Thank you Janet Bell!

I found an artist I really like and I have added the top 2 prints to my previous collection of 1 (the 3rd print). If you want to learn more about the artist, go here.

I made something!

Oh, but first I have to give you a garden update. Everything had been destroyed by the rabbit(?) except for one miraculous tomato plant that kept hanging in there. We were watching the 5 tomatoes as they grew and started to ripen. Unfortunately, I went outside to check on the plant today and sadly it has been destroyed. There is a stalk surrounded by shredded branches and leaves. No sign of the tomatoes. It is a sad day.

So back to what I made. About a week or two ago I was playing with Lincoln in the nursery room at the church while we waited for Chris to finish up some other business. They had a few baby dolls in the cupboard, but I noticed the babies were sadly lacking in clothing and blankets. Rather than clothe the dolls I decided to tackle the easier task of providing a blanket. It turned into a mat for a bed, a pillow and a quilt. I love it so much! I had been planning on using these squares for a larger quilt, but I'm thinking a quilt that can be completely finished by the end of Finding Nemo is not such a bad thing. When I delivered the bedding to the nursery today I quickly discovered that 1 set will definitely not be enough as there are at least 3 baby dolls there.

Before and After

Click on the images to see enlarged photos.

A new project

I was supposed to do a really simple quilt for my second try. I had the squares all laid out and everything. Then I don't know what happened, but all of a sudden I had to do something completely different and harder. After 1 month, I finally have the first block sewn. It is a little crooked looking, but hopefully I can fix that as the quilt top comes together. I wanted this one to be all about pink. It should be finished around 2015. Meanwhile look at how TwoTimesLeaves is showing me up here.

Ok if you liked that last game.....

My English

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60% General American English 20% Upper Midwestern 10% Yankee 5% Midwestern 0% Dixie

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

Our wooden family is getting bigger

Here are the latest editions, can anyone guess who they are?


I showed them to Lincoln just a minute ago and he immediately recognized them. The one in the yellow shirt just read him a story before he went down for his nap.

Do you think it looks any better?

This week I had a wonderful breakthrough in the world of home organization. I am not extremely good at keeping my house free of clutter and I usually just adapt to the mess and forget it's there. Last week when we came back from vacation, I realized something could actually be done to improve the disastrous situation that we call home. I selected one area of our house to focus on which happens to be the craziest, most cluttered area I have ever seen. Let's see if you agree that the buffet is an improvement to the "organization" I had before.

The before shot:



And, the after:



I really love it.

Burp Cloths

These turned out really well. I like that they were started and finished in less than an hour and I even managed to use freshly laundered cloth diapers and less recently laundered fabric. I was proud of myself for washing and ironing both the fabric and the diapers. I guess it's good to take those small victories when they come along.

Washington trip

We recently returned from visiting my family in Washington for a week and a half. It was such a nice visit with wonderful food, beautiful weather and the very best company. The weather was gorgeous and we got to spend lots of time outside. I actually got to see all 5 of my siblings in the same place at the same time which hasn't happened in about 4 years. It was so fun! We saw my sister, her husband, and baby sealed in the Seattle Temple and it was a very special day. They were all glowing, but especially baby E. This is the sealing outfit I made for him. It wasn't the easiest project I've done to date, but like always, I learned a lot in the process.


The shirt is so light and delicate! My favorite is the corduroy pants, I love corduroy!

A return to older days

This is my first attempt at headwear. I did have some guides to help me along the way, and I think it turned out very well. This will be for Pioneer Day on July 24th, but I'm not sure I can resist wearing it around much more frequently. What a great way to beat the Texas heat while gardening!

This is my last effort

I haven't given up yet, but I am getting close. I bought a new tomato plant, some cucumbers, a dill plant, and a cilantro plant. I also picked up another package of beans. I wrapped the garden in plastic chicken wire and used tent poles and shoelaces to keep it from falling in and smashing the plants. I purchased some plant food and sprinkled it around the plants. I will do my best to water them daily or every two days.

Fruit Salad

6 cups sliced fruit
1/4 cup vanilla yogurt
1 Tbsp honey
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Mix yogurt, honey and cinnamon. Pour over fruit. Serve immediately, the fruit doesn't look good after refrigeration.

