Lasso The Moon

And Finally...

#9  Do not lick the tile on the back-porch table.

#8  Do not stick your feet into Baby Brother's mouth.

More Rules

#7  Do not stick peanuts up your nose.

#6  If you drop your gum at the movie theater, do not put it back in your mouth.

Rules

    We have been doing a little crafting, and a lot of training around here for the last couple weeks.  In the next couple days, I'll have lots of new house rules to post about.
   

#5  Do not eat anything you find in a restaurant booster seat.

#4  Do not wash your toys in the potty.

Mother's Day

    I had some fun coming up with a project for Mother's  Day this year.  I decided to make both moms a purse, and use up some of the spring-y fabric in my stash, including a couple from Heather Bailey's Freshcut Line...(above, 2nd and 5th from the left.)
    This little bag was fairly simple once I got my design down.  It was loosely based on some bags I saw by Blair of Wise..Craft, but I think mine is a little smaller.   Basically, it's made from six panels that taper slightly to give a skirt-like appearance.  Then I layered it with a piece of batting, and machine-quilted the layers with my new handy-dandy quilting foot.  I was a little nervous to use it for the first time, but it was actually a lot of fun.  Such a weird sensation to have to move the fabric through by hand instead of letting the "feed-dogs" do all the work.  And pulling the fabric toward me was even weirder!  I think they turned out pretty good for my first quilting try.
    Here's the other one.

I used yet another fabric for the button loop, and a vintage pillowcase for the lining of both.  I was really surprised at how the faded pillowcase went so well with the fabrics I'd chosen.  (You can see the pocket on the inside, too.)

    Picking the button was fun.  I went to the craft store with Emma, who ran toward the button display...
    Emma:  Butts!  Oh!  Butts, Mommy!
    Me:  Yeah, buttons.  Good.
    Emma:  Look, more butts, Mommy.
    Me:  Yep.  More buttons.  Pretty.
    Emma: *sigh*  I love butts.

Baubles

Oh, here's a picture of the ties after I took the quilt from the dryer.  They did exactly what I hoped they would.  The wool felted up into little balls!

I'll have to find a fun knitting project to do with the rest of the skein...
And here's the entire quilt.  6'x6'

Poetry Wednesday--Picnic

If I had a day to spend with you,
I know just what I'd want to do.

We'd find a little patch of sun,
Where the little one's could play and run,

I'd lean against you in the shade,
Sipping on some lemonade.

And run my toes through the cool, green grass,
'Till the babes run back to us at last.

Then on our quilt we four would lay,
And snooze away the summer day.

Blanket--Day Two

    The next step of the blanket is to cut the yarn between stitches and tie each one in a square knot.

    Then I made some bias binding from the left-over yellow sheet, and attached it using Heather's handy tutorial for continuous binding.  Oh, and I made pockets for the corners--another genius idea of Denise's.  You fill them with rocks or sand to keep the blanket from flying away.  Awesome, right?

Picnic Blanket

    I seem to have taken an unplanned sabbatical from the blog.  Almost two weeks ago, I misplaced the cord to my digital camera, so I couldn't upload any pictures of the projects I was working on.  But rest  assured, there has been some fun crafting happening here, and I'm going to spend the next few days catching you all up!
    Today's is the picnic blanket.  I hinted about it before.  I am making it out of some vintage bedsheets that I picked up at a Goodwill sale.   I decided to have some fun with it, and pieced a design based on one of the new books I got for my birthday.
    Denise Schmidt Quilts
    Cool book.  Tons of inspiration.  She has this quirky style that I just love, and lots of fun ideas for pretty things to use in everyday life.  I think this pattern is called What a Bunch of Squares.  But I don't feel like double checking that right now.  One of my favorite thing about her style is that she will "randomly" replace a small square with a fabric that doesn't really match, but almost does.  As if she ran out of the right fabric and had to substitute what was on hand.  Fun.
    So I got all my squares finished, and then prepared it for tying.  I've never actually tied a quilt properly before, so this was exciting.  I marked off the grid--that's the photo above--and the next step was to start quilting.

    I am using a wool yarn that I found at the craft store.  I'm hoping that it will felt up when I wash it into little balls or dreadlocks.  The idea is to sew the ties, with a big ole needle, wherever the grid intersects.  Then you cut all the sections and tie them together.  But I'm saving those pictures for tomorrow. 
    Cheers!