A Wilderness Vacation

We are currently vacationing in Tennessee at Wilderness in the Smokies. If you've never been, so far it's a great place to take the kids. We got here last night and have been enjoying the water parks all day. It came time for dinner and I decided to check out Trip Advisor for a good place to eat. We were not disappointed. One of the suggestions was an Italian place called Little Italian Kitchen. Let me just say, if you go by first impressions, you might not walk in (it's in with a gas station). And if you go by second impressions, you might not go in (you order off a board). But if you can get past all that, go in. Definitely go in! And eat. Eat lots and be prepared for it to be amazing! I got butternut squash ravioli with roasted red pepper sauce while hubby got rigatoni bolognese. The kids got pizza (of course) and it was all so wonderful. The owner is Italian and all the food is authentic. We ended our moral with a desert they called Chocolate Lasagna. Three words: heaven, heaven, heaven! We are trying to figure out how to get the kids to go back tomorrow. I don't think it will be a problem.
Oh, and I totally forgot to mention, I saw a store not too far from here that appears to be a discounted place for fiesta ware dishes. I may have to ditch the fam and go check it out!

Vacay Starts Today!

We are leaving for vacation right after church today. I am taking my Nexus 7 but I can't promise I will be able to post anything...not that there will be any sewing going on anyway. I'm going to take my red and white hexies so maybe I will work on those, but I have been hand stitching the back of the binding on my Bottled Rainbows and my fingers are sore. Does anyone else have bad hand sewing habits like pushing the needle with the wrong side of your thumb nail so it's basically like pulling your thumbnail backward every time? Makes for a very sore thumb, let me tell you!
Gotta finish packing so have a great week!

Stash Building

Well, our guild president posted yesterday that a lady had contacted her via our website that her mother (a quilter) had passed away and she wanted to get rid of a large portion of her stash. I wish I'd taken a picture of it. Unreal. She had it portioned out by color upstairs in her house and it was covering surfaces in 3 bedrooms and all over her hallway. An entire table devoted to purple, a chest covered with green, a box full of red. She also had 3 boxes of quilting books. I picked up a book on Sashiko and last year's 100 blocks magazine.  I also picked up a bag full of fabric and only spent $20.

Approximately 16 pieces are around fat quarter size, and the others (about 9) range from 1-3 yards. And I really could have bought more. I'm going to go back and look through them and see if I can pull a blue and green together for a baby quilt for my new little cousin and go back for a brown to go with it. She also had tons of creams and whites, but it's hard to know what you're getting there. Plus she had a large PVC quilt rack used to hand quilt, and some miscellaneous Pellon products.

I've got my Bottled Rainbows binding sewn down in the front and it is pinned and ready to be hand stitched down in the back. That will be a sitting in front of the tv project. I also need to get some traveling sewing projects together since we leave for vacation on Sunday. Finally!

Remember When Schools Were a Priority?

Remember when: 

• school supplies meant a backpack, a pencil and some paper?

• bathroom supplies on your child's supply list would have seemed ludicrous? 
• every politician in the United States wasn't trying to cut spending so instead of increasing taxation in the upper class who can afford it, they slash school funding?

Sorry for my rant; I just returned from spending $70 at Walmart for school supplies and that didn't even include tissues, a roll of paper towels, pencils, and a 3" ringed binder because I already had them at home...and a 5 pack of pocket dividers for her notebook because Walmart didn't have any. I am not aiming this toward the schools. I have worked there. I know and I understand. I am just sad that America is supposed to be such a wealthy country but we can't afford to outfit our schools with what is needed for our kids.

I also had to hit Aeropostale which may be my saving grace this year. My 10 year old daughter looks more like a 13 year old (height and physical maturity-wise) but she's still a 10 year old inside so she's fighting how she looks. She wants to wear cut off jeans and big baggy boy shirts to school. I told her she was going to have to compromise with me somehow I wasn't going to send her to school looking like a bum. We actually found 5 shirts to start off so I feel much better.

Also, I have been having problems with blogger lately. Has anyone been having issues with blogger 'whiting out' parts of their posts? I will write a post and nothing looks wrong on the post page, but when I try to publish, some of the sentences are just long white rectangles and can't be read. I usually have to rewrite and move it around until I can make it go away. I can't tell you how may times I had to rewrite portions of this post to get it to stop.