Some baby blocks

I briefly skimmed a tutorial the other day that taught how to make cute soft baby blocks. I decided to use 2 layers of foam and a jingle bell inside. These are just my first tries, but I was thinking I could applique all kinds of neat things on the different sides.



Oh, and for anyone who likes seeing where people do their creative work, this is my end table. I purchased it a year ago at a garage sale for $5. I use it as my sewing table so I can sew in the living room and watch tv while I sew. I can't really watch tv while I sew, but I still like being somewhere that is so open. I sit on the couch with my table in front of me and my sewing box on the couch next to me. The table has room for the machine, scissors, and a pin cushion. It works beautifully.

The tutorial I mentioned can be found here.

Our mini family!!!

I keep seeing such cute wooden dolls around in stores ($$$!) and on blogs so I decided to make some for Lincoln. They are in a rough state right now, Lincoln played with them before the hands and finish could be applied so Daddy especially is in a bit of a bruised state. I'm afraid I probably won't touch up those scars before finishing them up. Lincoln really loves them. He likes to make mom and dad kiss and the family went to the zoo and drove the bus the other day.

The garden update

I'm afraid there isn't much good news with regard to the garden. It isn't doing so hot. The birds? ate all but one cucumber plant before this picture, it has since perished as well. The dill died out, the cabbage plants died out, the cilantro is barely hanging on. The onions and radishes are doing relatively well. The beans, well, I'm not sure what's going to happen. There is a lot of damage, but also some growth. We'll see. I haven't gotten around to putting a fence up around it yet, but I may miss my chance. Oh, and the tomato and pepper plants seem to be maintaining their size without too many leaf losses. I tried to replant some cilantro and dill, but those lasted about a week before dying in the house and then outside.

A tote for Kate

I already sent it to her and she has received it so now I can post the pictures I took. Unfortunately, I packed it up before taking these pictures so I had to unpack and repack it.



Oh, and it's reversable.



The dinosaur didn't come with the bag, he was just exploring.

Another update

I seem to get all my blogging done in big spurts. Sorry about that. Here is a photo of Raelee in the dress I made for her. It turns out it fit her really well. I am so excited!

An applique project

One of my favorite artists/bloggers is syko. She creates some really beautiful artwork using scraps of fabric and stitched details. I have been inspired for a while, and now this is my first attempt at anything related to her craft. I don't really know how she does her appliques so mine may be way off, but I like it.



Oh, and the frame was just a test to see what it looked like flat, it doesn't fit and it isn't a permanent resting place.

My first makeover

From this:

























To this:



I bought the pillow for 50 cents at a garage sale with the intention of making it over in new fabric. I only took about a month to do it and I'd say that's pretty good. The other day, my husband was wishing we had more pillows near the couch and I remembered it was on the to-do list.

Maybe you're the one with the problem

So I drove 40 minutes to Garland to look through a lady's fabric stash. She advertised on Craigslist that she would sell some of her stash by the yard for $3-$5 per yard. I thought, well, ther probably won't be a whole lot I like so I'll put $40 as my max and I don't have to spend it all if I don't find enough that I really want. This weekend, I worked as quickly as I could to make the $40 doing my new data entry job. I took out the cash so I wouldn't spend more than my limit and Lincoln and I drove off on our journey to Garland. Chris took the old car so I could drive on the toll roads and that in itself proves how dedicated I was to looking at this fabric. The end of the story is she had a lot of really cool fabric that I really wanted and I spent more than 3 times my budget. Oops.

I bought 2 yards each of these:



Then 1 yard each of these:



Then 1/4 yard of these:

and these:


Can you really blame me though? I mean, come on!

Afterwards, we went to see where Chris works and have lunch with him. Lincoln fell asleep in the car on the way home. I managed to stay awake. It was a fun day trip, but it sure wore me out.

Another dress for Raelee

This was a learning experience. I learned that it is important to make casings for elastic and then thread the elastic through afterwards. I didn't do it that way and you can kind of tell. Although I tried to make the dress a 2T, it wouldn't go on my 2T model so I'm not sure it will fit Raelee either. The other part of it that I tried for the first time was the gathering at the waist. I loosely basted and then pulled the thread to the desired amount of gathering. I will do better when I try to do somthing similar in the future, but for now this was a pretty good first attempt. Maybe I will make one in my size.

