I want to win...

Have you read Kelly at I Have A Notion is giving away an AccuQuilt Go!? There are so many ways you can enter and you can pick and choose your favorites. I went for some big ones here, and am a little embarrassed to share them, but I figured the more chances the better right? Plus it's fun. I was debating doing two posts here or just one, so I went with one.



First up for 5 points, I am showing you my sewing space.

My Stash. I tried to get it all in one line, we will see. But yes that's how I have all my fabrics arranged, all folded nicely. Ahhh! I used the method around my 6 1/2" ruler and wish I remembered the link for you. It's great, fold the fabric twice selvage to selvage and then fold to selvages and then roll it tightly around your ruler, slip the ruler out and everything stacks so nicely together! I have biggest on the bottom and scraps on top.Here are projects that I have not yet started or I am still in the gathering phase for. I only paid for probably 10 yards of whats there, and maybe 20 yards of what was all in that big stash above in my lifetime. The rest was either won or given to me.Projects I am working on and/or letting take a break. The top is batting and under that are a few finished quilts needing to be delivered. Under that are tops and backings ready to go together (more on that later) and the bottom bin has some large pieces of fleece, flannel, sweatshirt material, nice warm backings!!Things that need to be put away. Yes, on my dryer. Did I tell you I store my fabric in the laundry room? Does that explain some of the strange metal pipes?

My actual sewing space is along one wall in the living room. The wall adjacent to my bedroom.I Was told not to tidy up, so you see the girls boxes (cards, letters, various things that I want to hang onto) and projects. my actual desk here, my chair is held up by my sewing desk when at the computer desk so I can lean back without falling back...here's how quiting invaded the "work" area.

Secondly for 3 points I am showing you all my current projects, quick key for "Lisa lingo" WIP=Work In Progress, a project that is not at a complete top phase. PHD=Project Half Done, the top and if needed the backing is pieced together but not yet quilted and/or bound.Kid's 12 Days of Christmas PHDThe Night Before Christmas PHDBlock Lotto Win PHD, sweatshirt material backing!H's Dora Quilt PHDR's Dora Quilt PHD (pined and I left it in the living room so maybe I will get to quilting it!)Can't show you what's going on in there WIP Shop Hop 2005 WIP (This is one I keep putting aside and plan to do as a filler project. some of the blocks are getting tricky since I organized them easy to hardest =)The Night Before Christmas WIP, I can't figure out what to do for the sashing. I was thinking if I can find blue and white snowflakes in alternating colors (white on blue and matching blue on white) to do cornerstones or one or the other!Village Green BOTM WIP. Only two, no wait one should be in my mail box today or tomorrow so three months behindA's Simpson's WIPHeart for Kaila WIP. Actually this will be a quick finish! I just need one border, quilt and bind...and it's small so easy!!You know about this one, but I have to share, it's technically a WIP even though I only started it to give myself a break from trickier projects and get something done quickly to boost my morale =)

Lastly the Lavender Mist BOTM WIP which I keep back burnering.

So obviously I have some things I can work on tonight at Friday Night Sew In. And if you have not signed up, head on over and do it! So far there are 99 people sewing tonight. Something powerful in that. Now just imagine if we were all making something quick and easy for charity. 99 quick quilts/blankets for sick children, natural disaster victims, breast cancer fighters, domestic violence survivors...oh the list could go on and on!!

facebook status updates

sorry to annoy you all with this, but since I am keeping this blog for remembering/recording the girls (because I can't keep a diary if my life depended on it) in addition to quilting things, I wanted to put some of my facebook status updates into something a little more permanent. This is all I could get when I tried but I hope to be able to go back a little further!