WiP Wednesday

Bottled Rainbows is quilted! That's about all I can say for this week, but that's saying a lot!

I am working on the most recent Round Robin Mystery Mini as well. Hope to get that finished and sent tomorrow.

Holy Frijoles, Batman!

I am officially freaking out. I was cooking dinner last night when hubby came in carrying a small box that had been left on the porch. He said it was for me, and he kept grinning. I was a little scared to open it. But when I got inside I saw a tablet. A Nexus 7 tablet! I was stunned. I started immediately running down the list in my mind. Birthday? Nope. Anniversary? Nada. I even asked him if he felt guilty about something. Nyet. He says that I talked about them and he assumed I wanted one. Uhhhh... yeah, sure. I remember telling him about an article I'd read where they were saying this one was a good deal in comparison to what else is out there, but wow! I wasn't expecting one. Especially for no apparent reason.
I'm kind of excited! A kid with a new toy! Of course, it will have to be hidden from my daughter. She has been dying for a Kindle Fire. Hello? You are 10 years old....and if I don't have one, you can't have one either! Of course, I can't say that anymore. I was going to check out a drawing app Lynne talked about on her blog but I saw that it was Touchdraw which appears to be a iPad only app. So I'm still looking. Oh, and you know this means I've got to make a bag/cover!

On another happy note, I noticed a new addition to the family on FB this morning. I don't know if anyone remembers Reagan's quilt I made in remembrance of my cousin's child who died about two years ago. She was about 18 months old. Yes, this story gets happier. There's a new baby in their family...meet Lincoln.

Isn't he a cute bug? I may have to make a play quilt for him. 

Yule Pop Options

I was playing around with ideas for my Yule Pop quilt. Instead of variegated bubbles I thought it might be cool to have the bubbles/ornaments in a specific shape... a Christmas shape since this is a Christmas quilt. I thought a Christmas tree might be pretty cool. I bounced the idea off Allegory and she thought it would be best to do a little sketch to figure out how it will work so I've been doing a little sketching and coloring this morning.

The top is a guess at what the tree would look like in the colors that are present in Jovial. I removed the whites and it probably won't be quite so uniform but I was just trying to get an idea if I used white as my bubble color. When I did it, I thought it looked too much like an arrow instead of a tree so I tried some ideas on the bottom. I sketched out the blocks in a regular way (looks like an arrow), and then I sketched them with the squares alternating instead of being lined up. This looks more like a tree but my bubbles won't be lined up so now I don't know what to do. I'm not sure whether to keep trying to make the tree work, try another shape, or just do it haphazard and call it done. Think, think, think...!

It's Toni's Fault! Oh, and Allegory's Too!

I totally had no plans of starting anything new, cause goodness knows I have plenty of projects that are nowhere near finished. But then Toni posted about a Christmas quilt,...and Allegory's been having this Soda Pop Quilt along for Katie's Soda Pop quilt. So what could I do? I ask you, how could I say no?
I had these 3 charm packs of Jovial by Moda that I won several months ago at the LQS and I was thinking that would chop off a lot of time. I personally think the quilt looks better with lots of colors but I really just wanted a smaller version and I had no other grand ideas for those charm packs so... we'll see how this works out. I even came up with a cute name for it, cause you know people have cute names for these quilts. Mine is called Yule Pop! So far I'm just putting my squares together but I should finish that today.

I also got my monster Bottled Rainbows pinned and ready to quilt...but I haven't decided on a thread color yet. So I need help people! What color thread would you use on a rainbow quilt? Oh, and what color would you make your bubbles on the Soda Pop quilt? I haven't figure that one out yet either.

Proud Mama for All the Drama!

My son finished a week of Kidscamp at the local community theater yesterday. They learned about designing sets, makeup (monster week) and learned lines for a short play as well as a monologue. Thursday was makeup day and he came home looking very interesting... I usually don't post pics of my kids but this was just too much.

Does he look beaten up or what? No, I didn't tell him to close his eye up like that. As soon as I got the camera out, he started posing his arms so everything could be seen and he immediately closed up that eye. I was cracking up when I saw the picture. Here is his "Frankenstein" look from the play yesterday.

