New Bag

I have been volunteering to do some pattern testing for Kathy at Pink Chalk Studio, now also of Pink by Post. The latest (and my favorite so far) is this great bag that she calls the Mail Sack. I tested it in March and she released the pattern officially last week. This is my original version, made from her original pattern with no alterations or corrections. There were some small alterations made in the final version of the pattern and I am planning on making the final version in more neutral colors ( I have been dressing to match the bag). It is the perfect bottomless bag. I took it to a track meet last week and had an umbrella, sunscreen, sunglasses, a water bottle, a fleece pullover and all my usual notebooks, wallet, pens... in it. I found the bag easy to make and learned some new techniques with it. Kathy does a great job of writing instructions in a way that seems conversational instead of formal and technical. She is also amazingly generous and kind, so go visit her sites.
The outside view. It is made out out hoarded Amy Butler and Heather Bailey fabrics with matching linen.
The inside has a zipper pocket and 2 other pockets for sunglasses, etc.

It is meant to be worn across the body sling style. Unfortunately, this is the only picture I have of me wearing it that way. You can see it in the reflection.

vacation

The first weekend in May, Curt had a computer geek conference to attend in St. Paul, MN. He was going to be gone for 4 days and the business was paying for a room and none of his partners were going with, so the girls and I decided to go along. I knew we were not going to be able to see Curt much or spend much time with him, but we would be able to do some fun stuff and it would be better than staying home by myself with the Hoodlums (as I like to call them). It worked out that My Mandy was able to come with also and spend part of the weekend with us and part of the weekend with her husband's brother and his family. We stayed at the Crowne Plaza (way out of our league) which is happily situated on the Mississippi River and very near many great sites. We were within walking distance of the Minnesota Children's Museum and the Minnesota Science Museum and only a short drive from Grand Avenue (shopping!) and Como Zoo. Our 4 days were quite full and fun. If you ask the girls, the best part was the hotel pool and watching Chronicles of Narnia in bed on hotel cable. If you ask Mandy and I, the worst part was no TLC, HGTV or Bravo on the hotel cable! When Mandy posts pictures, I will link to her Flickr, because she was the main photographer of the weekend, but here are a few of my shots.

Face painting the Children's Museum. Notice my really cool bag in the mirror reflection. I will post about that later today or tomorrow.
My little scientist. Her only hope for the Science Museum was that she would be able to wear a lab coat and goggles like a real scientist. Wish granted. We got to scrape cheek cells and look at them under a microscope.

Como Park Zoo/Amusement ParkOur Hotel from across the river (the dark grey building). We had an amazing view of St. Paul and the river from our 12th floor window.

Getting Closer

We have officially finished our Dossier and went yesterday to have our fingerprints done (they have a security checkpoint at the USCIS office that we had to go to, like at an airport!) So now we are at the sit and wait part of the adoption process. We had to go to Milwaukee to get the fingerprints done, so we left the girls with a friend and spent a nice day together. After fingerprints, we headed to the Mitchell Park Domes and then went for some lunch. Here are a couple of shots from the domes.


I want my back yard to look like this... Ok?

I have been super busy in the garden and doing some Spring cleaning (or trying), so the posting will be even less than usual. I am trying to get a photo of the crazy robins in my yard, they aren't afraid of me and get super close. I will post that and a story to go with it when I get a chance. I hope you all are having a wonderful Spring. I finally feel semi-confident that Spring is actually here.

Lovely Quilts

I went to a quilt show with my aunt on Monday night and thought I would share some of my favorites. I walk around these things in kind of a haze with a silly grin on my face taking lots of close up pictures of quilts that I either find stunning or inspire me for future quilty projects. As posting pictures on Blogger can be sort of a pain in the rump, I am only posting a handful of my favorites. You can click to make them bigger. The picture quality is clearly not my best ever, but the lighting was lacking and carrying a tripod around to make the camera steady enough really is not so convenient. Also, if you have ever been to a quilt show, you know how pushy those quilt ladies can get, and if you haven't then believe me, you take your picture and get the heck out of the way!

