Kids Are Silly and I'm a Blessed Doofus!

Okay, so you think you're going to avoid the whole Brittney, GaGa, Katy Perry nastiness in songs with your kids by letting them listen to stuff we listened to as kids. Hubbie had Thing 2 listening to his iPod last night with headphones on. All of a sudden from the living room I hear him belting KC and the Sunshine Band's "Give it Up, Baby Give it Up!" Um, hmm, not so sure that sounds much better than "Kiss Me, ku-ku-kiss me" out of a 5 year old boy's mouth (Katy Perry's 'E.T.').

Well, even though last night was, well, interesting to say the least, this morning I am feeling a bit blessed. Literally. I have been trying to slowly go through the progress people have made on Lee's WiP Wednesday and twice now I have had very interesting letters to put in for the word verification. Once it said 'blessed' and just a few moments later another one said 'blessu'. Of course, I also had to type in 'dricing', but I like the idea that I was being sent a little message in the other two!

As far as quilting goes, I've got to do an office store run to get printer ink so I can make some more 1 inch templates. I also pulled out my Artful Home fabric I won from Ryan Walsh's site since I'm thinking about using it for a quilt for my bed. I was thinking about using it for a Swoon quilt, but I noticed that it called for 18 fat quarters. I knew I'd only won 12 different fabrics so I was trying to figure out if I could use some Kona solids with it or something. But I figured out something else instead. It was a half yard bundle. Duh! Shows how aware I am! So I have more than enough fabric, I just have to decide if Swoon is the way to go. Here's what it looks like:
There are blue-greens (a little more of a green teal in real life)...

reds...

And browns (with a black and white). 

Do you think these fabrics would work for Swoon? I was looking at Debbie's two mini Swoon quilts and she used darker fabrics for hers. 

My other question: would you use white as your solid? I was wondering about white or trying to locate that green that shows up in a lot of the fabrics. Hmmmmm.....

*Update: I found this block online that shows me that Swoon is basically a modified Carpenter's Wheel. So I drew both of them up on graph paper in the teal and red (kind of looks Christmas-y) to see which one I liked better. What do you think?

WiP Wednesday!

I wasn't sure I'd make it back in time from my sister's house for this but, here goes another Wednesday!

I actually got a bit done this week in spite of being on a mini vacation in Knoxville! And, oh my, I actually made it to two LQS's while I was gone! The first one was a bit overwhelming because they didn't have things together by designer, but then we stopped at Intown Quilters in Atlanta on the way back home. Woohoo! And they had all the Riley Blake fabrics I picked up for the contest on sale. Always a plus!

Here's a sneak peek...

Yes, looks like I'm doing a Christmas quilt. I love snowmen and I thought the hot cocoa and mittens were cute. I am a bit worried about using a leaf type pattern in with Christmas but I loved the color and I will probably end up cutting it up enough that you won't really notice it so much. We'll see.

Okay, Number 1:

Before we left for our mini-vaycay, I made this bag...



Yes, those are pockets on the front and the same are on the back. I love it with a small exception, and the exception is my fault. It called for heavy interfacing. Well, I couldn't find 'heavy' interfacing but I found 'stiff' interfacing so that's what I used. Guess what? Not the same thing! Stiff is MUCH stiffer than heavy. I like the structure of mine, but the pockets don't have the room I thought they would have because of the stiffness, and the bulk was so much putting it together that it broke my twin needle (which I bought especially for this and loved!) and I couldn't box the bottom because it wouldn't fit in the machine. I will definitely make this bag again but I will lean to the softer side of interfacing rather than the heavier if I can't find what it calls for. Definitely a keeper.

Number 2:

I got a bit done on my second Embroidery 101 square but I'm not done.

Number 3:

I got more done on my hexie Grandma's Garden quilt.

Sorry for the wonky picture. I had it sort of rolled up in my bag so there are bent places. And no, there are no pinks mixed in with the solid whites. I made my hexie templates on random card stock and there was a piece of hot pink stuck in there, so it shows through a bit. I had cut out what I though was a ton of white to work on this and used ALL of it up while we were gone. Oh well, back to the cutting board!

Number 4:

I finished my Churn Dash block for the Skill Builder Sampler.

So, that's where I stand after half a week in Tennessee! Hope you had a productive week as well! Check everyone out over at Lee's!
I also decided to link up to Canoe Ridge Creation's {Sew} Modern Mondays. Check that out here.

Fireworks; Inside and Out

I love getting my kids together with their cousins because they all love each other so much and we don't always get to see each other a lot. However, there always comes a point where there are issues. My sister's eldest daughter like the idea of 'teams' where the oldest two are pitted against the younger kids. This never goes over well. Plus, my youngest niece always wants to be paired with my daughter, so in essence, my daughter is being fought over...and she never likes it. She has some friends at school who are both HER friends but don't necessarily like each other. She hates it when they try to make her choose between them. So if she ever feels like she's being made to choose at all, she gets very upset.
Otherwise, we have been having a fairly pleasant visit. And I've been sewing! I've been working on hexies so, IF I can get my stuff posted Wednesday on Lee's WiP at Freshly Pieced, I will have some stuff to show! I'm also going to try to hit a LQS tomorrow to look at Riley Blake fabric. Have you heard about the contest?
I have never used Riley Blake, but then again, I am still a newbie quilter.

