Catch-up post

Well, let's see, there has been a lot going on since my last post.  Not the least of which has been the arrival of our new daughter!   She was born on March 15th after just 3.25 hours of labor and spent a week in the NICU because of meconium aspiration.  The meconium had coated her lungs and it took several days for her to be able to breathe without extra oxygen and to get her respiration rate down to a comfortable level.  Now that she is home, we are still trying to adjust to the new family dynamic and I have to go back to work next week.  But all in all, we love having a new addition to our family and I couldn't imagine life without her.  



Yesterday was DD's baptism, my Mom and Dad were gracious enough to offer their house for the baptism party, since our place is big enough for one side of the family or the other, but not both at the same time.   DH's family all came into town for the baptism which was really nice of them since we live several hours away and the baptism was late on a Sunday afternoon, it wasn't easy to travel home for some of them.



It was fortunate for us that none of DH's family needed to spend the night at our house because we have been battling a flea infestation for the past several weeks.  We gave the cat a flea bath and then put a flea collar on him thinking he was flea-free, and then we couldn't figure out why all the sprays and vaccuming we were doing didn't get rid of the fleas.  It turns out that the cat was still infested, really infested and every time he came in the house, we would get a new crop of fleas to do battle against.   The cat is now re-bathed (twice), sprayed, collared, and banned from the house until we are sure the flea treatments are working on him.    There has been a significant drop in the number of fleas in the house so hopefully we are making some good headway.



In other news, our garden is off to a good start this year.  The sugar snap peas I planted in February are taking off and should start putting out flowers in the next couple of weeks.  Maybe this year we will have enough to serve for a meal and not just to snack on.   We have some flowers on the blueberry bushes so maybe we will get a few to snack on this year as long as the birds don't get to them first.   Dh's brother just gave us a raspberry plant from his yard that we will try to keep alive and maybe we will get some fruit in the next couple of years.   DS and I started some tomato and peppers plants from seed this year.  Most of the tomato plants are determinate so I hope to have a large crop of tomatoes so I can can a dozen or more pints of pizza sauce this year.  The 5 pints I got last year turned out really well and I would like some to give as gifts this Christmas.  To make room for more tomato plants, I'm going to move the pepper plants over to a spot next to the air conditioner, I think they will do well there.   We planted some spinach, lettuce and carrots for the first time this year, but I don't think I planted enough, and since I want to plant tomatoes in that same spot once the lettuce is finished, I think it is to late to start some more without interfering with the tomatoes, maybe I'll do better next year.   We also went ahead and bought some ferns to plant in the wet spot near the rain barrels in the backyard.  They can get up to 5 foot tall so hopefully they will hide the barrels and take up a lot of the water to help with the mosquito problem we had last year.



I've gotten a couple of crib quilts finished too.   One for DD, and one for DH's nephew's baby due in June.  I'll have to post some pictures later.   I put together a twin sized quilt top from the scrappy trips blocks I won from the Block Lotto last year.  I finally got the top basted and then went into labor with DD later that night.  I started the machine quilting on it but the back has a bunch of spots where the fabric wasn't tight enough and got folded over so I think I will rebaste the un-quilted portions before continuing.  I don't think I will bother taking out the quilting I've done so far, since the quilt really isn't my style anyway and was just going to end up a charity or utility quilt.  I've also started to put in the background pieces to the quilt I am making for DH and I.  However, setting in seams is not my strong point and I have to redo almost all of the pieces I got done since I wasn't paying attention to how the seams were coming out as I was doing it.   I bought fabric to sash the sampler blocks I won from the block lotto but that won't be cut into until after I assemble the top for DH and I.  Oh, and the next-door neighbor is expecting a baby in July so I'm trying to secretly find out if they have any colors or theme they are using to decorate the baby's room and then I would like to make a quilt to match.



While DH was off work after DD was born, he was able to hang up a porch swing his father made for us after we bought our house.  We have really enjoyed having it these past few weeks.   It's nice to sit out and greet the neighbors as they pass by.  DH also managed to install a walkway in the backyard.  We thought he would need a lot of help with digging out the dirt and putting down the gravel and sand base for the pavers, but then we found these things called Brock Paver Base.  They are really lightweight, easy to cut and they take the place of the 4 inches of gravel that would normally have to be used.  With the amount of digging cut in half (or less) and no gravel to move, DH was able to do everything himself in just 2 days.  It made a really nice walkway to go with the new fence and gate he installed last fall.