This entire quilt was done with fabric selvages (the edge pieces that you usually cut off and often contain the name of the fabric manufacturer, fabric line and designer). They are all about 1" wide strips. Crazy!
For Mandy. She based the design off a picture she had taken. Lots of layers of fabric on top of each other to get the shading on the trunk. For the leaves she used actual leaves as templates and traced them onto fabric.

I love old quilts. This quilt is a new one made from some old parts. The mother of the lady who made it found a stack of Dresden plates unfinished at a flea market for $.75. They ripped them apart and made them into fans. Added some more pieces and added the black background blocks. She added the appliqued vines and her mother embroidered in the solid black blocks. I love the wavy border and think the black just really makes the whole thing. I have a few Dresden plates that I might attempt a smaller version of something like this with.

The flash really washed this out, but I loved the fabrics in this also. There were repeated fabrics, but it had very "eye spy" quality to it. I have not been brave enough to do anything with these angles yet, but this inspired me.
The quilt on the rack is approx. 100 years old. The quilt hanging is a reproduction of the same quilt. Amazing hand quilting and wonderful job recreating the original quilt.

Personalities Shine Through

The girls practiced their spelling words on the refrigerator with magnet letters yesterday. Abi went first and I had suggested that we arrange the magnet letters on the floor in alphabetical order. She responded "Oh no, color order is much better," and proceeded to arrange them in color order. She happily spelled each word I gave her and used her "scope" to find each letter as seen below.
Emma did her list second and as you can see she prefers no order what so ever to most things in life. Also, spelling is always much better done with a ballet slipper on your hand, your hair in your face and a ballet leotard on your body (better than the naked we were dealing with this morning). I was in the living room reading with Abi while she was working on her list and I could hear her talking while she was spelling so I came to check on her. As she needed a letter she would call out "N, can you please come to the front. N to the front please. You are needed next." Or something rather similar. For each letter. I love her creative mind (most days).
This is just a small sampling of their personalities showing through. If I am asked why we home school, I almost always answer that it is mainly because we do not want them to lose their love of learning. I am trying, as much as possible to honor their personalities and learning styles and help them to grow up accepting who they are. Some days that is easier than others.

Facial Expressions

One of the first trips to the park this Spring and I actually brought my camera. I was using the drive mode to take multiple pictures back to back thinking I would just get some cute shots. Instead I found myself laughing at the facial expressions that my kids and husband were making while playing intensely. These are my favorites.

April!

I am not a big fan of April Fool's Day. I do not like to be surprised or tricked, so the day really holds no big draw for me. However, I am married to someone who LOVES that kind of stuff and have 2 little girls who think surprises are great fun. So yesterday we did some minor surprises and just silly things. We did breakfast at lunch which was pancakes. I snuck some raisins in them and we made a big deal about there being bugs in the pancakes. Then I told everyone we were having desert for supper. I found this recipe on the Family Fun website. They are basically meat loaf cupcakes with mashed potato frosting. As you can see by the second picture, they looked totally real. Curt knew something was up, but wasn't sure what. Good fun all around.

This past weekend, I went to a quilt retreat with 12 other ladies. This was part of my Christmas present from my mom. We had a great time and got a lot done but not a lot of sleep. Still feeling it. I spent a big chunk of time machine quilting a quilt that my sister had put together using an IKEA shower curtains and an old sheet... good recycling hey? (You can click the pictures to make them bigger if you want).
This is the aftermath of my quilting weekend. Now I am so far behind on cleaning and the yard is finally thawing enough to do some outside work. It feels overwhelming, but I am trying to just take it all in little chunks. At least this pile is a pretty mess.
Overall, just thankful that it is April and maybe, just maybe the weather will improve and with it my mood.