While waiting for closing day (which kept moving back, and back again, and again) I made two more outfits for the girl. I took pictures of the other, but after moving to a newer computer, I can’t seem to find them. So I noticed she was wearing this one today and I had to get a few pictures of her with her new rabbit.

The yellow floral at the neckline I picked up from Joann’s clearance rack. The lining I picked up from Goodwill. The oriental calico I found at a garage sale. The calico for the capris was handed down from my great aunt. And the yellow bias binding I also found at a garage sale. I love mixing fabric! I also love that this outfit probably cost less than $2 total.

And of course, I love that my daughter still thinks it’s cool to wear stuff that I make. She got a sidelong glance from one of the older girls in band. But when she saw the same girl give me the same look she decided it must just be because that girl has no style!

Finally! These are twin size for my nephew’s beds. I love the fabrics. I didn’t choose them. The credit for that goes to my sister-in-law who sent me piles of fabric to figure out how to put together.

And here they are! I didn’t try to get the wrinkles out for the picture since I will be stuffing them in a box to put in the mail tomorrow.

Well, I wish I could think of more to write. I am amazed by bloggers who keep blogging through their transitions. I think the articulate part of my brain shuts down when I am moving. I end up doing a lot of grunting and pointing. And that doesn’t work very well for communicating online! Thanks for all the nice comments. I wish I had time to answer everyone’s questions and make patterns for everyone to use, but that will have to wait. I have a few other projects up my sleeve while we wait for closing day, so hopefully I will be posting again soon!

Wow, two months since my last post. Let me apologize for all the comments and questions left unanswered! It has been a crazy time. It seems to me that was about the time we started house hunting since my parents were listing the house that we were renting from them. In the end we were unsuccessful and decided to go on the vacation that was planned and payed for before we knew this summer would be full of transition. It was a wonderful two weeks off the grid and away from the pressure. We arrived back with two weeks to move out of our house and in with my parents while we continue our house hunting. That is behind us now, and I needed some sewing therapy. Joann’s clearance fabric to the rescue (my stash is all in boxes!)

The girl has been asking for a “play dress”. I thought that could be fun! But of course the quilter in me had to piece together a bunch of different fabrics first so it wouldn’t be boring!

I made a size 10 (even though she is 12) because she is so narrow. But it ended up too short to wear alone. My mom kept laughing to see that I passed on my spindly legs to my daughter. It is pretty funny to see your old legs running around on someone else. And back to the dress… I made two. One is for our neighbor’s daughter. I thought the girls would be tickled to have matching dresses. And now that my “to do” list is all packed away with the boxes in the basement, I feel like I have time on my hands. My next project is to hurry up and finish the quilts in my last post, so I can ship them and not move them to our new house… when we get one.

I was driving around yesterday running errands and I heard Garrison Keillor describe this time of year as “almost spring.” While the end of winter actually felt like spring, now we have been back to just waiting for spring. Which makes it easy to stay indoors and do some quilting. And I remembered to grab the camera a little earlier in the process this time!

This is the first time I have used pins instead of basting. It was much faster, but I had cheap pins and so I really should get some better ones if I do it again. Safety pins around here have always been disposable in a way. You use them for odd things and they rarely make it back into the pin bin. Here are the three layers I was turning into a quilt sandwich.

And here is most of the rest of the quilt. This will be for a twin size bed and I am making two of them.

I really love the fabrics. These were also sent to me by my sister in law to make quilts for her boys. So I can’t take any credit for the fabric choices. I love the mix of colors and textures. And I love the way she threw in a few Michael Miller prints in with the recycling of some old jeans and other leftover bits of fabric. It has been really fun to see them come together into one.

That’s me! It’s the way I work. I get pretty focused and forget to do other things… like take pictures for my blog!

I finished the quilt I have been making for my niece’s bedroom. At least I am trying to decide that I am finished, since I have some great ideas for some hand quilted embroidery. But I have taken my sweet time getting it done, as it is. So I guess I will have to save that inspiration for the days after my kids move out (that is still 12 years away, if we are lucky!)

My sister in law asked me to take pictures of how I sandwiched and quilted it, because she is planning to do a few quilts. Well, like I said, “a horse with blinders”. I have no pictures of the process, but I have seen a few good instructions out in blogland. I know I have seen more, but I can’t remember where. So if you know of (or posted yourself) some instructions on the quilt sandwich process, please post links in the comments!

Wow, actually I can’t believe it. We went to Chicago for a four day weekend last week to spend some time with family and I am still trying to get back into a routine. I missed my normal chance to run errands without kids over the weekend, so I still have that feeling like I am trying to catch up. Although, thrifting with Carol was much more fun than being here doing my grocery shopping! Here is one of the things I am currently working on. I need a few more supplies, but the fabric store is so much more fun without the kids. I am sure you will see a lot more pictures of this in the coming weeks.

I also have more storage ideas to post. I just need to run around and take a few more pictures. If you want more inspiring photos check out my sister-in-law’s photos on flickr. Being at her house is always so inspiring for me, I am sure you will see why!

