had another idea in mind for the M monogram but in the end ended up doing applique using my Cricut Expression and the Designer's Calendar cartridge to cut out the M out of fabric with Therm O Web. My original idea was to make the M with buttons but after sewing on about 30 buttons to the cover I did not like how the buttons weighed down the cover so I ripped-- I mean gently removed them and started over with an appliqued M which I then satin stitched with my DC5100.

Word Napkins

My sister in law asked me to embroider some napkins with a list of her favorite words. I think they turned out pretty cute.

Thanks for stopping by!

Towel Wrap

Micaela gets invited to a couple of birthday parties a month and I always looking new ideas for gifts. Since I am beginning my third year of embroidering just about every gift we give, quite a few of her friends have received the "standard" beach towel and blanket. The other day I stumbled across a tutorial for making bath wraps... bingo-- our 2012 girl gift! I thought this would be handy at home and for the pool during the summer.

So here it is! A towel wrap! I suspect I will be doing a bunch of these this year. The first one was her friend Carly. I added a heart peace sign to make it a little more girly since all the girls are heavy into peace signs & hearts these days. She loved it!

Thanks for stopping by!

Dallas Arboretum

We visited the Dallas Arboretum during Dallas Blooms this weekend and it was lovely. Here are a couple of my favorite photos taken by my husband.

Texas Daffodil Show

If you follow my blog you know I have developed a new facination with daffodils. Well, this weekend was the Texas Daffodil Show at the Dallas Arboretum. This was my first "show" as an "exhibitor" and it was great fun. Three flowers from our garden here at home placed and so did another friends. Here are pictures of our flowers with our ribbons.

This photo below received honorable mention in the Photography Contest- Special Effects category. This effect is called HDR-ish and I did it using Picnik.com.

Here is the original photo from above.

One of Micaela's Special Effects photos received a blue ribbon and was a judge favorite as "Great Abstract".

The Texas Daffodil Show was alot of fun and I hope to do it again next year!

Margie Apron

Made this Garden Apron for one of Troy's Aunt's we visited over the weekend. Hopefully this will come in handy during spring gardening.

Spring blooms

The Paperwhite Zitas are in full bloom. You can tell our grass is still totally brown.

My hyacinth are coming along nicely... so excited.

Thanks for stopping by.

Chicken Pot Pie made with LOVE

Came home from work very late yesterday. I kept insisting to my husband that they should start eating dinner with out me and they kept waiting. Finally when I didn't arrive by 8pm, they ate but first T sent me a picture of the chicken pot pie he made from scratch before he and our daughter cut into it.

It has T heart M & M on it, isn't that sweet!

Owl Pin Cushion

Made this little owl pin cushion using a pattern at SWAKembroidery from JesseKate Designs . This is for a pin cushion exchange at The Quilt Asylum tonight!

Last year I missed this event and this year I almost forgot. I literally started this at midnight and finished after 1 am!

Scrapbooking

Gasp! I scrapbooked! I know it's hard to believe that I still play with paper but I do! I just post more about sewing. I am still obsessed with documenting every moment of our daughter's life believe it or not.

Last weekend I went to a scrapbook retreat for 3 days, it was fabulous! The retreat was in Denton which is only about 30 miles from McKinney and one of my long time college friends came along too so it was great to catch up and craft for three straight days.

I was very productive and actually completed nearly 80 pages! I've taken pictures of a few and will be posting in the coming weeks.

Here are the first four!

Texas Daffodil Society

Several years ago I started an outreach program for schools with daffodils at work. I didn't know anything about daffodils because they are not typically grown in the valley where I am from. Over the last couple of years I have developed a real appreciation for the variety of daffodils available.

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This year while doing some research I found the Texas Daffodil Society which happens to be based in Dallas. I've joined and have been attending meetings so I can pass along the information to the schools participating in our program. I have learned so much. This week's meeting was especially interesting because the program was focused on Grooming Daffodils & Design in preparation for the Daffodil Show in March.

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The speakers brought many varieties of daffodils, most of which I had only seen in pictures. It was quite facinating. Here are a few of my snapshots.

It's hard to believe these are real flowers because they are so incredibly unique and fragrant! My hope is that the students at the schools will participate in the show, I'll keep you posted on our progress.