Well, I hope to add some pictures later on this week.  And maybe next time it won't be so long between blog posts.

Fun with airplanes

What could be more cool than getting to fly an airplane?   

My brother is a mechanic at a local airport and invited us to come check ou
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Well, evidently, helping mommy write a blog post is pretty cool too!

January fun

Well, January was a fun time at our house.  The holiday's being over meant that we could do other fun  activities.  DS enjoys perfecting his skills as a budding photographer (just like his dad) with mommy and the cat being some of his favorite subjects.

 

 He has also been helping me sew on the weekends.  He wants to do everything, take out pins, feed the fabric through, lift the presser foot, press the foot pedal, etc.

 Other fun thing this month include playing pirates, complete with spyglass, treasure map and boat (truck), having grilled chicken for dinner on a 60 degree day, going to the museum center and an afternoon of bowling with Papa and the uncles and aunt, and playing cowboy with daddy.

Vaccum tubes are facinating

Can we build a rocket ship?

Every little boy needs to help build a skyscraper

Rocks are a boys best friend

Here is a budding chef

Bowling with daddy

By the end of the day, he's bowling by himself

DH also enclosed the ductwork in the upstairs bathroom with a nicely built wooden box.  He used bead board to match the lower half of the walls in the bathroom.  Now I just have to prime and paint it and it will be finished and look nice!

More home improvements

Well, DH was pretty busy this fall with replacing part of the fence in our backyard.  Between finding the time and waiting for the weather to cooperate, he managed to to stain all the wood, dig the post holes, pour the concrete, build the fence, build and mount the gate and install a new magnetic latch (with some help from his brother, BIL, and a little bit of help from me).      And while this picture looks extremely crooked (a side effect of the panoramic camera setting), the fence is actually very straight.

In other news, we decided it was time to replace the refrigerator.  It has been leaking cold air from the freezer ever since we moved in, but other than that it has worked fine.  Until the light fixture broke.   We thought about just fixing the light, but decided to bite the bullet and get a new one, instead of throwing a few hundred dollars into a leaky fridge that could bite the dust at any time.  I think I'll be really happy with the one we picked out.  But before it comes next week, DH will have to move a light switch, run a water line, and remove the wine rack from the kitchen wall.   I hope it doesn't look too big in our kitchen, but I know I'll enjoy the 26 cubic feet after using our current 18 cubic foot one.

Happy New Year!

And to start off the new year, what better than a pic of DS in his favorite (currently) robot jammies and new sun glasses?

I am happy to report that DS seems to be ready and mostly willing to potty train.   We have been encouraging him for several months, but I just haven't had the motivation to really push for him to get out of diapers.   I was going to start it at the beginning of last fall, but when DS saw the pull-ups, he insisted they were swim diapers and threw a 10 minute fit when he realized that he wasn't going to go swiming.  After that, I just decided to wait until all of our long car rides around the holidays were behind us because I really didn't want to have to stop every 30 minutes to let him go potty.  Hopefully this all works out and DS is finished with diapers/pull-ups by the time our new little one arrives in March.

A history of (my) quilts

I recently had a reason to add up the number of quilts I've done so I thought I'd catalogue it here to document the past 3 years.  My first quilt is one I started in middle school but never finished.   It is still at my mom's house and she finished it last year to use as a blanket for the couch in the basement living area.

This is my second quilt.  I started it in Jan/Feb of 2008 and finished it in June 2008.    It is a simple Irish Chain pattern which I really like and I may use that pattern again in the future.

My second quilt is from a pattern I found in a magazine.  The magazine pattern was for a queen sized quilt which I didn't dare to attempt so I chose to make a crib sized version instead.   This became a gift for DH's nephew's baptism.  I think I started it in July 2008 and finished it in September or October of 2008.

I can't find a picture of my third quilt.  It is a kit from Joann's called Winter Wonderland.  My grandma gave the kit to my after I mentioned that I wanted to start another quilt but I didn't have any ideas.  She had gotten the kit on clearance and with her employee discount several years and had sewn together the first couple sets of blocks.  The rest of the blocks were applique which I had never done before.  I started that quilt in November of 2008 and I don't think I finished it until around December of 2009.

