A Scrappy Finish

A while ago, actually several years ago, I made this scrappy quilt top. It was one of those sewing days where the scrap basket was overflowing and I had to do something with all those little pieces! So, I did a little improv sewing, making wonky, scrappy, log cabin blocks.


I finally finished it last week. It is the first thing I've completed from my 2012 Goal Board. I gifted this little lap quilt to my MIL on Mothering Sunday (Mother's Day in England), while she was here visiting. I hope she will enjoy it!

Bragging. Again.

Back in December, Nathan participated in his school Science Fair. He decided on an engineering type project using Legos. We built a small shake table and he tested to see if a tower's stability would be affected by it's height and displacement. It was really a fun project.

Oh, and he won First Place in his class!

And then, the school selected his project to go on to the County Science Fair, which took place last week.


His project was included in the Fourth Grade Engineering, Mathematics and Gaming category. And I'm very proud to say that he took First Place!!

Congratulations Nathan!

Pokemon + Quilt Block = PokeBlock

In case you didn't know, my son is obsessed with Pokemon.

The kid has well over 1,000 Pokemon trading cards.

Seriously.

This is Torchic. He's one of the cuter Pokemon and one of my son's favorites. (Or at least he was a favorite last week.)

Of all the quilts I've made, I have never made one for my own dear son. Yes, that means my 9 year old is still using his Thomas the Tank Engine blanket. Which has definitely been well loved and is in need of replacement. I knew I wanted to make him a Pokemon quilt, but couldn't quite figure out how to do it. Some of those characters are very detailed and way beyond my ability for applique. And my embroidery skills don't even rank as deplorable.

Inspiration struck at our last quilt guild meeting when we learned about making Crayon Quilts. I printed out a Torchic coloring page, grabbed my fine line black Sharpie, some Crayons, and my fabric and got to work. The photo was taken after doing two layers of crayon. It looked good in real life, but I can see a few light spots in the photo. Easy enough to fix. And best of all, Nathan loved it! Now I just have to decide how many different Pokemon I want to color.

This is the other thing I made tonight.

Mug Brownie Sundae......mmmmmm! I wanted to try microwave brownies and found a recipe on Instructables for Mug Brownies. It was super, super easy. I added a scoop of Vanilla Bean ice cream and some chocolate sauce while the brownie was still warm. It was delicious.
(And it was prettier right after I made it. It melted a bit while I was searching for the camera.)

Still here. Still sewing.

I finally finished and delivered the last of my handmade Christmas presents this weekend. Yes, I know it's the middle of January, but there's been a lot going on around here.

I took a Color Play class with Nancy Rink to learn more about the color wheel and how to use it when choosing fabrics.

I made these cute little pumpkin pincushions for a pin cushion swap.

We celebrated the holidays in style. (Harry is a very tolerant dog!)

We launched model rockets.

I made a quilt for my Grandpa. I pulled out all of the blue-green fabrics from my stash and used Amanda Jean's Easy As Pie quilt pattern. This quilt is a queen size.....one of the largest quilts I've ever made.

And I made a quilt for my Mom to use out on her porch swing.
(Pattern is Square One from Simplify by Camille Roskelley.)

Phew! That just about catches us up on everything.

Oh wait, one more thing..........after more than 9 years as a full time stay-at-home mom, I've gone back to work! I was hired at a local middle school as a Special Ed Instructional Aide. I started last week and they threw me in with the kids right away. Kind of sink or swim. The kids and staff have been very accepting and helpful. I've gotten some good feedback and I think I'm going to like this job!

It's a dog's life!

Harry

Halloween

Yes, I know it's November 6th, but better late than never...

We made a quick trip to the Pumpkin Patch for pumpkins.

Nathan thought he should get this ginormous thing to carve.

I did have him talked into this slightly more reasonably sized pumpkin, but it had some bug problems.

He finally settled on this larger-than-usual-for-him beauty.

And yes, he wanted to photograph all the goop inside his pumpkin.

That's me, the official Pumpkin Goop Cleaner Outer.

The finished pumpkins

I was fortunate that Nathan chose a simple costume this year. No pattern. No ridiculous fabric fluff. Very little sewing.
Mario only needed to have some big yellow buttons glued onto a pair of thrifted overalls and a cool hat made of fleece. I followed this tutorial, but increased the measurements to fit his head.

beebolt block

If you've read just about anyone's recap post from The Sewing Summit, you know that we each received a swag bag filled with some great stuff. Included in our swag bag was a small pack of fabric squares from beebolt.com. Each attendee was asked to use these little squares to make a quilt block. The blocks will be collected by Kate at beebolt and made into a quilt which will be auctioned off at The Sewing Summit 2012. The proceeds from the quilt auction will go to Project Linus.



I had to play around with the squares and look at quite a few block ideas before I made up my mind. I didn't want anything too complicated, so I decided on a Shoofly block. It was pretty easy to put together (except for the piece I put in backwards) and I'm happy with how it came out.

I can't wait to see the finished quilt at TSS next year!