We are almost at 400!! Give-away time!!

Hey there-- I am busy sewing a Xmas quilt top that I started over a decade ago... yes, for some reason I got bogged down with making it PERFECT, instead of just MAKING IT! Thanksgiving was hard for me this year, so after the family trekked to Grandma and Grandpa's for the PRE-MEAL festivities I stayed in and pulled out something to work on. I got out all of the Christmas fabrics that I have been collecting and somehow the last time I worked on this quilt I packed up all the parts in a bag and set it on top. What I found on Thanksgiving, looked OK to me (not totally ugly, but I didn't have to think too much), I am adding some sashing and some borders and by the end of the week I should have a QUITE large finished top! I had already given up on this project a few times, it's a Christmas miracle!

Because I like to get others in a celebrating mood as well, I am giving away the "STITCH GIFTS 2011" magazine. Why? Because I like to give people more reasons to craft a holiday surprise or gift-- and also I love to toot my own horn! See below...
That sweet little Elf Baby was hatched in my craft room earlier this year. The folks at STITCH did a beautiful job with the project pictures and also put him in the table of contents!! So exciting!

If you would like to get one of my extra copies of "STITCH GIFTS 2011" please leave a comment about your favorite things to do for the holidays by Monday December 5 @ high noon PST. We will draw a name and I will drop the LOVELY magazine in the mail that afternoon after I get the boys from school. (I am partial to my Elf Baby, but this issue is LOADED with beautiful projects. I liked how they picked some that would take a half hour and some that would take a little longer-- a really fun bunch!)

I hope you are all getting cozy and crafty-- I have been knitting a simple lace cowl and fashioned some doll pants for Mango's bare bottomed baby. Handwork soothes and brightens!

JMB

Little girl, little dress... a small moment in a day.

I love the motion in this picture. It captures the extremes of day, the extremes of this little girl.

Our Mango is 19+ months. She is saying more and more words each day. She loves having a bag to tote to the car and to have her "phone", which is an old calculator. Using it to talk to her Daddy while he is at work and saying "Yes, yes, uh-huh, noooooo" just like she hears us. Mango is a part of the hustle and bustle in the house... always asking for a book to read, or a pencil and paper to draw with. She has been looking at my nails lately and frowning when she thinks that they are too long. (Where does this come from??) She falls right in to the scrum when the brothers wrestle. I don't know how she escapes the smack-down, but she does. Last night she spent an amazing amount of time, energy, and laughter running around the computer chair in her diaper and bloomer "shorts". She kept going and going and going. The energizer bunny must be modeled off a little girl. I bet that is why it is pink.

JMB

P.S.

This dress was my Pattern Pact finish for March, but it was finished in April...such is the life right now. It is a dress from Handmade Beginings that I tricked out "jessica" style and added the little goosey apron instead of the inset fabric panel. To be honest, it took me so long because "gathering" freaks me out. I would like to say that Anna Maria gave good hints and once I got "over" myself, it went together SO EASY! Score 2 for AMH!! She writes an awesome pattern... if you can just get over your own fear-bots.

Happy Friday!!

I thought it was my DQS #10 package, but it was so heavy...
Wait... What is it? I am PUBLISHED!
There is my little toothy friend!

Last year when I was starting this, I saw a submissions request on the Quilting Arts website. Doing the EMQG freaked me out so immensely that I thought, "Might as well submit SOMETHING, the worst they can do is not accept it... but I will still have the stuff that I made! And if they do take it, that will be one thing checked off my 'life list'."

CHECK!

I just finished going through the magazine... it is a fattie! SO many things to make and do (and not just mine!) I did cry when I saw my tooth pillow. I wasn't sure what the format for the patterns was going to be (how much space for each project etc.) BUT they put in the part I wrote about my childhood tooth pillow and that slayed me. My stuff (and everyone else's too!) looks beautiful. The creative team at Quilting Arts did a fantastic job. (I have a feeling that some of these projects are going to turn up at my house as part of my Pattern Pact!) I am so happy with my first foray in to the publishing world!

I just happen to have an extra copy... would you like it to come to your house? You could cover yourself in patchwork projects! What if you gave me a comment... yes, how about you tell me one thing that is on your life list that TOTALLY freaks you out, but it is there.... something that you want to do before you leave the planet. AND then I will do a random/pull a name out of a hat type thing next Friday (then we can have 2 Happy Fridays, right?) Let's say enter by 4/15/11 @ noon PST! (Tax day!) If you want to blog about it yourself, or follow me that is great, but to be honest I am just glad you are here today and I am here today and that we are having our Happy Friday together.

Have the best weekend, I am going to float on these good feelings for at least 2 more days!

JMB

While I learn one thing, she learns another...

I am hoping to cover many things with this mosaic...

*my feeble, but diligent, attempts at guitar

*my funny, funny little Mango

*my February pattern pick (FINISHED!!!), a pair of "Quick Change Trousers" from this book.

Guitar-- Received for Christmas too long ago, trying for the second time to make some "beautiful music". Also my first picture for this series.

Mango, she is a funny girl. The past two weeks have been HUGE developmental weeks for her. She is running all over the place now. Her vocabulary is exploding, but to be honest she is using "no" as just a regular conversational word rather than an answer to a question. I will ask her if she would like a cookie and she smiles widely, holds out her hand and says "No". It all comes off as very coy and cute. We have said "goodbye" to the night time bottle of milk. She is really just part of the family kid-pack now. I am so happy to say hello to this new "big kid", but also sad to say another little goodbye to my last baby.

I was so happy to finish stitching up these cute, cute pants. To be honest I cut them out in early January, there was a rogue afternoon where both boys were whisked away by Grandma and Grandpa. They had just sat, cut out and folded on the kitchen shelf.... as a reminder that I needed to finish them. Finally I found this great little group that is doing a pattern a month... I had to sew them together. Mango looks so cute in them. I love the waist finishing. It looks so professional and the directions were really easy to follow. Maybe my most favorite thing was cutting into my "Good Folks" fabric, the stash that I have been hoarding for a year now. This month I am making a little dress from the same book. I have the bodice done. I will post the finished piece when I get back to it.

This coming week is going to be a biggie... My mom is having surgery, on March 9th, to cut out the cancer in her breast and armpit. We are trekking up to Portland to the OHSU Knight Cancer center. Her surgeon is well respected and has done this surgery before so I am hopeful that we will have a good outcome. Your prayers and thoughts are always appreciated.

Until we meet again!

JMB