My fourth quilt is inspired by a pattern called "on the fly" I saw in BHG's American Patchwork & Quilting (DH got me a subscription for Christmas the year before).   I wanted the fabrics in each dragonfly to be different so that meant that I got to raid Mom and Grandma's stashes for scraps and also start building my own stash with the various fat quarters I bought.   This one took me almost exactly a year to complete and was my main/only project for 2010 (well, that and buying a house).

This is my fifth quilt.  Just a small wall hanging made from string scraps.  It went together really quickly and now hangs in the dining room most of the year.

My sixth quilt is this little Advent calendar.  It was just a panel from Joann's that I got on clearance in January 2011.

I wanted a quick little quilt to finish so I started this 4 patch as my seventh quilt.  I was able to get it pieced in just one day thanks to DH.   It didn't get quilted for a few months after that though.

This star is the center of my eighth quilt.  This one is still a work in progress.   I started it in the spring of 2011.  It's a little more of  a challenge than I realized when I started it so it's not even a completed top yet.

My ninth quilt was started to give me a break from the star quilt.   The fabric is a Running Eighths that I got for $2/yd and I just had to make something with it.  The pattern is Crossroads from American Patchwork & Quilting.  This on got finished in June 2011.

My tenth quilt was thrown together in late August/early September 2011 from some blocks I was planning to enter in the quilt lotto but didn't so I could make this crib quilt for DH's niece's baptism.

I can't find any pictures of my eleventh quilt.   It is a stacked coins crib quilt with light green fleece backing.  I made it for another baptism on DH's side of the family.

My twelfth quilt is shown in the background of this next picture.  The pattern in Buckeye Beauty and I am making it for out next little addition due in March.   I've started quilting it by hand and I hope to finish it during all the car rides we will be taking over the holidays.

Wow,   I can't believe I've done/started 8 quilts in the past year!  And that's not counting the pants I made for DS, the Jesse Tree, the firefighter costume, all the lotto blocks I made and a few other small projects throughout out the year.    I now have the blocks for 5 more quilts: 3 I Spy crib quilts (one started), and the two sets I won from the Block Lotto this year, plus the fabric set aside for 2 more crib quilts I'd like to make eventually.  It looks like 2012 will be a busy year for quilting!

November happenings

 Well, November has been a fairly busy month for us.  My brother is engaged to a wonderful young woman and her family invited my entire family over for dinner at their house.  They have a small farm, with lots of land an even some chickens.  We had a really nice evening and DS enjoyed playing with his cousins and the other little kids around.

We also found some time to go out to the park and play.  One weekend, DS really wanted to go see some boats but he fell asleep in the car on the way to the river so we just turned around and let him sleep on the way home.

Best of all, we found the time to go see the train display at the museum center!  I had to resort to tickling DS in the car on the way there to keep him from falling asleep, but it worked.

 This display has been setup every year for the past 60 something years downtown, but this is the first time it has been moved to the museum center.

DS had a great time seeing all the trains, he even go to ride in one which just made his day.  All this excitement just wore him out though and he was down for a nap about two minutes after we got in the car.  A visit to Mimi and Papa's house for dinner just made for a great day all around.

We hosted my family for Thanksgiving again.   It worked out well so DH could get a good day's sleep and still make it to the party in time for supper.  While a bit crowded at our house, it's nice to let Mom and my sister have a break from hosting the family gatherings.

The following Saturday saw us taking a trip down to Louisville to eat a Thanksgiving meal with DS's family.   It was just a day trip this time which meant we had Sunday to recuperate from all the festivities.



November update

Well, it's been a while since I've made my last post so I thought it was time for an update.  These are the blocks I made for the October block lotto.  I posted them just one day before the deadline.  I originally started working on a Sunbonnet Sue block, and I packed it up to work on in the car on our trip down to Nashville but it never made it into the car and I couldn't find it at home so I made these blocks as a last minute entry.

 I'm glad I did because I finally won!  I now am the happy owner of 49 different 8" sampler blocks which I plan to turn into a quilt for the guest bed in the basement once I finish a few other projects.

These are my block lotto entries for November.  It's not exactly my style, but it would still be nice to win again.

There is no block lotto for December.  The coordinator is in the middle of changing jobs and recovering from some severe allergy problems so she called a break for the month.   I won't mind taking a month off since I have 3 other quilts in the plans for this month.