Yeah, gotta do the dreadful face to go with it. What a lot of fun!
And I leave in about 30 minutes to go pick up the girl after her full week at "away from home" camp. I have enjoyed seeing pictures posted on FB by my friend who went as a sponsor/chaperone. My daughter has been very happy in all the pics and I can't wait to hear her version of it.

WiP Wednesday

You would think that with two kids at camp I would be doing a lot of sewing...but I'm doing a lot of lazy. I did get in the basement and start working on the back of my Bottled Rainbows quilt today. For anyone who missed it Friday, here's the front...

and here's the back I'm currently working on.

I decided to make up what I needed from the big print with a repeat of piano keys here and there since I still have some leftovers. So there will be another row of piano keys to fill the area where the quilt front is peaking through around the middle, and I may have to do another row on one side or the other to make sure it's wide enough. I haven't sewn that middle strip to the left side yet so you might notice some more quilt front peaking through there. I hope to finish it tomorrow so I can go on a "floor hunt" to find a space big enough to pin this thing together.

Ah, and you'll never guess what hubby noticed tonight. He walked past me after dinner and said, "Your willow tree in the backyard is on the ground." We both went out to check and this is what we saw.

I feel so bad for the birds. This was a big tree; our house is a two story but it's 3 stories on the back because of the basement and this tree was at least three stories. That little red box is a license plate birdhouse my dad made me years ago and is only about 8-9" tall if that gives you any idea of the size. There were upset little birds flitting all around the tree. Hubby has his work cut out for him this weekend.

Yummilicious Rainbow Goodness!

Check it out! Yesterday's mail brought me a stack of 64, count 'em, 64 10x10 Kona solids from Jane's swap!

Layer cake goodness! What's your favorite layer cake quilt design? I've got a pinterest board going I'd love to add to if you're interested. Layer cake quilt goodies! Right now I'm really liking that courthouse steps in solids!

Also, I recently caught a statement made by Jamilelyn Nye of iheartnaptime on Twitter. She said, "Bloggers are your community. Not your competition." Wow. I like that a lot.

T-Shirt to Skirt...A Recycle Project

My daughter left for camp today! A whole week 4 hours from home...I won't know what to do with all the silence. And since the girl went away to camp, I decided to let the boy go to theater camp for the week. Monster Madness is the theme! Perfect for a boy!
This is a Christian camp and the dress code is fairly modest. The girls are expected to wear a skirt to chapel every day but they suggested only sending one or two because these are just 10 year olds. Well, I took my friend's advice and hit Goodwill for a few pieces of clothing that I didn't mind if it didn't come back, or if it came back less than clean and joyful smelling. I only found one skirt because my dear 10 year old has been going through a 3 year growth spurt and I have hard time finding things that fit her...that she will wear. At the last minute I was feeling a bit concerned that she only had one skirt so I decided yesterday to try to upcycle her one from items here at the house. My first idea was to cut down one of two dresses I had cleaned from my closet. Both dresses had zippers down the back, however, and I just didn't feel like dealing with that.

What I ended up making is a tshirt skirt. Please excuse my lack of pictures as I didn't think of posting it until the last minute! I initially used an XL tshirt (she is equivalent to an adult small,... maybe a little smaller). I cut it off right under the arm holes.

Next I took a wide piece of elastic (3/4"-1") and measured around her waist making it sure it fit snugly but not tight. I sewed it together at the end to make a waistband. Next I attached the cut end (the top) of the tshirt to the elastic. This is a bit tricky without pictures so let me see if I can explain how I did it.
The fabric is going to be almost double the size of the elastic so you are going to need to do some finagling. This is how I handled it.
1. Press the elastic and set a pin in each of the two ends. This finds the halfway marks. Now open the circle again and press it where the pins line up. Set a pin in each of the two new ends. You have now marked the four quarters of the circle. Do the same with the tshirt.
2. Place the elastic on the inside of the cut part of the tshirt and line up your pins. Pin the fabric to the elastic. You are still going to have an excess of fabric.
****One thing I did not do but could be done to make it look neater is to leave about a 1/4 inch of fabric over the top of the elastic to be tucked over. This will neaten it up and won't leave frayed edges, but this is tshirt fabric so I wasn't too worried about fraying.
3. I created little pleats here and there between the pins to use up some of the fabric. You still want there to be a bit of gapping between the fabric and the elastic. I'll explain why in a minute.