On a spiritual note

I wasn't sure about posting this here, but then I remembered this is my blog and I can do what I want here. Anyway, I was having a low day this morning. I think it was the sugar low from the chocolate cake with fudge frosting I ate last night. I was feeling depressed and angry. I decided to go visit my friend Holly. She has had my diaper bag since she babysat for us on Tuesday and I have had some stuff to give her as well. I decided to take along the Ensign (I am her visiting teacher) even though I hadn't really read it yet. I haven't read one in months actually. I kind of skimmed and found a bold passage that stuck out to me and later read through it with her. It was a good reminder to me and lifted my low spirits as did the 2 hour talk we had while I was there. The section was this: "Some are lost because they are weary." Lately I have been feeling weary. It gets better some days, but overall I have not been feeling joy in all that I have to accomplish. The reminder I got from this talk was to let the Lord carry some of that burden. It was a message that reminded me that I have accomplished great things when I have involved the Lord in my life. I have not been doing that as much as I ought to lately and I have been feeling the strain that results from carrying my burdens by myself. Why do I forget so quickly when I have had so many experiences that have taught me to trust in His help? You can find the whole talk here if you are interested.

Things are sprouting

I'm fortunate to have a helper with my gardening this year. He loves to do whatever I will let him. The beans are by far the fastest growing seeds I planted. The cucumbers came in at second place. So far the bunny who visits our back yard hasn't done any serious damage to the vegetable plants.

Our backyard surprise

I'm always excited when new flowers pop out in our yard that we didn't know about when we bought the house. These are climbing the back of our house and they are so bright and colorful.

So what if I don't have a little girl

I wanted to make a little girl's dress so this one will be for Raelee if it fits her and her parents approve. She can wear it with a shirt underneath and it will totally be modest. The dress was based on a dress Raelee outgrew and her mother loaned to me to use as a pattern. I'm hoping to try it on Lincoln to see if it really is a size 2T like I had planned. I messed up the first time and had to cut the skirt and top a little, so it may turn out to be too short. We'll have to see.

Ebay

Last week I went to some garage sales with my friend Erin. We found some little lead animals and bought the whole box of them for only 50 cents. After looking them up on Ebay, we decided they might be better sold rather than stuck up someone's nose so I listed them. The final price was $193.50 plus shipping! It was crazy! We are so excited about our little Ebay sale.

Lincoln's little car bag

I am mostly happy with this little bag. I wanted to have the drawstrings to pull the bag tight, but I forgot to leave the seams open to pass the drawstrings through so it's a little rough right now. Maybe the next one will be better.

The Garden

Last weekend I started another project: a vegetable garden in the back yard. Here are some pictures of what I've done so far. The first picture is of our box spring mattress frame. Link and I ripped out all the fabric from the top and the bottom. Then we moved the frame to the perfect garden spot in our yard. (By the way, I didn't try to dress Lincoln up like one of those cute calendar babies, he did this to himself after trying on the pajamas I made him. He loves his hats and also note the rain boots he really did put on all by himself!) Yesterday and today I filled the frame with soil, peat moss, and compost. Then I planted all the plants and seeds. I'll try to update you on the progress, good or bad. That picture with the white blocks in it actually has words if you click on it. I put in the names of the plants so you can see what I planted. Oh, and the plants are actually pretty evenly spaced it just looks funny because of where I was standing to take the picture.

Pajama Bottoms

These are for my boy. It is hard coming up with fun sewing projects with a boy in mind. Most of the fabric I have is quite girly and most of the cool patterns I see are for girls. I had this fabric in my stash and one day realized I didn't have to make a blanket with it. Lincoln is testing them out as we speak.

More green and blue

This is my first solo skirt. When I was in college I had a wonderful roommate (Liz) who helped me make a couple of skirts, but this is the first I have done on my own. It turned out way better than I thought it was going to and I like it a lot. I think I will go ahead and find some material to line the inside with to make it a little less transparent. I love the blue flowers and I'm glad I finally got brave enough to cut this material. One of these days I will figure out how to post pictures from the places that inspire these creations. For now you will have to be satisfied with the pictures I take.

Here is a closeup of the fabric.
It isn't quite as cream colored as it looks,
but it isn't bright white either.