If I can find the time to take pictures, I will upload some photos of the crib quilt I finished for DH's nephew due around Christmas and of the progress I have made on our bed quilt.  

I've been avoiding the bed quilt because I couldn't figure out how to trim up the blocks so that they would make a nice, non-poofy star center.  I finally decided to bite the bullet and sew the eight sections into pairs and then trim the pairs to a 90 degree angle since triming the 8 sections to a symetrical 45 degree angle was too hard to figure out.  Now all 8 sections are sewn together, but I have to figure out how to eliminate some wavy edges on the star before I add the background fabric.

I've also got the pieces cut for two more crib quilts but haven't started sewing them yet.

New creations



So this is one of the first things DS has ever built.  He came up and showed it to me a few weeks ago, then he started flying it around the house with these swooshing noises.  After a round of twenty questions, we realized that he had built the Starship Enterprise and he was making the same sounds you hear as the starship flys across the screen in the opening sequence of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Stories to remember

First story.... A couple of weeks ago, we were cleaning up the kitchen after supper and DS decided he would help so he pulled the broom out of the closet and started sweeping the floor.   The next thing I know, he is lying on his back on the kitchen floor and bench pressing the broom!  I can only guess that he learned that from watching the babysitter's son do some of his training exercises for his football team.

Second story ....Last night we were visiting my parents.  My brother had made an apple pie and it was cooking in the oven.  Some of the filling must of spilled in the oven and it started burning then the smoke alarm went off.  DS ran into the kitchen, put his hand over his nose and said "uh-oh, hat-truck Mom?" (Hat-truck means firetruck).  We all started laughing, I guess something has sunk in from all the times he has watched episodes of Fireman Sam on Netflix.

Violet quilt

Well, as of my last post, I had just realized I needed a crib quilt to be finished in just three weeks.   So in the interest of time, I finished all the lotto blocks for August, but instead of entering them in the lotto or making a wall hanging, I turned them into this quilt:

I really like the backing fabric.  I had originally basted the quilt with a plain muslin back, but then I noticed a lot of puckering and slack in the quilt so I took out all the pins to rebaste it.  Then, before I got the time to re-baste, I found this fabric in my stash and although I hated to part with it, I think it makes a great backing.  I was hoping to find something to do with it that would show off the lovely pattern and this certainly fits the bill.

I had hoped to use a stencil for quilting the sashing.  I thought I had the perfect stencil, but when I started to trace it on to the quilt I found out that the stencil was 10 inches long but I needed one 10.5 inches long in order for the pattern to match up correctly in the intersections.  Maybe next time I can plan ahead and make the sashing the correct width to fit the stencil I want to use.  This was my first quilt with sashing wide enough to quilt in so it was a learning experience.

I did end up with 2 blue violets that I entered in the Block Lotto for August, but I didn't win.  Funny thing though, the person right below me made only a few blocks and she ended up winning.  So if I had just entered the full 9 blocks I planned to, I probably would have won!  Oh well, I'm happy to make this quilt for DH's goddaughter and I barely got it finished in time.

In other news, DH and I just celebrated our 4th anniversary!  We will be taking an overnight trip to a little cabin and leaving DS with grandma and grandpa.  I'm a little worried about DS, but I know my mom can handle it and I'm really looking forward to a couple of days with just DH and I.

Long overdue update

Well, it certainly has been a while since I’ve posted anything here.  Not a whole lot of sewing going on lately.   DH and I are expecting another baby in March so I’m still in the first trimester yuckiness and I’ve been going to bed at least an hour early each night which really cuts down on sewing time.  I have been able to finish these blocks for the block lotto though.  The checkerboards were for July and the violets are the block for August.   I have more of the violets nearly finished and I plan to make a wall hanging out of them.

I also found a pattern for this really cute toy tent.  Once I made the tent, DS decided it worked much better as a hat.

 In other news, we have had a really busy summer.  DH and his dad successfully installed air conditioning to our second floor bedrooms just in time to keep us cool during the record 90 degree heat wave we had in July.  There are still a few small parts of the project to finish, but they can wait until the nice weather is gone. 

We have been having several rounds of house guests too, starting with DH’s dad helping with the AC, then his 2^nd oldest brother and his family.  They spent a weekend with us and we had a really nice time going to the park and walking around the nearby town center.  Their 2 young daughters were taking some beginning sewing classes so before they left on Sunday I helped the girls and my sister in-law to make their own little needle books.  They seemed to really enjoy it. 

