January 2012

The end of December and pretty much all of January has flown by and was packed full of fabulous family time. I never did get too many pictures of Christmas, mostly because I waited to get great Christmas morning shots of the kids. Too bad I didn't know ahead of time that Abigail would be sick on Christmas Eve. I'm thankful I do have a cute one of the kids by the tree. And it was Christmas card worthy! Phew! Anyways, on to January!

We celebrated New Year's Eve at home again. I am loving that tradition. It just seems like the perfect thing to do when the kids are this age. Mike and Rachel came down once again, as did Brian and Gavin. Abigail enjoyed the crowns and noise makers. Shocking, I know. Charlie and his fabulous memory remembered that we play a lot of Wii on NYE, so of course, as soon as Brian and Gavin showed up, we needed to kick start the Wii-a-thon. Not much could make that boy happier:) He surprised me (but not Ben) by staying up until midnight. What a little man we have...

Speaking of that little man....he somehow turned six (6!) this month. I got his quilt finished during his birthday week and we even survived our first classroom birthday party. We took Charlie, Abigail, and 18 of his closest buddies to the bowling alley. We had to make due with some iphone pics because this mama forgot to put the card back into the camera. Good move, Mom. Good move. We survived, but not without a few beverages after the party! I think Charlie would probably say his favorite thing about his birthday (besides the presents: nerf vest, radio for his new ipod, star wars puzzle...) was going to Olive Garden. I mean, do you see that photo up there? I'm pretty sure that chocolate cake made his day...and everyone else's too!

This month also found Charlie mastering shoe tying and reading up a storm. I brought home sets 3-5 of the Bob Book series last week. I love that he is just as excited to get a new set of books as he is a new Lego set. Well. Not just as excited, but pretty darn close! Hopefully we are doing something right!

This has been pretty boy-heavy so far, but the girl has had a big month, too. We are currently tackling potty training. Abigail has been wearing undies for one week and one day! Her favorite thing about going potty is washing her hands. We have to go potty everywhere we go and I have a sneaking suspicion that it is only to find out what kind of paper towel dispenser they have. She LOVES those things! All I can do is shake my head and go along for the ride.

A boy and his quilt

I couldn't have picked a better day to finish Charles' quilt. After playing outside in the first real snow of the season, and after hot chocolate, of course, the boy who turned six (6!) this week, has the perfect thing to snuggle under while watching Star Wars. "Way amazing, Mom!" says the boy. Yes you are, Charles. Yes you are.

Magic of December

We've been busy, but in a good way. We've taken our time getting our house and our hearts ready for Christmas. It's hard to believe it's already Christmas Eve. We're spending the day cozied up inside playing games and making more ornaments. Some are for our tree, some are for loved aunties and uncles. Here's just a few pictures of our December so far...

...and here's to hoping the magic isn't over just yet...

Handmade Holiday 2011

This is my first Christmas with a sewing machine! I have really enjoyed learning on my little machine this year and I wanted to bring a little handmade to the holidays this year. Here's what is under the tree so far. 

  

Chef hat for Matthew to go with his kid's cookbook

Chef hat for Joey to go with the his Star Wars pancake molds and cookie cutters

Tutu for Abbie to play dress up (or wear everyday, which is probably what will happen!)

Diapers and diaper wipes to go with this quilt and pillow for Abbie and her dolls

These covered notepads are for Charlie's teacher, principal, and school secretary. I feel blessed that Charlie is in such a wonderful school that I just wanted to make them a little something. I tucked a note into the inside pocket and Charlie signed his name on the notepad. I hope they enjoy them!

I have a few more gifts to finish...hopefully I can finish them up before Santa comes!

Tree Skirt: Done!

My tree skirt is finished! Actually, I have been told that these are tree pants, which I think is hilarious! I have never heard the term before, but it makes sense and is quite cute. I think I'll go with it...

The tree pants finished up quite nicely. After a few quilts under my belt, the quilting went very smoothly and quickly. I definitely would like to try free motion quilting next. There just wasn't enough time to try it out and get this beauty done in time for the holidays. There's always next time...

I hadn't planned on adding the flange, but I thought that since I was using a red binding, I should add it in order for the red border to stand out. Plus I had strips of my backing left over and I didn't want to waste a single bit of that fabric. A while back, I asked my dad if I could take some of our old sheets from the linen closet. I planned on using them to back a quilt I am making for my sister's birthday in March. Once my Flurry charm pack arrived and I saw how perfectly the blues and greens matched, I knew I had to use some of mom's old sheets for the tree pants, too. It looks great, and most importantly, it's a little bit of Mom at Christmas time. Always a good thing:)

Thank goodness for this QAL! I never would have gotten this project done this year otherwise. The tree pants are under the tree...

...and my little man has the first two presents waiting patiently for Christmas morning.

Tree Skirt Progress

Well, I fell behind in week 4 of the Charmed Prints QAL, but I caught up this weekend. I finished the two blocks I was supposed to do during Thanksgiving week and I pieced together my quilt top.

I am very pleased with how the two remaining  feature blocks turned out, but while piecing the top together, I realized all four of my feature blocks were a bit too small! I just made some strips of the green and blue circle fabric I used in each feature block and added a border to each of them. I think it looks okay.

Here's the finished quilt top. It was easy to piece together, once I fixed my feature blocks, but somehow I got some of my strips mixed up. I meant to have the two green, blue, and red charm squares together on the bottom half in the middle. This is where I am going to cut up to the center to create the tree skirt. However, those blue squares, three rows up, not sure how they ended up together! This is definitely not how I laid out my squares! Not sure how this happened. Too much time in the sewing room, perhaps?!?! I wish I could blame it on Abbie, but she was no where near my sewing space this weekend. After ripping seams to fix my feature blocks, I was not going to undo anymore of my quilt top. I have decided to embrace the imperfections! Here's to hoping Santa will leave us plenty of presents to cover up Mama's mistakes!

Craftaholics Gift Exchange

I signed up for the Holiday 2011 Handmade Gift Exchange hosted by Craftaholics Anonymous a few weeks ago. I was very excited to receive my partner (Hi Janice!) and enjoyed swapping emails these past few weeks. From the information Janice shared, I chose to sew her some goodies for her kitchen using colors and patterns I thought she might like.

I had been wanting to make a coffee cozy for a while now and thought this was the perfect time to try. I made her a matching mug rug to go with the cozy.

I hadn't planned on making any coasters to go with the mug rug, but when I saw this houndstooth at Jo-Ann's during their Thanksgiving sale, I had to nab some! Janice said she loves houndstooth!

And because she said she was a girly girl, I also tried my hand at this felt brooch in pink. I received one in the Be Embellished! brooch exchange last winter and decided that I wanted to try my hand at it. I think I definitely will be making more of these in the very near future!

The whole shebang...well, almost. I sent this out on Tuesday, but I had really wanted to make something for her little ones. Back in May, I made a bunch of crayon wallets for Abigail's birthday party and wanted to make some more. I knew I wouldn't get it done before the deadline so I sent Janice's things out first. Her youngest girls will have a colorful package in a few days time:)