starting oldest to most recent:

off to visit my family! Horray!! Please send us patience for the flight.
January 8 at 5:14am
Danette A conversation G and I had while looking @ a cute baby in a restaurant. G: Mommy, what's Regi's baby's name? me: Hazel. G: That baby looks like Hazelnut! Me: its Hazel, not Hazelnut. (5 min later) G: That baby looks like Coconut! me: Who's coconut? G: Regi's baby!
January 21 at 7:12pm ·
Regina is building towers for hazel to knock down. why cant they always get along this well?
Sally
If you find the answer let me know
Lisa
they are being so good together today (means tomorrow or tonight will be a nightmare I Am sure because I can't be that lucky!) Regina just asked "Hazew, you wanna watch Garfield with me? No? You want to play trains with me? OK, I go get them!" and ran to get her train set
April 14 at 4:49pm ·
hahaha, I love three! "Mommy, I need help. But I do it all myself!"
April 17 at 2:08pm
I really enjoyed "resting" while Hazel played hide-and-find-mommy with her blankie!
April 19 at 5:45pm
baffled. The last FOUR days Regina has put herself down night night in her big girl bed...the time has varied but she's been making the choice, and is out no fight!!
April 21 at 8:14pm
had a really nice hike, am really impressed with how well the girls did on our first try!
April 24 at 7:27pm
the little traitor now says "dada, daddy, and doG-EE" but no mama!!
April 26 at 4:42pm
Regina's out with Adam...should mean cleaning, seriously thinking of sewing =)
April 27 at 2:11p
Regina's eating teddy grahms, and I can't stop laughing!!
April 28 at 5:03p
so why is it that Regina's been begging me for "coffee" all afternoon, and as soon as the dishwashers done so I have a mug to make it in, do so, give it to her...she falls asleep without drinking it?
April 30 at 6:23pm
Adam just informed me that it's "happychino Frappy Hour" followed by Regi singing that back to me at the top of her lungs while jumping up and down
May 10 at 3:39pm
don't these girls know that at 9:00 mommy turns into a pumpkin and be 11:00 mommy is a jack-o-lantern sitting on the porch 5 days after Halloween?
May 10 at 11:00pm

the story R told H

A little backgound: as part of R's night night routeen she gets one book and one Priness R story. In the story we retell the day she had with Princess R as the heroine and sometimes if it's a dull day we exagerate events to make there be a problem Princess R has to solve. Sometime we talk about better choices Princess R could have made. It's a sweet little routeen and something special both A and I do. (Well he works nights now but when he's home he'll ask if he can do it.)

So today I asked R to keep an eye on H so I could start a load of laundry (so could hear but still). I told R she should read H a story, she'd love that! Instead R made up a Princess H story:

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess, H. She was in a tall tall tall tower. There was a dragon who go "rawerrr."

The knight came "dun dun dundun!" and cut cut cut the dragon. Princess H be so happy.

Then a scary monster came too, and the knight was lost! Princess H got wings and went flap flap flap all the way to the knight.

They went home and had ice cream and hot dogs.

I found my camera

You are going to be so sorry you came to visit today. I took SO many pictures your eyes might hurt a little bit, oh well here it goes:

I got all my blocks from the APQ Block Swap a little while ago. Breeze Bees took a while to work their way across the pond, and then the States. And have I told you how all mail in the state is either processed through Billings or Missoula, now Missoula is closer, but does our mail go there? Nope! So everything takes another day or so to get to me. Ughh!

There were some extra goodies that came in too. I was so touched by the unexpected extras! They will be used and loved no doubt! (oh and I got a scissor thing too, but R claimed it as hers and I couldn't find it for the pic hehe)

Then Mary sent me The Angler 2, which Katie mentioned. Wahoo!!! I have not used it yet but look forward to it. I've read the instructions three times =)

This is the project I am currently working on. No angles for it, but I needed something easy peasy and cheesy...OK it's just easy. The only problem is I keep letting myself put it down so I can do other things. I need to gift myself a few hours to just do it. I am enjoying the simplicity and fabrics in it.

Here's a closer shot at the fabrics. Very Valentines Day. BTW did you know Sandy Gervais had two Valentines Lines out this year? Did I already tell you that? I have the other line in jelly rolls (remember?) but this is Candy Kisses that we bought by accident thinking they were L'Amour...actually the shop miss cut it but the lady was too happy to get rid of the Valentines Day things that I couldn't tell her that I had specifically asked for JUST L'Amour!

