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!

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.

I finished this quilt on Monday night… finally!

It has been a pain trying to get a picture of it because the sun hasn’t come out since I can’t remember when, and it doesn’t look like it intends to until next week. Sorry the picture is so dark, I had to try and photograph it anyway. I might set up more lights and try to get some detail shots later… or not. I haven’t been very motivated lately to do all that extra stuff. Anyway….

My son saw it sitting folded on the back of the of the sofa in my studio. I hadn’t realized how much he was picking up being a new reader and reading everything he can get his hands on, but here is the evidence. As he ran his hands over the new quilt, this conversation ensued:

Boy: Did you finish this?

Me: Yes, I made a new quilt!

Boy: Cool! Made in the S______’s house…. NOT made in China!

So I decided to post something that is actually finished. I finished this quilt about 18 months ago… but it took about 7 years to complete it.

I like the stripes in different sizes, but the effect would have been better if I didn’t do some strange experimentation right in the middle. Oh, well… live and learn. The other thing I learned is that when it takes 7 years to complete, it is a pretty good bet that you won’t even like the fabric you bought when you started. It makes it a little hard to feel motivated to complete it, but I didn’t want to put it in a closet for another generation to finish. Though, like this talented woman, I wouldn’t mind if something my grandmother started, suddenly showed up for me to complete!

Homeschooling the first grader is actually going pretty well, besides adjusting my schedule and learning (once again) to reduce my expectations of what I can actually accomplish with my own work time. So I am trying to slow down and try to enjoy the mundane things in life. It is hard. I get most of my kicks from making (completing) things… and there isn’t as much time, brain power, or motivation left to actually do that. But, I do get to play lots of games, like the Dinosaur game (encourages reading and there is a little science in there, too), and Five-State Rummy (ooh, fun… social studies, reading, AND geography!) The great thing about first grade is that someone else already taught him the basics of nearly every subject. The kid just absorbs information and I love that he can watch a video about rocks and minerals, and the next morning while reading the cereal box, make the connection between minerals from the video and the “vitamins and minerals” that are in his cereal. It starts an avalanche of questions about how it all works and which minerals, and all I can say is: Thank heavens for Google!!! It’s a life saver… good grief, I can’t remember all that stuff off the top of my head. I wish I was a walking encyclopedia (and so does my son) but I’m not. So then I take a minute to record it on a Lesson Record form that I created and keep handy, and drop it in the file of proof that this kid (and his mother) are getting educated! And after being quite a little stinker this summer, he has gone back to being his sweet self when he is home. It is only when his sister gets home from school that he turns back into that boy that makes me crazy! Hmmm, we might need to crack down on some of that sibling rivalry.

Big projects don’t lend themselves to frequent posting.

I am just starting on the binding… FINALLY! My sister asked me to help make her a quilt a year and a half ago. She was getting tired of the bedspread she had, but still liked the fabric. So we livened things up with some deep red and added a few other elements by using similar styles of cloth napkins purchased from Ten Thousand Villages. This project all started before she was dating her now husband of ten months. It is funny to think back to the little debate we had about whether to make it twin size or big enough for a double bed. Little did she know she was about to be swept of her feet. So I guess that procrastinating can be good sometimes. I was able to add a little to the edges and turn it into a queen size. And I am hoping to get it finished very soon… soon enough for them to take with them when they move into there little cabin in the woods sometime in the next few weeks.

Today, among other things, I ran around gathering supplies. A few things from my mom and a few from the store and I should be ready to jump right in tomorrow morning, because tonight I am tired! So for today, a little preview of what this girl will be wearing. I believe big pieces of furniture should be clothed in neutral colors. That way you can change your wall color and spice things up with pillows, and when you tire of the look it is easier and cheaper to just repaint and get a few new pillows for a new look. But neutral is not really my thing! So it is hard to focus on finding something neutral when I have the opportunity to do something fun like this:

But this fun print isn’t upholstery fabric. I do have a few other upholstery fabrics that might be fun. This one is, but I don’t have enough to do a whole sofa. I also noticed that because it is chenille it gets worn off a little and I don’t want to reupholster a whole sofa just to have it look like it needs to be redone in a year.

So this fabric I really love…

… but I am not quite sure I am ready to commit to having it on the sofa forever. It would dictate the style in any room and I don’t like being restricted like that. So the deep red that you see in the background of all these pictures is the actual color that my sofa will be wearing. It is about as neutral as I get these days. I am very excited to start making pillows to spice it up. And I am glad it is neutral enough that I will have lots of options for lots of different styles. I also found it for $1 a yard, so it was a pretty easy decision since most upholstery fabrics are $10/yard and up, so since I need about 15 yards… you do the math! Currently, I am wondering if I will ever get sick of red. I am starting to think it might be my color for life!