Dear Unfinished Quilt, Part 2

You are more finished now than you were on Monday. Your top is all sewn together now.

I realized I goofed and do not have any fabric appropriate for a backing. I'll go shopping this weekend and remedy that, so don't harass me until Saturday evening at the earliest.

Your demanding nature (and timeline) aside, you sure are pretty so far quilt.

Dear Unfinished Quilt,

I haven't forgotten about you. My family has been too busy enjoying the long weekend to work on you much. The evidence is below.

Started the day at the site of the WWII and 9/11 memorials in town. There were nice speeches, wreath distributions, and a town prayer.



The parade procession went right through downtown.



Marchers threw loads of candy for the kids to catch.






Ahh, the marching band. I remember doing that in high school and I don't miss it!

This is about 10 am and we were already baking hot. Pi does open her eyes...just not in pictures with me apparently.

We've been enjoying the local playgrounds.

Look at that sky! Not a cloud to be found! That's the view from my swing, btw. Yes, I still get my big butt on swings, haha.

Bike riding...

Badminton on a tennis court. We've yet to find a volleyball net.

What's summer without a bucket full of water balloons?

What's summer without .... baking? Yeah, I had the crazy urge to bake six dozen sugar cookies in the heat. By the time I had to frost them, I was hot and tired, so I just drizzled the frosting on.

Because I'm crazy, I also wanted to make homemade ice cream sandwiches, which means baking chocolate chip cookies. Giant ones! These cookies have a 5" circumference easy! The cookies were perfect for this because even frozen, they were still chewy.

Add ice cream and viola. Yummmmmm. Way better than storebought.

It's so hot, they started melting right away.

Quilt, I hope you understand why you're not quite finished yet. I'll work on you in a few days, so... see you then quilt!

Happy Memorial Day! Thanks to the men and women who have given their lives serving our country!

The stork is bringing twins!

But not to me!

My good friend Joyce's sister is due to have twin boys in June and she asked if I could make a few simple things for them. I can't resist sewing for babies, so I agreed instantly.

Joyce brought over a few yards of flannel in a cute blue truck design and an adorable green dinosaur design. The first thing I did was make a few bibs and burpcloths from each.

The bib pattern is the Infant Bib Pattern from Chickpea Sewing Studio and I winged the shape of the burpcloth.



Rinse, wash, repeat with the blue flannel.



Then I found this cute pattern for Simple Baby Pants at Make Baby Stuff.com and couldn't resist making teeny tiny pants.



A nice little stack of handmade goodies for the new babies.



There's a little flannel left over and I hope to have time to make some fabric blocks before the babies arrive.

I love baby stuff!

Randomness

Just some random stuff from the last few weeks...

During the school year, Pi had been promoted from the beginner band to the intermediate band. She had her recital last week and the kids sounded way better than they did in the fall. After the concert, she was promoted again to the advanced band! Sweet!


Pi: Mom, stop EMBARRASSING me!

The goldfish Pi won at the birthday party all died in a few days. ALL of the kids' goldfish died within a few weeks, which totalled around 200 dead fishes.

Pi was pretty heartbroken about it, so we bought her a beta fish. They're supposed to be pretty hardy things, so I've got my fingers crossed this one will last. It's been two weeks and the fish is blowing bubbles, which means it's getting ready to mate and is building a nest. Too bad there aren't any lady fish around.

I'm a little worried about Pi's creativity or lack thereof because she named the fish.... you guessed it.... Beta! *groan*



My little sister Inky Binky graduated from college with a degree in Psychology! She's heading to grad school to get an MA in School Psych. Congrats Steph!



Speaking of school.... guess who is going back? Oh yeah, ME! I've already got an MA in psych, but the degree is not a counseling degree, as it's mostly research oriented. I'm able to give therapy in the public sector, but can't work in the private sector or get a private practice license in NY or NJ.

I'm heading back in the fall to get an MA in Forensic Mental Health Counseling. This degree will allow me to get licensed and work in just about any environment I want. Eventually, I could even open up my own practice (oh dreams!).

It's been a few years since I was in grad school, so I'm a big ball of nerves. But I'm excited too and hope that this will open up career opportunities for me. I'll never know if I can do it unless I try, so here goes.

Lost my mind!

Pi's super fabulous principal recently announced she will be retiring this year. The announcement spread like wildfire through the entire town and the reaction was incredible. I've never seen so many people show thanks and appreciation to an educator as much as she is receiving. She totally deserves it, as she's really great with the kiddos and the parents.

Everyone has been brainstorming on special ways to say goodbye at the end of the year and somehow, someway, I agreed to help make a simple quilt from Piper's class. Lost.My.Mind!

Being too late to turn back now, I've jumped in and don't plan to think of how crazy I am to agree to this, until it's all over.

I brought fabric squares and crayons to school and let the kids doodle away. I've not got a stack of 28 hand colored squares to sew together.



I'm thinking of doing a simple checkerboard quilt like this. Whaddya think?



Some kids needed "do-overs" like this kid. Her original square screamed stalker (!!), so I'm glad she made another one that didn't mention going to the principal's house at all. Whew!



The quilt has to be finished by the end of June. Wish my crazy butt some luck! ;)

My new favorite thing.

May is a month of celebration for Kado (read about it here), over at Perfect Cadence. As part of celebrating May, she's been posting some of her favorite things and sharing the love.

In today's mail, I found a bottle of Lavendar Vanilla Sleep Pillow Mist. This stuff smells amazing and I can't wait to try it tonight. I was tempted to spray it on my pillow right away and go to sleep, but since it was 6:30 when I got home, I thought that might be pushing it.




Check out that cute card too. Its pretty perfect for any occasion!

Thanks so much for sending a little love in the mail Kado!!!

Happy Mother's Day!!

I'm a day late and a dollar short. I won't mention it again if you don't. ;)

We had a morning visitor this weekend. Geese all the way from the lake in my town. We're not that close to the lake, so we were pretty surprised to see this guy walking around. Eventually, he plopped himself down on the lawn and sunbathed for awhile.



We went to see my family for Mother's Day on Saturday night, since we were picking Piper up in Brooklyn anyway. Using the April Bag pattern, I made purses for both my mother and dirty Grandma.

Mom's bag is in the silky pink material she loves so much. Its lined in a solid maroon. I made the bag a bit boxier than the pattern called for since I had square handles.



Dirty Grandma got a round purse with big green handles. It's very "spring" and something she'd definitely walk around with.



I also embroidered a tea towel for mom and wrapped lemon cookies in it. I was hoping to make two, but I ran out of time. The flame in the pan makes me giddy, I love it so much.



We ended the night with mom's Shitzu falling asleep, belly-up on my lap. We're pretty convinced that she thinks she's a baby.

Sunday morning, Piper made me scrambled eggs and toast all by herself (supervised by hubby, of course). She also gave me a sweet handmade card and a plant from the school sale.

It was a nice day. I hope you all had a great Mother's Day!!