Happy Birthday Dad!

Happy 46th Birthday!! Love you Dad!!!

The tale of the coin quilt gone wrong.

Once upon a time, there was an old maid named Christina, that saw a beautiful coin quilt on a magical island called the Internets. Christina was so entranced by this quilt, that she decided to make one all by herself. The Internets had lots of directions, so how hard could it be?

Christina gathered all the supplies she needed. Fabric scraps given to her by a friend long ago, for the coins, and blue fabric that Christina's mother, Lady Lydia, had gifted to her.

After much cutting and cursing and sewing and cursing and emotional eating, Christina had a beautiful crooked quilt top. Blast! Christina was quite devastated and thought she should be banished to a cell where the inept were banished from ever touching a sewing machine again.


See how it curves to the right?

After much thought, Christina decided that all was not lost. After more cutting and cursing and sewing and.... well, you get the point, Christina had two preemie sized quilt tops. After stitching in the ditch and binding, the preemie quilts were finished and all was well in the land. Christina's sewing machine lived to see another day!



The quilts accompanied the granny square blanket of yestermonth on a long journey to the NICU. Christina's dear friend Mary was not to be left out and sent a knitted baby hat along for the ride.



Another WIP got whacked! :)

Starting early

Being as its already November, I'm gearing up for Thanksgiving. We've already taken down the Halloween decorations and are trying to figure out what to put up for this month.

While I'm contemplating decorations, lets start the Thanksgiving season off with a meme I found.

1. Which do you like better: Cooking at your house, or going elsewhere?
I like cooking at home best, unless I'm going to mom's house. Her Thanksgiving meals rock!

2. Do you buy a fresh or frozen bird?
I've only ever done frozen. Where would I even get a fresh turkey?

3. What kind of stuffing?
I don't like stuffing (don't lynch me), but hubby does.

4. Sweet potato or pumpkin pie?
Neither! Give me a chocolate pudding pie any day!

5. Do you believe that turkey leftovers are a curse, or the point of the whole thing?
I love turkey leftovers. I'll eat them for days until they're all done.

6. Which side dish would provoke a riot if you left it off the menu?
Garlic cheddar mashed potatoes. *drool*

7. Do you save the carcass to make soup or stock?
Nope, I've never made homemade soup.

8. What do you wish you had that would make preparing Thanksgiving dinner easier?
More counter space and an extra oven.

9. Do you get up at the crack of dawn to have dinner ready in the early afternoon, or do you eat at your normal dinner hour?
Crack of dawn. Yet, we still manage to eat later than usual.

10. If you go to somebody else's house, what's your favorite dish to bring?
Cake, pies, or fudge.

11. What do you wish one of your guests wouldn't bring to your house?
Nothing. Bring it all! heehee

12. Does your usual mix of guests result in drama, or is it a group you're happy to see?
No drama. We're a peaceful bunch...mostly.

13. What's your absolute favorite thing on the menu?
Have to go with the garlic cheddar mashed potatoes again.

14. What are you thankful for this year?
I'm thankful for a great family (especially my super awesome spawn), a good job, a nice place to live, coffee, and chocolate!

What are you thankful for this year?

Happy (belated) Halloween!

I wasn't sure if Pi was going to be able to do Halloween this year. She had a nasty stomach bug on Friday, was sent home from school and was throwing up all day. Luckily, after a 6 hour nap, she woke up feeling much better.

For the end of October, the weather was very warm yesterday. It rained off and on but that didn't stop the neighborhood kids from trick or treating.

Pi was dressed as a 50's girl. I made her costume, using THIS tutorial and pink felt for the skirt and some iron on poodles from the fabric store. Finding ruffle socks in an adult size was the biggest challenge of the entire costume.



Before we went trick or treating, we headed down to the town's pool complex, where a haunted house was set up. We went before 6, because that's when its for weenies. They say its for the 10 and under crowd. After that, they ramp up the craziness for the older kids.

Check out the line!

Pi and her friend held hands, just in case it was too scary. So cute!



I probably shouldn't have used my flash, but I did. Oh well!
There was a graveyard...



The Addams family (I think) watching tv...

and Frankenstein in the lab. He randomly sat up which got some of the kids freaked out, haha.