Now I set my machine for stretch material but you don't necessarily have to. I just wanted it sewn together well. While sewing the fabric to the elastic I held it from both sides (front and back of sewing machine) and gave stretched the elastic. I kept the elastic stretched and taut because I wanted to make sure she could she could have plenty of stretching room in the waist if needed.

I know my hand is held differently in the picture but I didn't think about it being wrong until I had finished and looked at the pictures.
After you sew all around the waistline, fold the elastic and fabric down toward the inside of the skirt once. When sewn, this will be your actual waistband.

Prior to this is when I figured out the skirt would not be long enough, so I cut a second tshirt similar to the first. I knew I didn't need it to be as long as the first one so I salvaged 12 inches off the second one.

I flipped this tube inside out and slipped it over the skirt so the newly cut end of the second skirt lined up with the bottom end of the first shirt. Pin and sew the two pieces together. I used a 1/2" seam allowance since I knew I had plenty of fabric.
I wanted to make sure the seam didn't pucker (since I left the bottom of the original shirt uncut, the original finished seam was still there) so I tucked both 1/2" allowances over to the navy side on the back and top stitched them down.

The seam you see on the gray side is just from the original bottom seam of the tshirt. I just didn't sew far enough down.

Not too bad for a quick and easy skirt for camp that will be very comfortable to wear. This would be a great project for colorful or printed tshirts. Or you could add lace, ric-rac, etc. My girl is going through NON girly girl stage so I was not allowed to girl it up.

Bullies Come in All Forms...And Bully in Different Ways

Near the end of the last school year, I picked my 4th grade daughter up some cute tops from Justice. She wanted to spend some birthday money and she was very excited about what she picked out. She wore one top a few times and another only once when I started noticing a change in how she dressed. She wanted to wear dingy cut off jean shorts and only big tshirts such as their field day shirts. I could not get her to wear the cute stuff ever again except when we had the reception after hubby's grandfather died. I KNEW someone had said something to her but I couldn't prove it and she refused to admit to it. She even said she didn't want to wear "girly-girl" clothes, even though she was the one who picked them out.

Yesterday, I was having a conversation with my neighbor and she mentioned a mutual friend from the neighborhood who leads a girl scout troop (she's tried to get me and my daughter into her troop but I've held out thinking that we should stay with the one we started with). The leader, Sarah, used to have her daughter in public school and she was friends with my daughter. She said they did some type of presentation last year in their troop where they were discussing a phrase/saying and how it applies to them. They chose "You are what you wear." Well, let me tell you what came out of that discussion. It seems that, at 4th grade level, the girls are already becoming mean girls. They have already divided themselves up into cliques which are set up because of the types of clothes they wear. The girls that wear girly-girl clothes (yes, that was the term she used and it immediately tipped me off!) hang together, the athletic girls hang together and dress that way, and so on. As SOON as she said "girly-girl" I knew I had my answer. It also seems that, if you wear clothes that are not deemed part of your 'group', than you are picked on and harassed. In the 4th grade.  I am just so upset about the whole thing because, I'm sorry, but that behavior is a precursor to bullying.

I love my daughter dearly but she, like I always did, has some self esteem issues. She came out of the womb thinking she was a peer and not a child, so it has been very difficult finding a happy medium of helping her understand that she has to follow authority but keeping her from feeling bad about herself. She tends to take any constructive criticism or redirection as a personal affront to her. She also appears to be somewhat of a follower, which worries me. I worry not only that she is not satisfied with herself and wants to be like these other kids (who I am not so duly impressed with), but also that she would not be strong enough to stand up for someone else who is being picked on. I know she KNOWS it's wrong, but I fear that the "at least it's not me" feeling would kick in. I remember that feeling. I was picked on as a child and I don't want that for her. I was an overly emotional child because of early physical maturity which made all my hormones rage all the time. Now she's going through the same thing. I know I had it rough for a while, but it is just so much worse in this day and time.

