I-SPY update + patterns

Oh. My. Goodness.

Have you tried these?

They are the best! Thanks to Whitney who sent them.

And... I promised some patterns. And I wrote them.... but that's the problem.
I haven't had time to type them out.
I wrote them while waiting in the dr.'s office.

So here's the easy ones first. Basically a 10 block by 10 block square with a border.

And the bottom one is a 9 block by 12 block quilt. But you'll need to add 8 blocks to do this one.

Here's the twin sized quilt. It's basically 12 clusters of 16 blocks each.

And here's the medium sized quilt. It's about 53" square. You need 25 clusters of 4 blocks each.

I think if you click on them, you will be able to blow them up. If you comment and leave me an e-mail address, I'll be glad to send you a scanned copy of whatever you want.

found myself a sale.... and a giveaway!

in the midst of my shoe dilemma, I remember that fabric shopping never does me wrong....... and my neighborhood quilting store was having a huge sale.
huge.
So here's what I came home with:

and it was all $2/yard!

yippee! Love the lightbulbs! I think I'm going to put some small pieces of these into my I-SPY quilts. But have no plan for the rest.

But I love black and white prints so they will find their way into something.

Beets! Who doesn't need beets!

Seriously, no idea what I'm doing with these.

But they're beets!

Teeny lightbulbs. no idea.
But I love them. I'm collecting fabrics for a zig-zag quilt for my bed, and this may find its way into a zig....
or a zag.
The picnic fabric cracks me up.

My older daughter loves to set up picnics in the living room floor, so I'm going to use this as one side of a small picnic blankie for her...

and this one for the back! So it will be reversible, depending on which game she wants to play.
I love the baking stuff.

Anyway, I'm willing to share!
Leave me a comment: Which one's your favorite and what would you do with it?
Not promising great quantities, but at least a fat quarter or quarter-yard cut of your fave!

I'll choose a winner on Tuesday night.

Wendy asks for fashion input....

Hello friends! I have a dilemma, and I've decided to let blogland decide it for me.....


So I have an almost-6-month-old baby, which means that it's been over a year since I've been able to just walk to the closet and pull out something cute. Every day I get to play "What's going to fit me today?"


But shoes have never done me wrong. Through thick and thin {ahem....} my shoes have been by my side.


So as I gear up to try to find some jeans that fit and don't show my underwear, I'm going for a pair of shoes.


You see, I want a pair of shoes that is cute and a little interesting. And I like all the converse tennis shoes that are out, mostly because I'm a child of the 80's and I never had a pair of converse then. So I'm trying to make up for it now.

But please keep in mind that my everyday uniform for "work" is jeans and a T-shirt, which will probably have barf on it within the first hour of the day. {"work" is keeping up with my kiddos, my classes, my orders, and of course all of you wonderful people}


So, here's option 1: standard pink converse tennis shoes

And here's option 2: the silver metallic converseAnd here's where you come in, friends. Please vote for my new shoes:

(A) No converse! You're too old!
(B) pink ones.
(C) get the silver ones
(D) get 'em both, and a Hypercolor tee to go with.....

a giveaway!

Well, how about directions to a giveaway?
Click the link here to go to calicodaisy's blog (one I REALLY enjoy, by the way!) and enter to win the pattern pictured above! I think it's so cute and seems quite useful.

Hope you win! And it you do, will you make me one?

strawberry fields quilt

Here's my baby's quilt. I love it! It's all nice and washed and crinkly. And she's so adorable playing on it.... she's discovered her toes and that she can roll over. Perfect age to have her quilt finished, don't you think?
Oh, and here's the back.

hula girls finished up

Here's the finished pictures of my hula girls quilt. I really like this one a lot. The colors are fun, and I like to base a quilt around a really cute novelty print.Can I tell you about who this is going to?

It's the older sister (Angie) of one of my childhood friends, for her baby (who's not quite born yet). Angie was a few years older than us, and she was So Very Cool.

She listened to loud music,

she stayed out late (probably 10:00, but I was little and that was late then...),

she had a hat like Debbie Gibson,

and she had frousy 80's hair in the mid-80's.

She was So Cool.

And it was a joy to make this for her little girl!

Getting there.... and a question for you!

Basted up, ready for quilting! I love this quilt. I've really enjoyed working on it. I love a pattern that showcases a cool print.

So here's my question: I've been thinking about writing a pattern and posting it here for a quilt like this one or this one or this one. Anyone interested? And if so, which one would you like to see? Much love to you guys---have a great week!

