Time to get crack open those school books

This will be me for the next couple days.  I have some reading and assignments to do.  I did finish sewing up the two little Christmas dresses.  Violet told me over and over again, "I love it, Grandma, I love it."  Scarlet on the other hand liked it but liked playing more.  I'll post some pictures of the girls in their dresses soon.


Linda

Friday Sew-in results

I admit this doesn't look like much, but I'm so happy with what I accomplished. 

For your viewing pleasure - picture #1

Oh, you don't know what this is?  It's the top to Scarlett's Christmas dress.  I just love this fabric.  Can you see the shinny?  It's the sparkles in the dress.

And picture #2 is the top to Violet's Christmas dress.  I still have to do the top-stitching and sleeves.  But it's getting there!  This fabric is all sparkly too.  Just what little girls love.  (And grandmas too!)

And then here's the skirt portion for Violet's dress. (inside out still)

And here's mistake #1 .  After I finished sewing the front and back panels together I noticed a big whopping difference!!  See how the front and the back of the skirt are different lenghts?  Well, I cut the front a size 3 and the back a size 5.  Now how did I think that was going to work?  Being the smart gal I am,  I decided to wait until morning to do any more cutting. 

I also spent time last night taking my daughter and her friend to a concert (one hour) and then picking them both back up  (another hour) and then Hubby wanted to buy some cereal.  Well, that sounded like a nice break so we went to the store and bought all the groceries we need for Thanksgiving. (another hour). 

You can see why I'm pleased with the what I accomplished since I lost 3 hours doing other stuff.

I hope everyone had a good Friday sewing.  I'm off to see what others did.

Linda

Paula's Sewing Challenge

Have you heard of Paula's Sewing Challenge?  Challenge # 1 is anything Christmas.  How fun is that?  Find your Christmas sewing and join the fun.

I have a few Christmas items I'm working on right now.  Some place mats, hot plates and a Christmas wall hanging  and Christmas dresses for my grand daughters but I'll have to complete them before entering them don't you think?  So for now I have my Snowman ICU baby quilt entered.

Here's what I have to work with for the wall hanging.  I just threw all the pieces on the fabric and took the picture.  I need to figure out how I want them placed.  I like that fabric with the sparklely snowflakes.  Isn't it pretty? 

It's almost time for FRIDAY NIGHT SEW-IN!

I've always wanted to do this but stuff always comes up.  Mostly it's stuff...no wait a minute...it's always stuff that my Hubby dreams up that keeps me from doing this.  Since I have NOTHING planned for this Friday and I have a Gazillion things I need to finish before Christmas I'm in!!  Come join the fun with me.  Go here to Heidi's blog to sign up.

Christmas ICU Baby Quilt - SewGalCal's Christmas Show

SewGalCal  is having a Christmas Quilt Show and since I just finished this Christmas Quilt over the weekend I thought I might as well share it.

Violet, Scarlett and baby Troy (blurry because he's crawling through the quilt).

It seems I can either post a blurry picture - Oh my gosh try to get two little kids to hold up a quilt before the baby pulls it down or crawls through it and have the kids show their faces!  It was hilarious!  But that's why the picture is blurry. Or I can take picture after picture and it ends up being sideways!  LOL!!

It seems this is more of a "how not to post" than a "Christmas Quilt" post.  All that aside, I got this panel at the Sewful Sister's meeting.  We try to provide quilts for the babies in ICU at our local hospital. I'm really happy with the way this one turned out.  And it gave me some good quilting experience.  (I need that you know!)

Thanks for hosting the show SewGalCal!  I always love looking at the quilts. Oh and they have some nice prizes too.

Just for fun I'm going to throw in my first quilt - which is also a Christmas quilt.  This quilt is so well loved that the binding is worn and starting to fray.  And check out the bottom left corner - yep one of the puppies used it for a teething toy.  Nothing like a well loved quilt to warm you up in the winter.