I had a meeting with her teachers at the beginning of the year last year about some things and one of the teachers made the comment that there was a group of girls in the class who, had they been in her class when she was a child, would even have intimidated her. Okay, does that not sound like she was hinting that these girls could have been picking on my daughter as early as the beginning of the year? And if they knew that the possibility was there for that long, why was I made to feel at the end of the year meeting like it was going to be my responsibility to get her behavior under control? It now makes me wonder if one of the reasons that she won't talk about it with me is because she lost any respect she had for the teachers because they didn't offer her any help. And if the teachers won't help, and they're actually there to witness things happening, how can mom help? Not that any kid really wants mom to show up at the school anyway. This would also explain a bit why she picks at her brother so much. Yes, I know sisters pick at brothers but she takes it a bit too far sometimes. And she also picks at me. I get the feeling that, because she doesn't feel in control at school, then it's her way of feeling in control here.

Argh!! I am just frustrated and not happy about school starting back in just a few weeks. I have no idea how to get her to see how beautiful she is and to get her to loosen up. She goes to camp next week with a  friend (a Christian camp) and I'm really hoping some of this friend rubs off on her. This child is more self-confident and has more a "whatever happens is fine" mentality than my daughter. She auditioned for Seussical when I did but didn't get a part. Her mom said she was upset for about 10 minutes, but then she was over it and on with her life. My daughter would have been distraught for weeks and wallowed in it. Do you have a confident child? Are there any tips or things you think help that child be more confident?

As an afterthought, you know what's really crazy? My son is TOTALLY not like this at all. He's much more like my daughter's friend. He gets upset for a while but usually just throws it off. He has had a bit more episodes of crying lately but I wonder if he and his sister just need a break from each other (yahoo camp!).

TGIFF!!!! I'm on Top of the Rainbow!

Well, I FINALLY finished the top of my bottled rainbows quilt! Now, saying this actually means that all I have to do is make and attach the backing because it was a quilt as you go so the batting is already attached. One less step to do!

I did piano keys all around for a border out of the leftover fabrics plus some other Kona I had. I will more pictures later as I get it all finished up. I'm also going to take some individual pictures of blocks for flickr. I did it once already but the lighting where I took them was horrible. Oh, and I forgot to mention that with my extra row of blocks, this baby comes out around 90 x 90. Whew! Not gonna be fun getting this jewel on my little home machine!

Hubby also hung my quilt rack he made for me. It now decorates my sewing room with the 4 quilts I've made that still reside at my house.
* UPDATE: After being asked by several people about the pattern for the quilt rack, I figured I should include the links in the post.

Here is a link to purchase the pattern my husband used to make it.

In looking online, I also came across the same idea for one that is used to hold horse blankets. This one is metal and is purchased as a kit. Here is where you can find it.

It looks kind of neat with the arms all splayed out as well.

Linking up!!!

Woodn't It Be Loverly?...and Quilters are Cutting Edge!

Yes, I know I spelled that wrong but it's because there's something new and wooden at my house. Hubby made my something from his woodworking magazines this week.

It's a wall mounted quilt rack with swinging arms. I'm so excited! We haven't mounted it on a wall yet cause I can't make up my mind where to put it. It ended up being larger than I thought it would be so it's taken some thought on where it will fit best. It would be totally perfect in the corner of my bedroom because there's enough wall on both sides to push arms to either side, but we were also looking at creating something for there to hold extra bedroom junk. Anyway, here's what it looks like in the plan picture so you can see what it's supposed to look like with quilts on it.

I think it's funny that they had a corner but didn't use it that way. As soon as I get mine mounted I will take some pictures with my quilts on it to show off hubby's great work!

As far as the cutting edge quilters go, I was flipping through my recent Real Simple magazine and noticed this.

Chevrons? Uh, yuh! Hello? Are there not chevrons all over the quilty net right now? Yup, quilters are with it, happening, the bomb diggity! Well, we know what looks good, anyway!!

WiP Wednesday...Where All I see Are Rainbows!

I feel like I have been working on Bottled Rainbows for 3 years! I still love it but it has moved in my mind from being a bed quilt for my bed to one for the guest bed....and I'm still not done with it! So far I have all 20 of the blocks (yes, I said 20 cause I added 4 more) connected, and I've attached the bottom border.