Foam Swords and Melting Beads

We've been keeping ourselves busy here at my sister's.  Well, I don't know about keeping US busy but we've been working to keep the kids busy. We made a trip to Joann's today to pick up some t-shirts for 4th of July. We have made t-shirts for July 4th for the past several years. This year they are fireworks t-shirts as seen on Family Fun here.
We also picked up some window catchers with the beads that melt. Yeah, all that lasted one afternoon. So I guess we'll put them in the yard in swimsuits tomorrow to beat the heat. We'll see. Have a happy 4th tomorrow!

Difficulty Posting

Well, I made it to my sister's with my laptop, but I'm not so sure what I will be able to post. I have my camera, pictures, etc. but my brother in law hasn't figured out how to get me signed in on his Wi-Fi. We'll see. I am excited to see if I can sneak off to check out the LQS down the street! I'll have to see if I can break away. Hopefully they carry some Riley Blake fabric as I would love to try to participate in the current contest. I haven't been quilting long enough to have pieces by all the current fabric designers. I did get my lovely new Artful Home fabrics from Fat Quarter Shop yesterday. The colors are just as vibrant and beautiful in person. Those are defnitely going to be a new quilt for my bedroom!
Have a great July 4th weekend!

Giveaway Winners!

Okay, so first I want to say that I am absolutely thrilled at how this giveaway went! This was my first experience with having a giveaway and I have to say, it's been fun! Not only did I get to enjoy a lot of cute kid stories, but I also met a few goals (some I didn't even say to start with!).

My first goal was to reach 100 posts; done and done! So we have a winner for that. Drumroll please...
Mr. Random Generator says the winner of the Moda Hideaway charm pack is...


True Random Number GeneratorMin:Max:Result:49Powered by RANDOM.ORG

Number 49! (Sorry, I couldn't figure out how to copy the Random Generator block so I just copied the information. Also, the numbers are there on the post, but didn't show up on the blog post for the min. and max. numbers. Weird!) 

Number 49 was Sue who said:

So many of your readers have such "cute" anecdotes. My son was raised in an unpolished military environment. The language those men could use! So it wasn't too much of a surprise that, at two years old, my son tripped and fell on his knees, promptly stood up, very purposefully and dramatically brushed off his knees, put his hands on his hips and declared "Son of a _____".

By Sue on 100 Posts Blog Party and Giveaway! on 6/29/11

 

 

 

My second goal was to reach 5000 hits. Well, I'm not quite there but I'm so darn close I figure, what the heck? Plus, I picked up WAY more followers than I could ever have expected, more than doubling my previous number, so the winner of a second fabric prize is...

True Random Number GeneratorMin:Max:Result:88Powered by RANDOM.ORG

Number 88 is Corina who said:

corina said...

Congrats on 100 posts! On a car trip to the grocery store my then 7 year old daughter informed me she had sex at school - she held hands with a boy LOL! Thank goodness we were at a stop sign when she said that.

June 30, 2011 4:50 PM

 

Thank you all so much for participating. I so enjoyed reading all your comments and I truly did a lot of laughing out loud! I am emailing the winners and will get your prizes out ASAP!

All These Kid Stories!

I'm loving all the kid stories people are telling on my giveaway post. Check it out here if you need a laugh or want to enter. Today is the last day and I will be drawing a winner (s???) at 6:00 pm tonight. I hope to get it posted tonight as we will be packing the car for a 4 + hour drive tomorrow! But I'm hoping to take prizes with me to mail out from my sister's house! Oh, and if you're looking for another giveaway, check out Jess and her Accuquilt Go! Baby giveaway here. Stick around and check out her blog. She's working on a beautiful double wedding ring quilt right now.

Anyway, I was enjoying reading the comments and I realized that I told a lot of cute 'my kid' stories while I was responding so here are a few.

Thing 1 (9 year old daughter)
1. My daughter, who is 9 and has a great vocabulary, surprised me the other day when she was fussing about her brother. It wasn't surprising that she was fussing about her brother. That's a daily occurrence, but she looked at me and said, "It's because he's just so ovnoxious!"
2. I don't remember if I told this one before but recently I was listening to my iPod in the car and "We are the Normal" by the GooGoo Dolls came on. My daughter asked me, "Why are they singing, 'We are the lawn gnomes?'

Thing 2 (5 year old son)
1. I just got a new (used) car but my hubbie had to take in for them to fix a little something on the paint Thursday morning. I guess I didn't tell the kids because we went to leave for swim lessons and he opened the door to the garage and said, "Mom! Somebody stole the car!" The funniest part was his tone of voice; it wasn't like he was freaked out or anything. It was more like he was yelling, "Hey mom, I can't find my t-shirt!"
I also have silly moments with hubbie, sometimes at the kids expense (not in a bad way!)

1. This one actually happened Thursday while the kids and I were out at Joann's. My son yelled out something in the store and I was so tickled I had to text hubbie.

     me: need a laff? ur son just picked up a pirate hook & yelled "I'm Captain Fuzzy Balls" in Joann's!
     hubbie: No, he's not mine.

2.  When I emailed hubbie to tell him about Thing 2 saying the car had been stolen, he emailed back, "Makes you feel safe to have a man in the house, huh?"

Hope you have a good laugh today!