girl, interrupted

i've been a little too quilty in my blog posts of late, so to change things up a bit i thought i'd share with you a little something special.

look who Peanut got to meet the other day!

another favorite new friend...

it was my youngest daughter's very first trip to Disney and she had an absolute ball.  she loved every single minute of it, even those 60 or so minutes she was zonked out in her stroller, and i can't wait to take her back for more!  (so glad her daddy bought annual passes - one of the few perks of living in florida.)

it was extra nice to be able to go before the thanksgiving week crowds moved in.  the longest line we waited in all day was at the counter of the burger restaurant where we ate lunch.

next week we may try to check out Animal Kingdom since none of us has been there yet. 

p.s. did ya see the super cute mickey mouse pillowcase dress i made for Peanut?  love. it.

a finished quilt and new fabric

i finished my son's patchwork hand-tied quilt a while ago, i just never got around to taking photos of it and, since it was laying on the sofa this morning i thought, what better time than now?

kinda hard to see, i know - cell phone pics - but it's various shades of blue mixed with white squares (this was done in the same pattern as my daughter's quilt); the backing is and blue, white and dark green striped sheet and the binding is a dark green with lighter green flecks - it really brings out the bits of green in some of the squares on the front as well as the striping on the back.  this quilt is already getting used lots :)

these are three of the fabrics that i chose from the fat quarter shop to use as the backing for some holiday pillows for my family room...

and these are the three fabrics i chose for the fronts of the pillows...

and i chose these to cut up and send in for an I Spy swap over at the fabric stash club.



as soon as i get the pillows finished (i'm hoping to get started on them today, but i need to get some trims first), i'll post photos.

holy featured blog post, batman!!

this week really has been outstanding and it just keeps getting better!!!

the ladies over at Quilt Story are featuring my blog post about my first quilt today - how cool is that?!?!




get on over there and check out their blog - it's really fantastic.  all kinds of wonderful work by several different artists from across the globe.  it's a great place for inspiration to get you going, advice you never knew you needed, and eye candy galore!!

thanks so much for featuring me, heather & megan!  you gals rock!

HELP! (of the quilting variety please)

so i'm working on a christmas present for my mom (a rooster quilt) and i'm really excited about it.  i'm not a rooster person at all, but the idea for this quilt is so fun that i just can't wait to see the finished product. 

(again, sorry for the photo quality)

 close up of the wood grain fabric (it's from michael miller's gnomeville line)

the top of the quilt



it looks like a bunch of chicken coops stacked on top of one another - i love that.  inside each "coop" i'm going to hand quilt (using variegated perle cotton in shades of red, green, yellow and blue) a different rooster.

i found some great black and white drawings of roosters online that i was able to enlarge and print out.  i tried printing them on cardstock and cutting them out and tracing them with a water soluble fabric marker - didn't work out.

i printed them on regular paper, layered some dressmaker's colored transfer paper under them and traced around the image with a pen.  the image shows up in much more detail but it's so faint i'm not sure i can quilt 12 roosters that way - my eyes might give out on me.

my free hand skills are so-so; i wouldn't dream of trying to recreate each rooster by hand.

so does anyone have any suggestions for getting the image from my computer or paper onto the quilt top so that i can quilt over it? 

a pillow for my princess

 several months ago i made a couple of matching dog beds for my beagle and my bassett.  they're brown with flat, white piping and their names are appliqued on the front (though they rarely sleep in "their" bed) and they're kept in the dogs' room, which is attached to our laundry room. 

the dogs are quite happy with them.

so is my youngest daughter.  if i'm doing laundry, there's a 50/50 chance that she's laying on one of the dog beds, rolling around (laughing at me for freaking out) in all the dog hair, drool, blech...

so i needed to make her a giant pillow of her own to roll around (sans dog hair and drool).

yes, i made my toddler a dog bed.

she's pretty happy with it.

(i apologize for the poor quality of the photos; my camera's in the shop at the moment)

i used red & pink michael miller ta dot fabric and white piping i picked up at wal-mart and filled it with an entire 2 lb bag of polyfil. 

from a sewing perspective, it's not the most perfect thing i've ever made - i had a rough time getting the piping sewn in and it shows. 

does anyone have any tips on sewing with piping to make it easier?  i have a cat bed to make (not that the cat will ever use it) and i'd like to add some piping to that as well.

holy crap!

ok, so as you know, i entered my first quilt into the Blogger's Quilt Festival over at Amy's Creative Side. 

i got lots of great comments and found lots of great blogs i didn't know about - and that's all i was hoping for.

so imagine my surprise when i got an e-mail from Amy herownself telling me i'd won a $50 gift certificate to the Fat Quarter Shop!!!

seriously?!?!?  i never win anything! 

it didn't take me long to start filling up my shopping cart with christmasy fabrics to make pillows for my home - all from the Park Avenue and Wintergraphix III collections.

as soon as i get the pillows all sewn up, i'll take photos and post them for you to see.  (assuming, of course, that my camera is back from the shop by then - dreaded E18 error.)

i have a few other projects i've finished up recently that i can't wait to show you, too.

for all of you warm weather fans

maybe you're not as in love with cold weather as i am.

maybe you'd rather do your thanksgiving meal planning in shorts.

maybe you'd like to find a way to bring a little summer back into your life.     already.

maybe i think you're a little crazy, but hey...we all have our crosses to bear.

well here's your bit o' summer:  Florida Orange Cookies from the EveryDay Feasts cookbook compiled by the Junior League of Tampa. 

no, they won't raise the temperature outside but, if you stand real close to your oven while these are baking, you can totally pretend.  so stop whining about how cold it is outside and bake yourself a little taste of summer.

i've made them and they rock.  trust me, i'm not chubby because i like fruit. 

blogtoberfest failure

wah wah waaaahhh....

so clearly i'm not cut out for daily blogging.  i just don't have the time nor the desire to blog every day - i run out of things to say, run out of energy, run out of time...it just doesn't work for me.

but it was certainly a fun attempt, at least in the beginning ;)