Mardi Gras Sweatshirt

I made Micaela a Mardi Gras sweatshirt the other day and it was finally cold enough to wear it. You can tell she was thrilled to stop for a picture before going to school on a very overcast day.

Evee Blanket

Micaela is off to her first Slumber Party! Daddy and I weren't quite ready for this but we hate for her to miss. This is the gift I made, a pink fuzzy blanket with the birthday girl's name embroidered in the corner. Micaela picked everything out-- In the world of seven year olds, pink & purple is the bomb!

Daffodils 2012

Daffodils are coming up.... slowly but surely! This is a bloom around our tree that is about ready to open. It's not even February yet! I think the daffodils are confused because it's been such a warm winter.

This is a pot I have on our front sidewalk (planted this year) and these are barely starting to sprout through As you can see our grass is very brown. More updates soon.

And so the learning curve begins....

My birthday was a couple of weeks ago. Two years ago I got the Janome Memory Craft 200e and after a few months was itching to upgrade to the next model so I could have a bigger hoop. Well, this is the next step up... the Janome Memory Craft 300e! I am so excited. I made myself pay for it with money I made from selling embroidered projects. It took me quite a few months to save for this. I haven't had much time to play with it but I will as soon as I can get back to regular sewing!

Originally I had planned on trading in my 200e but I decided to keep it for now. I guess this makes FOUR Janome Machines in the house! Now I need to save for a serger!

Sewing Machine Cover

EEK, more than a week has gone by since my last post!
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When my parents visited in November for Thanksgiving, my Mom admired the machine covers I have made for my embroidery machine, sewing machine and Micaela's sewing machine. After thinking about it, I realized she did not have a cover for her machine so I decided to make her one for Christmas.
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I knew I wanted to embroider on it but I could not decide... do I embroider "Mom"- what I call her or "Nana" what Micaela calls her. After much thought I just decided I would do her real name Rita! (Mom was born on May 22 and named for St. Rita).
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I picked out fabric in colors that would match her room and went right to work. This is what I came up with....

The colors look a little neonish in this picture but in real life they are soft pastels. It's hard to tell in this picture but the side panels are the contrasting lime green fabric in the appliqued R. I got lucky when the azalea thread I used for the Rita perfectly mached the jumbo ric rac I had on hand.
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Thanks for stopping by, hope you are having a great day!

B is for Blanket

Here's another Christmas gift I embroidered. This is one of those delicious fuzzy blankets from Macy's. I embroidered a simple B for the recipients last name. I love how this font turned out. I don't usually do large fill stitch patterns because they take so long (this took 47 minutes to stitch out) but I am so pleased with the finished product. The B is 5" tall. Hope you are staying warm this cold January day!

1st Oreo Movie

A couple of weeks ago I shared a picture of our new dog Oreo sitting handsome on his hind legs. Well, here's the video!

Daffodils 2012

This is my third year to plant daffodils. In 2010, I planted daffodils around a tree in our front yard. In 2011, Micaela and I planted daffodils in one of the flower beds in our backyard. And now I have gone bananas! Micaela and I have planted about 300 bulbs in every pot I own and sparatically in our remaining flower beds. Not all the bulbs are daffodils, I've added dutch irises, tulips and hyacinth and paperwhites. We'll see how they come up. For now I am staring at pots of dirt with mulch on top!

I am most excited about some different daffodil varieties in some little pots. I got these special bulbs at North Haven Gardens when I attended a Texas Daffodil Society meeting. I picked the bulbs with cool names and pictures of more unusual flowers-- I am still learning so we'll see what comes up. If you look beyond the pots on the table in this picture, you can see a pot on the ground that already has some leaves starting to sprout through the mulch, I am so excited!

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy 2012!

May every day of the new year glow with good cheer & happiness for you and your family!

Thank you for reading my blog!

MC2F

Mini Janome in the House!

There's a Mini Janome in the house! Micaela kept asking when she would get a Janome machine like mine, so guess what Mommy got her for Christmas? Yup, I got her her very own Janome. (This year we decided we- the parents would be the heros instead of Santa getting all the credit for the cool gifts). This is not a toy, its real and Micaela is thrilled. We've been super busy and have not had time to play but soon she'll be making her 'own' projects on her 'own' machine very soon. Now she says she wants a mini embroidery machine. Lord, what will it be next?

Of course, Oreo had to be in the picture. I'll post the big present from Daddy soon! Thanks for stopping by!