Now for another mistake of mine. That green log cabin block I did for "home" was wrong. I was supposed to receive from her (and did) and send to someone who wanted black. That was HARD! so here's what I made for her. I just need to stitch down the little stepping stones and cut down to size. The lady was kind enough to let it go without complaint taking a little longer once I explained my mistake.

This was last months block. The lady's colors were red and white and the theme was "growth" I hope she doesn't mind a tulip/rose mix in fabrics, but it was all the quilters quality red that wasn't another insane pattern (like red with yellow stars or red and orange, or...you get the idea) and I liked the block but itself didn't meet the size criteria so instead of making huge borders I added a few things. I had 1/2 way made a block for someone else (the person who sent to me this past month) before I realised I was reading the chart wrong, so I e-mailed this gal too to explain a delay. Here you see I need to finish stitching down those bottom roses and trim down. Maybe tonight I will get it all done.

This months theme is "Dance" Any helpful ideas? I'd rather do something just pieced this month since my appliqe skills are not perfect!

(Have you noticed my new rug under these and under the picture of all the apq blocks?)

Now I have been really good about not buying fabric. I mean REALLY good lately. So what do I do to reward myself? With our tax return I impulsively clicked the link on Facebook to this wonderful quilt shop. Just meaning to browse, drool, get a fix and move on, I notice they accept paypal. I just loaded up my account with some of the "me money" from our return and then I see Spring Magic! Oh how I wanted this so badly! I was devastated when the Fat Quarter Shop didn't have it in stock any more. Well I bought it! I resisted adding the backing kit figuring if I ever got to making this in my long line of WIP's I'd just get the fabric then instead of risking using it on something else. Backings don't have to be a perfect match anyways so whatever!

You might notice the kit fabrics are a little squished. That's because they shipped it in a box, and inside that box, I (very confused) pulled out this bag. Then, inside the bag was the kit! Ahh! I was taken quite by surprise by this! I recommend shopping at Chickadee Shops, or at least browsing. I was impressed to say the least, but have to wait until I have the green light again to go online and indulge!

Now, I don't have any new pics of the girls so I thought I'd leave you with R's latest "sewing." I let her pick out the fabric, and she chose pink thread (I think because it was the only color not in in the bag) She said "I want the pank one. Pank's my favorite color." She later told me the same about the orange crayon she wanted to color with so I take these "favorites" with a grain of salt...or maybe at three favorites change often.

Here's a close up where you can see the pink thread.

Now if you made it all the way through, I am very VERY impressed. So as Tigger would say: TTFN!

oh.p.s. There's a signature swap I signed up for if you are interested over at Jaybird Quilts.

busy bee!

I am sorry I can't find my camera. There are so many things I want to show you, I got the last of my blocks in the mail from the APQBloggers Block Swap and there are a few other things that came too that I want to share (all treats have been long consumed). I made last months quilt block for another swap I am in (the theme was growth). I want to show you a quick project I started to get the juices flowing when I don't want to think too hard, and some things I bought/won/have waiting in the wings.

I can't because my camera is MIA.

We took it to the local parade but were too cold to take our hands out of the blankets we brought with us to take pictures, and haven't seen it since.

I will tell you other things I've done lately:

A steam cleaned the living room, we laid down the rug, rearranged the furniture (its going to take a slight adjustment when the table gets here but I didn't want it to look like something was missing in the meantime)

I gutted my desk since the TV is next to it now

cleaned the girls room (never ending there!)

today's project was the kitchen. I have the freezer, five more drawers, the walls, and the floor to do, the shelves and cupboards are all rearranged and things that were in bulk have been portioned out. I might ask A to help me with the walls and floor for Mothers Day, but who knows, I might get to it myself tomorrow.

My next day off project will be my bedroom/laundry. I think I will be sending R to daycare for that one. I don't mind a helper but the bedroom is so bad right now that I want to get in, be left alone (maybe make a myself some drinks *wink* ) watch corny movies and just do it. No interruptions, no needs to meet, nothing else to irritate me besides the mess.

I hope you are all not too deep into spring cleaning, and I hope you are able to work on some fun projects!