My MIL informs me it is time to take the Christmas stockings down. I think it is funny, since she still has Christmas lights up… wink, wink! I have been busy around here and feeling a little rebellious towards that little voice in my head that tells me I should post. I keep telling that little voice in my head, “This is MY blog, I will post when I want to!” I think a lot of women can relate to that voice that is constantly telling them all the stuff that they “should” do. It is different than things you “need” to do, like feed and love your kids, or pay bills. That “should” voice has A LOT of expectations and I think rebelliousness against it is very healthy.

So this month I have been cooking, cleaning (lots of cleaning!), and trying to enjoy time with my kids. I have been doing spring cleaning and selling a few things on ebay. We also put a bid on a house. Another buyer offered cash, boohoo! Actually, it is okay! We aren’t ready to buy a house and although we could swing it, it feels very freeing to not be taking on the burden of repairing a house right now. My daughter has also been having a hard time in school. Her grades are wonderful, but she was miserable. She has been begging me to home school her, again. I have always thought that I don’t want to burn myself out on home schooling before junior high rolls around. I mean, seriously, if you could have avoided the trauma of junior high wouldn’t that have made life better? So we have also spent the month debating whether to let her home school after the semester was finished or wait until the end of the year. We decided to rescue her now from her middle school hell, and so curriculum is on its way. She is excited and it is contagious. I am very excited about all of the practical things I can teach her that she wouldn’t learn in a classroom. And to top it all off, my son broke his arm last weekend. It is the third time. I am embarrassed to say it feels pretty routine at this point. He inherited my double jointed (backwards) elbows. They are great for freak shows, but not so good for avoiding broken arms. I should know, I broke both of mine when I was a kid (at different times fortunately!) But he has me beat. Hopefully, this will be the last time, but he is only seven. There are still a lot of years for me to be sitting around with my fingers crossed!

So with all that is going on I have been feeling a little creative deprivation. So I made a duvet cover for my daughters bedroom. I was excited to pull all the fabrics from my stash. The oriental blue one was a gift from a SIL quite a few years ago and I have been holding on to it for a long time. I always pull it out hoping to use it and then, I can’t find the perfect compliments to go with it. I was soooo excited when I pulled it out this time and actually had collected enough complementary fabrics to go with it. Yippee!

I basically did 18″ squares for this duvet cover. It was so fun to be able to start and finish this all in one day. It didn’t take too much time out from all the other craziness in our lives. And it was wonderfully therapeutic.

The Man took the kids out today to have some fun. They trekked around the camp where my sister and bro-in-law work and had some fun visiting the animals:

And building a debris shelter:

That meant I got to stay home and work on Christmas gifts. It was so nice and quiet! It has been a while since I have had a day alone, and it was wonderful. But since I don’t want to show what I am working on, since they will be sent out as gifts, I thought that I would show you one of the gifts I was working on this time last year. Of course, I didn’t want to post it last year for fear of ruining the surprise.

Potholders! Oh, well… not too exciting. But I do have a few things from my work today that I could post without ruining anyone’s surprise. So photos of that will be coming.

A little time out from thinking about the holidays to put together a gift for the boy.

It was a fun, one hour project. Which is something I have needed after a long quilt project. Small projects feel so satisfying. I used a little thrifted corduroy in this lovely mustard color. I also found two HUGE spools of bias binding today at the thrift store for 50 cents each. I love bias binding… so useful! Thrifted buttons, garage sale blue fabric, and factory scrap vintage style print. Wow, I am feeling particularly resourceful today!

What you can’t see is that this bag is actually 3 1/2 feet long. And we filled it with PVC pipe to engage some of that boys abundant creativity. Here is dad trying it out, before it gets stuffed into the bag for tomorrow’s big day.

I must mention that this isn’t an original idea. My husband got a duffle bag full of PVC pipe and connectors when he was a kid from his creative parents. Since it was such a hit, we couldn’t let our son grow up without the experience. Considering how much time he spends trying to turn everything into a tent, I am sure he will enjoy it also. Any bets on how long it takes him to come up with the idea to make a light saber?

I did take a few close ups of the quilt. The color isn’t quite right. The binding is a little more navy blue than it looks in the pictures.

I like to hand stitch the binding. I just don’t feel like I have enough control with the sewing machine. Heather’s seamless binding tutorial is great, but since I used 4 packages of binding for this quilt, it makes more sense for me to use mitered corners. I actually do this by hand… the control thing again! It is the same reason I can’t get into computer graphics. I just can’t supress that urge to grab a pencil.

Here is this weeks WIP (”Work In Progress” for my friends out there not familiar with the crafty blog lingo.) I am attempting the freezer paper stencil project. This afternoon, I had only succeeded in giving myself reason to use two green band-aids! My son was pretty impressed by the war wounds.

Tonight, I have gotten a little farther. Cute snail, great tips from Beki, and a browse around the Boden website have me feeling like success is just around the corner. My bandaged fingers are crossed!