Goodies

I missed my quilt guild meeting last week while we were on vacation. I had a friend bring the raffle gift, the gift for my secret pal and my block for the swap. This is what I received from my secret pal. The fabric is Michael Miller and the appliqué book and kit are perfect since I need to learn to appliqué in August. It's the theme for the August mini quilt swap and I already have my idea. I just need to to learn how to do it, so the book will come in handy! I sent the cherry note book and a cherry needlebook for my secret pal. I hope she didn't feel totally jipped! I'll have to come up with something better for my secret pal in August.

The block on the left is the block I received in the swap and the one on the right is one I made. I've been making two blocks, one for the swap and one for myself so I can see how much I've learned. I kept the wonkiest 9 patch block for myself and sent the better one for the swap.

Saturday morning we headed to our favorite thrift store. We haven't been in 5 or 6 weeks, so we were excited to go. It was a good trip! We found more kids books because you can never have enough, especially when you're a teacher. Nature Girl found a Dr. Suess flash light shaped like the fish from the Cat in the Hat. She was pretty cute wearing her felt Cat in the Hat hat and playing with her flashlight. I didn't take a picture of that but I did get a picture of my goodies.
I found a prim crow shutter, an appliqué quilt kit, some green corduroy and this frog fabric. It's on a roll and looks like it's a wallpaper border but it's actually a roll of fabric. I'd guess there is about 4 yards of the frog fabric. I thought it was cute. I'm trying to figure out how to incorporate it into a mini quilt. Any ideas? I was thinking it might look good with a strip of frogs across the top and bottom with some blue that looks like water for a pond in the center. I guess it could always be used for borders around a quilt.

Nature Girl Sews and A Quick Tutorial

That's right, Nature Girl sews! She completed her first sewing project while we were on vacation. She insists this is her second sewing project since she helped me stitch on one of my projects a few months ago. So call it a first or call it a second sewing project, either way we were both proud of the finished project! She sewed this bookmark with a little assistance. She did very well and quickly picked up the running stitch. I love the wobbliness of the stitches and I am so proud of my little crafter!

Here's her finished bookmark in a book. Now we're looking forward to trying a few more sewing projects this summer. I discovered a site called Kids Sewing Projects. It has some great projects for kids who are beginning to sew. Try some of the projects at Kids Sewing Projects or try our tutorial for the felt bookmark. Happy sewing!

Felt Bookmark Tutorial:
Materials:
12 inches of ribbon
felt(cut two flower shapes and two shapes for the bottom)
safety pins
embroidery thread
needle
Place the ribbon between the two felt flowers. Pin in place with safety pins. Sew around the flower using a running stitch. Make sure to stitch through the ribbon so it will stay in place. Then sew your pieces to the bottom of your ribbon. Again make sure you stitch through the ribbon. I did two sets of leaves on the bottom of this bookmark but you can sew just one set on the bottom.

We sewed flower bookmarks this time. We want to try this again and make a felt bird bookmark as a gift for a friend.
Edited: Nature Girl's bookmark project is now on Kids Sewing Projects. You can see it here.

We're back!

Long time, no post!!! We were on vacation in Northern NY State for a week and though we took lots of pictures we didn't post while we were away. We arrived home tonight and are all excited to be able to sleep in our own beds tonight! It's nice to go away on vacation but I think the best part of a vacation is coming home and sleeping in your own bed again!!

We spent a week with my husband's family. Nature Girl played with her cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles for a week. We even had a few adventures along the way. Nature Girl brought along our Little People On the Road Swap softie. We finally picked a name for her. Lisa suggested Adventure Bunny and since this little bunny is going on summer vacations and adventures with us it seems appropriate(Thanks to all of you who suggested names for our bunny friend.) The picture above was taken on the ferry from Grand Isle, VT to Plattsburgh, NY. The ferry crosses Lake Champlain where it has long been rumored that "Champ" a lake monster still lives. Nature Girl and Adventure Bunny looked for Champ but we didn't spot him. Christy, do you recognize the dress? It's the one you made for her, she still loves it!


We visited 4-H Camp Overlook in Mountain View, NY while we were in NY. Both my husband and I spent summers there as kids. My husband worked as a camp councilor there as a teenager. We took a tour around the camp and a hike in the woods before joining the campers for lunch. It was lots of fun. Adventure Bunny enjoyed it too. Nature Girl spotted this neat looking leaf on the hike and took this picture of the leaf and Adventure Bunny.
We worked on some crafts while on vacation too. Nature Girl completed her first ever sewing project. I'll post pictures of that in a few days. I hope you're having a great summer. I'm off to go sleep in my own bed for the first time in a week. I'm so excited! It's nice to be home again!!!! Now I have to catch up on my blog reading and the laundry.

Needlebook Tutorial

When I saw this cute cherry notepad at JoAnn Fabrics I just loved it. I'm doing a secret pal activity with my quilt guild. Each month you bring a little gift for your secret pal. I knew this would be a great gift for my secret pal. It made me think of the jam jar cover tutorial over at LucyKate Crafts. That inspired me to create this cherry needlebook.

These are for my secret pal but I liked the needlebook so much that I had to make one for myself. This is my first needlebook. I had so much fun making these and decided a tutorial was in order.


If you'd like to make a cherry needlebook you can download the tutorial and pattern here. Happy sewing!

Special thanks to Susan for editing this tutorial for me! I'm looking forward to making a few more this week to give as gifts! Yep, one will be for Susan.
Also thanks to my husband who is my technical support. Without him I wouldn't be able to upload a tutorial. Thanks honey, you're the best!

A Few Quilts

I received this fabulous mini quilt from Beth for the June Mini Quilt Swap. I love the fabrics and the color combination. And this is my first hand quilted quilt. I love it!