A Great Day with a bit of Sewing thrown in

I did get Veteran's Day off yesterday.  I had the idea that I would spend the whole day sewing.  And of course that is NOT what happened.  I spent some of it sewing. Every chance I could I was at the sewing machine -but I had a lot of interrupts, like lunch out with my daughter and then her coming back to my house with the grand kids, and going shopping at Goodwill with them and my youngest daughter.

Why can't I figure out it takes me twice the time I think it will to sew something up?  I always think I'm going to get a lot more done than I actually do - what's up with that? I know how long it take to do housework, how long it takes to cook - why can't I figure out how long it takes to sew? 

One reason is because I don't watch the clock at all when I'm sewing.  It's me time and relax time. 

I will say that I had a great time yesterday.  My youngest daughter insisted that she wanted some 80's style sweaters to wear to school.  She tried one on, oh my gosh it was so 80's!!  She may look cute - but it's so 80's!!!  I thought I had a good idea, instead of saying no - I made her show her dad.  She went out of the dressing room and showed him and he yelled "You look so cute!!!"  Oh dear - that's not what I thought would happen - but doesn't she realize that if he dad thinks it cute she shouldn't wear it??  We came home with 3 of those sweaters.  LOL!!  The yokes on me!!! 

Linda

Llamas and a Ring

First let me tell you about our trip to Tehachapi.  We were driving out in the middle no where to a customer's house, down winding dirt roads, we went around another bend and there all of sudden were these Llamas!  It was so strange!  It was a beautiful day as you can see from the picture. Notice how those llamas texture goes with the grasses of the countryside?

 

The next day we went to breakfast with my sister and her boyfriend.  My hubby immediately noticed something different about her.  Check out her new rock!  YIKES!  We had a feeling he was a keeper. I better set another plate at Christmas time!  I'm really happy for them.

Nov and Dec Goals for Charming Girls

I know what I need to get done.  Quilt those I-Spy quilts for my granddaughters for Christmas.  These will be so much fun to quilt.  

And sew up that needle case I talked about last month.  Last night I already started working on it.  See? 

I used felt for the inside, 4 pages.  And a snap to close it. So far so good!  I plan to embroider the type of needle for each page - Sharps, Embroidery, Ribbon etc.  Won't it be nice and functional?

And I'm thinking about getting this quilt - quilted.  Doesn't it look like will be fun?

Oh and let's not forget Val's BOM.  Will I ever finish this block?

Time for a change

Oh my!  I was getting tired of looking at those little chicks on my header - I think they are cute and go with the title "little bits and pieces"  but it's just time for a change.  So I picked this picture.  Not that I'm trying to brag about this baby quilt.  I just like how Violet is trying her best to look at it and Neptune is longing for the quilt to be hers.  Neptune is a great dog.  Except she likes to lick the kids faces - yuk!  Of course I don't blame her, the kids faces are at her face level and sometimes they have chocolate, or peanut butter and jelly or some other good thing smeared around their months.  I suppose I should be thankful - she keeps them clean.  And the kids don't usually mind. 

She has also taught the kids to eat at the table.  Yep, she's a good teacher.   If they are at ground level with food, Neptune gobbles it up! 

Blogger’s Quilt Festival – Fall 2010

Amy's Blogger's Quilt Festival has arrived!

I wanted to join the fun so here's my entry:  Violet's Quilt

 
She was just a bitty little thing, when I was working on this quilt.  She took one look at it and went gaga! She really enjoyed the contrasting colors I suppose.  So that weekend, I made the prairie points, and added the several different fabrics, that fuzzy stuff around the pictures of the cats and even used two different fabrics for the ruffle going around the quilt.

As you can see in the picture Neptune really did want it.  Poor girl.

That was 3 years ago and this quilt still graces Violet toddler bed.  She still loves it.

I think it's so much fun to look at everyone's quilts.  I love all the designs and all the color combinations.  There are so many talented and creative people out there.  Thanks Amy for getting it all together!  Now go check out all those quilts - they are amazing! And enter one of yours too!