The next weekend was a birthday party at the pool for my dad, my two sisters and my brother in-law.  We had DS wearing a flotation vest and water wings in the pool and I think he had a blast.  He didn’t want to get out of the water and really enjoyed playing with his cousins in the pool. 

The weekend after that we had planned to go camping with several families from church but the forecast was for 90 degree heat and rain all weekend long so we cancelled those plans in favor of a dinner together at one family’s house.   Saturday we went to the fire museum hoping that since DS is really into fire trucks that he would have a good time.  Unfortunately, the manikins on the various exhibits scared him.  There was also a fire truck that you could climb in and turn on all the lights and sirens.  For some reason he was scared of that too.  I think it was the noise. 

A couple weeks ago, my parents invited us to a fundraiser dinner.  They had bought a whole table of tickets so we sat with my parents and my two oldest brothers and their dates.  Many of the friends I haven’t seen in a while were there too and it was nice to get to catch up with some of them.    We also were able to find a babysitter in the area to watch DS so we could enjoy a long awaited night out.    I was somewhat worried about how DS would handle the babysitter since we almost never leave him with anyone other than my mom, but he did fine.  Now, if hiring a babysitter wasn’t so darn expensive, we might go out a little more often now that we know someone who can babysit for us. 

After one weekend to relax and catch our breath, this past weekend was spent visiting with DH’s oldest brother and his wife.  They made it up to our house Friday evening.  On Saturday we went to the zoo for several hours since they had never been to our zoo.  In the evening we went to a minor league baseball game.  It was a really nice night for a game, the temperature had cooled off and our seats were in the shade.   DS had a great time because the stadium had a petting zoo and a playground off the third base line so he didn’t have to be stuck in the seats the whole time.    He also got to play a “bubbles” game on Aunt Paula’s cell phone and that just made his day.

This weekend we have DH’s oldest sister and her family coming up overnight.  This is their annual major league baseball game weekend and DH will be joining them for a night at the ball park.  I’ll be staying home with DS since neither one of us will do well staying up until the game is over.

 I just realized this morning that DH’s newest niece is being baptized in September.  I made a baby quilt as a gift for her older brother’s baptism and would like to make one for her baptism too so I guess I’ll have to get sewing if I’m going to have it ready on time.  I just have to decide on a pattern.

Layout choices

I finished the star points on the queen sized medallion quilt I am making for our bed!  The pattern (Sarah's Wedding Quilt from Fabric Trends magazine) calls for a layout like this first picture.

 But I'm also thinking of making the layout like this picture:

DH and I like a larger quilt with plenty of overhang so the second layout would be a way to make the center of the quilt bigger.  On the other hand, the top point of the star might get tucked under the pillows with this layout and I think that would look a little strange.  I'd also have to make more blocks for the pieced border and I'm low on scraps for this quilt, but I think I could manage it.

I really need to try it out on the bed but DH is working hard to get some AC into our bedroom and that means lots of drywall dust and stuff everywhere in our room - not a great place to try out quilt layouts.

UFO completion

Last week I was able to finish the quilting on this lap quilt (The pattern is Crossing from the June 2010 APQ Magazine).  The only thing left is to bring the binding to the back and sew it in place.

Of course, after I had the whole top sewn together, I  realized that I could have planned the placement of the tan blocks too, instead of just the darker blue blocks and that would have made a better pattern, but oh well. I'll leave it as is.

With that quilt waiting for a few hours of TV time to be completed, I unexpectedly got motivated to finish this Advent Calendar, it only needed a rod pocket and a rod to hang it up.  Then I put together this Jesse Tree to go along with the Advent Calendar.  I have some symbols I printed off the internet that I am going to laminate, and then attach Velcro to the back of each symbol so it will stick to the wool felt of the Jesse Tree.   Every day in December, DS will be able to pull a symbol out of a pocket on the Advent Calendar and place it on the Tree.


I also found time to finish a husband-sized baby sling that I started two years ago and never finished.  DH asked for his own so he could take turns holding DS and not have to bother readjusting my sling every time.  We don't have any need for it right now, but maybe in the future.

Then I made a little hexagon needle book from this tutorial.   I have a picture, but it's still on the camera and hasn't made it on to the computer yet.   I really like it and I have plans to make a few as gifts for the sewers I know.