Monday Moments

I went to bed last night with just a touch of a headache that grew into a terrible migraine overnight. It's one of the worst ones I have had in years, complete with nausea. Then I ran out of something pretty important that couldn't wait for my husband to get home from work, so in the middle of this terrible headache accompanied by an overwhelming urge to purge, I got to run to the grocery store, with my three year old.

All I want to do is curl up on the couch, and maybe buy a little something off of ebay with my Christmas money. Only, I never shop ebay anymore and I can't remember my ID or my password for the account I set up ten years ago. It's just the way my day is going. I hope the rest of my family is faring better.

So excited!

Are you kidding me? I won?!

I have to say that I am beyond excited, because my little story was mostly true. I did ask for a layer cake for Christmas, and the lovely family member who was going to get me one as a gift decided to wait until she was at the winter cottage where we always celebrate holidays to buy my fabric. She trudged down to the local quilt shop only to be told that they didn't carry Moda. Seriously? What kind of quilt shop doesn't carry Moda?



So I got the fat quarters above instead. And I love them! Don't get me wrong, they are bright and beautiful and Amy Butler! They are also completely wrong for the project I had in mind when I asked for the layer cake. I have other plans for these lovelies, but I am really excited that I won't have to shelve my plans to make Welcome to the Neighborhood from Pat Sloan's Fast Forward Quilts. Layer cake, here I come!

Happy New Year!

Last year I posted three resolutions on the blog, and I thought it would make a fun post to go back and see how well I did.

1. Get Gabe off of the binky. I honestly don't even remember when we finally did this one. It seemed like it took forever, but I know that it was long enough ago that he doesn't even think twice about it when he's around the babies anymore.

2. Have more blog posts than the year before. Let's see, I did 97 in 2009 and 118 in 2010. Awesome! Accomplished that goal too!

3. Make at least three quilts. I think this shows how daunting quilting seemed to me only one year ago, because although they were small I completed six quilts this year. Yay! Another resolution met!

I went three for three last year, let's see what I can accomplish this year.

1. Let's throw another parenting resolution in there. I'm tired of changing diapers. I have had the potty chair and training pants (and real underwear) for months with little to no results. I will have him potty trained, God willing before his fourth birthday. So stubborn, that child is.

2. Make a quilt for myself. I still have yet to finish anything I start that isn't meant for someone other than me. The shoemaker's children and all that...

3. Make something larger than a lap quilt. I have really been afraid to do this, because it would either mean quilting as I go or farming the quilting out to someone else and paying for it. Ideally, this would be finishing the blocks for the queen sized blanket I started piecing

4. I increased blogging by about 22% last year, so I think maybe I'll try to do that again. That would be about 144 posts. That's a little less than three times a week. Man, I better hope that my sewing machine gets fixed this week!

Ho! Ho! Ho!

P.S. I Quilt is holding an awesome giveaway where everyone gets to be creative for a chance to win gift certificates! Sounds just like the thing for those presents Santa forgot...at least presents of the fabric variety. Check out my entry below and a whole bunch more on Rachel's blog.



Twas the night before Christmas,and snow was adrift.
My family set off to scratch the last from my list.

They arrived at a quilt shop owned by a Grinch,
To whom sales meant more money, fewer pennies to pinch.

The bell on the door made a huge clatter.
The Quilt Shop Grinch sprang up to see who she had captured.

She watched my family fumble around,
But their faces fell when my gift wasn't found.

"Do you have a layer cake?" they asked, as a last resort.
"Oh, Moda?" the Quilt Shop Grinch said with a snort!
"We wouldn't carry anything of that sort!"

Sensing a sale was about to fall through,
The Quilt Shop Grinch lied, it's what all Grinches do.

"This here," she said, "Will be all that she needs.
These fat quarters will make plenty, just wait, you will see."

My family headed out with their package wrapped tight,
Wanting to see my face filled with delight.

"Enough for your quilt!" they sang in a song,
And as much as I hoped, I knew they were wrong.

It was all up to Santa to fulfill my wish,
He whipped up a layer cake, lickety-split.

He was about to put it in the back of the sleigh,
When the sound of a crash lured him away.

Elves came in, yelling, "Emergency!"
And Santa tossed my layer cake under the tree.

So as Mrs. Claus sits with sewing on her lap,
I stare at this small stack of quarters cut fat.

Visions of quilt patterns dance in my head,
But my fabric was gifted to Santa's wife instead...

Monday Moments: Tuesday Edition

We took the kids to have their Christmas celebration with their grandma this weekend. It's a long trip that we were only supposed to make for one overnight, but my husband surprised us all by getting an extra day off of work to spend at the cabin up north.

This led to a lot of extras that we either weren't planning on at all, or that we didn't think we'd have the time to do. One of them was a little side trip to Traverse City to see the Train Festival (a total trip down memory lane for me as it was housed in the old library that I haven't been in since I was a kid). It wasn't very big or impressive to the adults, but the kids enjoyed it enough for it to be worth the price of admission.



Then we took them to lunch at Don's Drive-In. We neglected to get any of their famous milkshakes though. We regretted that decision later when we told friends where we had been and got all kinds of, "You have to have their shakes!" comments. Oh well, I'm sure we'll have plenty more chances.

Three Little Bibs

The title of this post also happens to be the name of the pattern I used to make these. For a limited time last week Leigh Ann was giving this pattern away and I eagerly e-mailed her for my own copy. I knew they would make a great gift for my new niece.



She suggested backing these bibs in chenille, terry or minky. Digging through my stash I discovered I had WAY more minky than I ever remember purchasing. I might have to make up a ton more of these.



As it was, the bibs were so cute and easy I couldn't resist making a couple boy versions. These are for my mother who still hasn't purchased any bibs that don't say "Little Sweetie" and have giant pink cupcakes on them. She's on grandson number two and I am tired of seeing the pretty pink cupcakes in photos of my nephew and son.

Single

I showed you all a double oven mitt I made last week, but I thought that maybe a single mitt was still in order. I used a pattern from the 2010 Sewing Calendar (there is a 2011 calendar available too) with a bit of alteration to whip this one up.

I made it more complicated than it had to be, but unfortunately I realized how tedious quilting around the zebra stripes would be after I had already started doing it. Longest time spent making an oven mitt in history, folks.



I didn't have enough purple bias tape to seal off the ends, so I used some black and lined it with a purple cotton that was almost the same color to try to make them match. It didn't feel like enough though, and I had to extinguish the urge to bust out the seam ripper (and spend another $3 on this project) by wrapping them as quickly as possible in pretty Christmas paper.