Still in progress...

This is a quilt for my youngest daughter. It's about 45" square. I'm so in love with the fabric! i have it quilted, but not yet bound..... working on that today!
I think I'm going to bind it in the orange dot. What do you think?

Cake on a plate

I love to cook. Love it.

Before I had children, I cooked more elaborate things.

Now, I'm usually looking for something that's easy and quick and looks elaborate.

Oh, and tastes good. So here's one of those recipes.

Cake on a plate

You'll need
1 family size brownie mix (plus whatever it tells you to add)
1 peanut butter cookie mix (plus whatever it tells you to add)
1 cup chocolate chips
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup powdered sugar
a little milk

1. Bake the brownies and peanut butter cookies as directed.
2. Find a biscuit cutter a little smaller than your cookie size and cut out round brownies. Cut as many as you have cookies.
3. Melt the chocolate chips with butter in the microwave. Add the powdered sugar and a small amount of milk (about a tablespoon). Mix. It should be glossy, not stiff.
4. Put the icing into a ziploc baggie, zip it, and snip off a corner. Use this to put a small amount on each cookie to "glue" the brownie on top. Then make a little chocolatey design on top.
5. Enjoy your awesome (and creative) dessert!

If you make these, I'd love to hear what you think!

I-SPY update

If you're participating in our I-SPY swap (or even if you're not!) you can go over to my swap partner Meredith's blog and check out all the cool prints! All the squares have been received and Mer's sorting them out for mailing soon!

50 comments... a GIVEAWAY!

Challenge for you all today.....

I have some more fat quarters I'd like to give away:

It's a fat quarter of each print shown from Amy Butler's Daisy Chain line.

Here's how to play--leave a comment and tell me where you are and what you're working on today. So for example,

I'm Wendy, I'm in the great state of Texas, and today I'm hoping my 2-year old will take a nap so that I can quilt my hula girls quilt actually quilted and get it in the mail. And I'm making a special dessert for a friend's 30th birthday get-together. And lamenting that I'm farther away from 30 than I'd like to admit...

I'll choose a winner randomly on Sunday night.
If we can get over 50 comments I'll give away 2 sets.... :)

ready, set, GO!

Things I had to re-learn today

Today the universe has felt the need to remind me of a few general truths.
1. Never, ever, EVER take a baby anywhere without a diaper bag. It doesn't matter that you only are going to be there for 30 minutes. Those 30 minutes will be the time that the child decides to barf (twice) and poop (explosively).

2. You can never buy enough white thread. Just have as much of it as you can store in the closet and you won't have to stop a project until you can get to the store by yourself (unlikely) or take the children with you (suicide).

3. Multicolor thread is expensive and comes in very small quantities. Don't expect a spool to do as much as you want it to. ever. It doesn't matter if it looks like a normal sized spool. It isn't.

4. You can never have enough fabric. Look at what arrived in the mail today! I love it! I have no idea what I'm going to use it for.

progress on hula girls...

Here's the current state of the hula girl quilt. So pleased with it! I really like it.
Too bad it's monogrammed--I might just decide I couldn't part with it!

Just an update...

Had requests for a closeup of the quilting on the bird quilt.... nothing fancy, just swirly loops.
a few monogramming projects this week.....

this was for the bird quilt's recipient's big sister. Filled it with crayons and markers and paper and snacks and stuff.

Just another project....

And here's what my oldest and I did yesterday. She had never been to ChuckECheese before. I usually don't post pictures of myself on this blog, but it was too cute to not post!

and THIS is the next quilt I'm working on. It's a commission. She wanted a baby quilt that reminded her of Hawaii. What do you think?
You'll notice the orange is back, but this time I think it's going to work beautifully and there will be no seam ripper required for this quilt! The palm trees are for the backing only.

little fancy pants

I don't sew clothes. I've confessed this before. But now that I have 2 little girls, I have an uncontrollable urge to dress them alike. And the easiest way to do that is to sew for them... hmmm...

I made this little outfit for my 5 month old. Not too difficult, but I'll admit that it's much more of a challenge to me than quilting is! Sorry the picture's not great. By the time I had figured out that the picture was crummy, the outfit had some extra "embellishment" on it, i.e. spitup.

I did learn that my machine has an overcast stitch much like a serger stitch. That was fun to play with. I think I'm going to make a matching set for my 2 year old.

Next I want to learn to use elastic thread to do smocking. So I have bought this pattern for a little smocked dress.

So what else do you think I should try to make for them?