This was my idea for the DQS4 swap but I'm not sure it's going to work. I wanted to include a house a tree and a bird in the quilt. I also added a sun and a mini quilt which will eventually look like it's hanging on a clothesline between the house and tree once I quilt it. I pieced everything together as I went but I think I need a lot more practice with piecing. It doesn't lay perfectly flat despite pressing as I went. The top of the tree really seems to pucker and I'm not sure I'll be able to quilt it with out it bunching. I was thinking of sewing around the edge of the tree and stuffing the pink portion a bit to take up some of the excess space. I guess the obvious thing to do is take a quilting class on piecing but that would require too much time right now. I could also learn to appliqué on the designs I suppose but it's too late for this one. Does anyone have any suggestions for better piecing with out puckering?

This was another attempt at piecing. I made the mini bird quilt for the May Mini Quilt Swap and thought I'd try it on a larger scale. The blue fabric ended up being a bit stretchy and really puckers up in spots so again I'm not sure I'll be able to quilt this one either. I had planned to add green and white polka dot leaves to the branches and wings on the birds. I also debated on adding a sun in the top left corner which made me think of Bob Marley's song Three little birds. You know: "Rise up this mornin', smiled with the risin' sun, three little birds pitch by my doorstep singin' sweet songs, of melodies pure and true, sayin', "This is my message to you-ou-ou:" Singin': "Don't worry 'bout a thing 'Cause every little thing gonna be all right." It's a great song but really I'm one bird short and I'm not sure this experiment in piecing will work. I should just learn the basics but instead I like to wing it and see what I can do. Sometimes it works and some times it doesn't.
I hope you are all having a great 4th of July weekend!

Summer Fun and a Name

We joined the little people on the road swap so this summer so we need to take a softie friend on our trips and take pictures for the scrapbook we're creating. The softie and the scrapbook will be sent to our partners sometime in August. We created this little bunny this week to be our softie. Here she is getting ready for a trip to the zoo. We haven't been able to come up with a name for her yet so we're looking for suggestions. She's made from patterned fleece with a pocket on her belly and hearts on her pocket and on her bum too! I think she needs a carrot in her pocket and a good name. Nature Girl tends to name things by colors or object name so she hasn't been very helpful unless you like Pink Blue Bunny as a name. We need some help. Do you have any name suggestions for our rabbit friend?
Here's the bunny taking a rest under a tree at the zoo. It was only in the 50's at York Wild Kingdom. It wasn't very summer like, thank goodness we packed coats!
Nature Girl, her Grandma and the bunny all went for a ride on an elephant. The elephant's name is Lydia and Nature Girl loves her. This is the third summer that she has taken a ride on Lydia so it seems to be a bit of a tradition now. We tucked our bunny friend in her coat so she could go along for the ride. This was Grandma's first ride on an elephant, Papa rode last year and I rode the year before that. I think it's Daddy's turn next year!
Since we were in York Beach Maine we walked across the street to take the bunny to the Atlantic Ocean. She sat on this rock with Nature Girl for the pictures then bounced back into the backpack so she wouldn't try to take a swim...it was way too cold!
We had a good weekend and crossed off three items on our summer fun list. Zoo...check, beach...check and see Wall.e movie...check. By the way Wall.e was very cute and had a good message for nature lovers.

A Quilt and an Award

A Quilt:
This is the quilt top my quilt guild is making for the fall raffle. I volunteered to help sew the blocks together so Thursday I spent a few hours sewing with two other guild members. I was a little bit nervous about putting the quilt together since I'm very new to quilting. There was no need to be nervous, it was a good experience! We were able to get the top done. Each member who chose to participate made two blocks for the quilt. Since the quilt will be raffled off in the fall we used batiks in fall colors. The money raised from the raffle will be used to purchase new sewing machines for the local high school. They are in desperate need of working machines!


An Award:
I was excited to be awarded the Arte Y Pico award by Lisa at Spoonful of Sugar. Lisa and Sarah have a wonderful blog filled with crafty inspiration and yummy cupcakes, so go check it out. The Arte Y Pico is awarded to blogs that you consider deserving due to their creativity, design, interesting material and for their contributions to the blogging community. If you receive the Arte Y Pico you in turn bestow it on five blogs.
So I bestow the Arte Y Pico to these wonderful blogs.

• Im a ginger monkey: Katy has wonderful crafty goodness on her blog. I love her little character softies and her mini quilts. Katy's creations make the blogosphere a better place and children(and adults) around the world happy.
  
• One Crafty Mumma: Mel has a large variety of crafts on her blog. She has gorgeous scrapbook layouts, knitting, recipes and kid craft inspiration. We love Mel's microwave puffy paint recipe. Mel's children even blog their activities there.
• Attitude Changes Everything: Pattie has an inspiring blog that demonstrates how attitude changes everything. Having a positive attitude makes a difference! Her posts are inspiring and she includes quilty goodness too.
• Jovaliquilts: Cheri has a blog filled with quilting inspiration. She makes fabulous word quilts and quilts for Project Linus. What I love about Cheri is that she likes to encourage and help new bloggers. She's been a great help to me. Thanks Cheri!
• Yarni Gras!: Val at Yarni Gras creates beautiful aprons that inspire me. She also crochets and creates softies. Her daughter is a young artist with a blog worth checking out too. Curly Girl Arts.
  

These are five blog I really enjoy reading. I think they're worthy of the Arte Y Pico award so go check them out. And don't forget to check out Lisa's blog. Thanks for bestowing the award on my blog!



Arte Y Pico Rules:

1. You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also for contributing to the blogging community, no matter what language.
2. Each awardee has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.
3. Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.
4. Award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of “Arte y Pico” blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award: http://arteypico.blogspot.com/
5. Display these rule