I went with piano keys in all the existing colors from the quilt, plus a few extras. Basically its some of almost every Kona I own. I've got the top border ready for batting on my sewing table.

Then I will add right and left, finish the back, quilt it, bind it, and finally work on something else. I may end up putting it on my bed eventually, but right now I'm just at that stage of "I'm just so sick of looking at it can I please work on something else PLEASE!" Well, maybe not quite that strong. I do love how it looks now that it's sewn together. Isn't it weird how you can put it all together on a bed or a design board to get an idea of it, but it still looks so much better than you expect it to when you finally get it sewn together?

Oh, and a word of advice. If you are slightly klutzy like myself and have accidentally hit furniture when swinging your arms while walking through the house, take it as a sign not to wear watches in the house.

Pretty, huh? I couldn't just scratch the face...nooooooo. I had to completely decimate it. Annihilate it. Destroy it. Sigh..... Good thing I have 3 other watches. maybe I'll use the wrist bands to make more wrist pin cushions, but this time I'll make the cushions bigger. Hope you're having a good week!

A New Quilty Tool....Well, Sort of!

Okay, has anyone seen the commercials for Sherwin Williams new online Chip It tool? You can pull the button into your online toolbar and it will provide paint chip colors for what it sees.
Here is the picture I chose:

I clicked my "Chip It" button which put it on the screen, then clicked it again and it came up with colors.

If you don't like the colors it comes up with (I didn't like that it didn't include the green), you can select 'More Colors' at the bottom and it will expand to include all like it did above.

How cool is this? I was thinking it would be great for painting but also for quilts. You have to log in to save your chip it cards, or you could always print screen and save them into a document you have in your computer (oops, did I say that?).  I did figure out that it doesn't like to do Flickr pictures (you know how you can't pin Flickr pictures too?) but I sort of found a way around it.
Go to a Flickr picture you like. I used Paint to pull a print screen image from my own Flickr account to show you how it will work.

Say this is the image I want to "chip". You are supposed to run the mouse over the picture but it doesn't work on the larger image. It does, however, work on the small images in your photostream over on the right.
So find your image in the center there and roll over it. Then click "chip".

And there are your colors! I know, I wouldn't normally use a picture of a quilt to come up with color ideas but it worked for the demonstration. My neighbor's child loves peacocks so I found this one to try as well.

Now, it's going to be limited to the paint colors Sherwin Williams has but I thought it was such a great jumping off point if you have a picture that inspires you. It helps pull all the colors out so you can really see them separately. Have fun!

A Little BR And More Dr. Seuss

I got all my blocks done and sewn together for my Bottled Rainbows!

I think I've decided to put it on my guest bed instead of my own bedroom. I had already planned on using my Carpenter Wheels for my bedroom so this works out great for the guest bedroom. I'm still going to add a border to make sure it has good length on it.
I finally pulled out the fabric I bought for the backing and found an issue.
The first thing is that I planned on running it one direction but it's directional the other way. Then when I fully unfolded it, I found this.

This was an "end of the bolt" I bought that was 5 yards. About 3/4 of the way down, I find this area where the fabric had been sewn together. It's not too pretty in real life because it looks like it's trying to pull apart, so I guess I'm going to be working around it.

A little Dr. Seuss 'sign' I love is making it's way around Facebook. It's called "5 Lessons from Dr. Seuss.

\

I'm thinking about trying to make it into an embroidery picture. I love number 5.

Lakes and Rainbows

We're back from our little visit to my parents home. I quickly got together the last few blocks I need to finish out my BR top. I already had jade and it's finished but I also made crimson red, and what I believe to be corn yellow and bubble gum pink (not sure exactly).

The blocks are done, I just need to fill three with scraps. Then it's sew them all together, add a border and sew on the back! I'm closing in on a finish!

While we were at the my parents we took the kids to the lake. They have a fake beach there so we took the kids. They had a blast.

While we were gone, hubby was busy. When we left the kids rooms and the bonus room were a wreck. We returned to find this...

which meant their rooms looked like this...

and this.

The bonus room looked like this.

I was so ecstatic that everything was clean!!! Well, everything except that stained up ancient couch. And yes, there's usually a quilt on my daughter's bed but he didn't put it back on there. Yahoo for an industrious hubby! Or a bored hubby! Either way is fin