Then we went trick or treating. In a matter of only 3 blocks, Pi filled up both her pumpkin and a shopping bag full of candy.

Some houses had a "take your own" sign.

Other houses were elaborately decorated.

After the trick or treating, we went to a local house that goes nuts with their decorations and opens their doors to the neighborhood for a few hours. It was the last year they were going to do it, so we decided to go. I'm so glad we did because it was great. I left my camera in my neighbors car, because it was pouring by the time we got there. So no pics, but definitely fun.

After I eat Pi's candy, its time to start thinking turkeys...and birthdays, heehee!

More than just sewing.

Renting over the last...oh my whole adult life... has taught me that decorating isn't very easy when you can't use nails. Our current landlord hasn't forbidden nails, but made it clear that he prefers if we can avoid them.

We've managed to get some frames to stay up with those 3M wall sticker things, but they don't really work for very heavy frames. We have a large blank wall that needed some sprucing up, but knowing we couldn't put up a large frame posed a problem.

After some Internet searching (there's loads of ideas for renter decorating), hubby and I decided to try a fabric wall hanging. We bought a cheapie canvas from AC Moore that was 50% off and some home dec fabric from Ikea. The fabric from Ikea can be a little pricey, but we didn't need much and we both liked the funkiness of it.



I wish I'd remembered to get more "how to" shots, but we finished these really quickly. We cut the fabric out to be a few inches larger than the canvas, stretched it tight over the canvas, and used a regular old stapler to attach it. No staple gun needed, which is great since I don't have one. I had my hot glue gun ready just in case.

Oooh psychedelic!

We liked it so much, we put another one in the bedroom.

Now I just have to get curtains up in there...and decorate my craft space...and my corkboard and and....it never ends!

Lounge Pants & Ruler

Back in September, my good friend Joyce drove me to Walmart to get a few things I needed for the apartment. While we were there, Pi spotted pink flannel with green frogs printed on it and it was instant love. She begged me to buy it for her and make lounge pants (she actually asked for pj pants, but with all the law about flammable/loose material for bed, we'll just call them lounge pants mmmkthx).

I've never made lounge pants before and was honestly petrified of trying. I didn't want to mess up her precious frog flannel since I don't have a car and wouldn't be back to Walmart anytime soon.

Browsing the net, I found THIS tutorial. She makes it look....easy. Looked too good to be true, but I sucked it up and dove in. After minor setbacks (having no pattern paper and resorting to brown grocery bags) and some major setbacks (sewing the entire crotch together, oopsie!), I actually made a pair of pants! The kid loves them and wants me to make her more.



Speaking of my cute kid...

This may look like any old ordinary ruler...



but on the other side, Pi wrote a sweet little note.



It says:

I know my mom
loves crocheting
so I do to. My mom
is a wonderful crocheter.

Awwwwwwwwwwww!

That almost makes up for the time she told her teacher we don't feed her. :)

Color me spooky.

School treats for Halloween are usually pretty easy to decide on. Some sort of cookie or cupcake decked out for Halloween is always a hit.

This year was a smidge more difficult because one of the kids in Pi's class has severe food allergies. This little girl has to have all of her food specially made, so I didn't want to send in a sweet and have her feel left out.

Looking at the large pile of broken and worn down crayons that Pi has gave me an idea. There were so many, that the container they were kept in barely closed anymore. I figured we could recycle them while making a dent in the crayon overload.

We started by peeling the wrappers, breaking the larger pieces into tiny pieces, and separating them by color families.

Then we filled up a Halloween cookie mold with them. They were baked at 220 degrees for 10 minutes until fully melted.

When they were done, I let them cool for 5 minutes on the counter and then 5 minutes in the freezer. After the freezer they popped right out.

In no time, we had a stack of super neat crayons and a much more manageable crayon container.

This candy corn and Frankenstein are my two favorites.

They were wrapped up in Halloween lollipop bags and are all ready to go. If I have some extra time this week, I might make little tags to add to the bags.

These favors cost us under $2 (for the bags), just an afternoon worth of time, and no one has to worry about food allergies.

Do you guys send Halloween favors for school? What grade is too old for favors anymore? I'm not sure Pi will let me send anything next year.