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I changed my blog name so now I am reclaiming it.

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A Successful Saturday

It's been a busy weekend here.  We started out Saturday morning with a soccer game and a Pinewood Derby.  Eric had his 2nd soccer game of the season.  He has the same coach as last year (yay!) and he's doing great.  They won 4-1.

Last year was our first derby, at which we lost horribly (slowest car, I'm sure....our Scout left holding back the tears.)  So this year we consulted my brother who helped us cut a more aerodynamic car, and then we piled on the weights.  We went to the race yesterday just crossing our fingers for success -- that success being that we wouldn't be dead last in the running and that Andrew wouldn't leave in tears.  

But we were surprised when Andrew's car won first place!  To say Andrew was beyond happy.  Hooray!

We also did a little birthday celebration for Eric yesterday (a little early because we'll be out of town.)  He chose Arby's for lunch and donuts for dessert.  He told me "I don't really care what presents I get.  I just want the love of my family."  It's sweet, but it kind of cracks me up -- I'm pretty sure he hears things like that in church.  And trust me, he was VERY excited about the presents.  He got a lego set, a couple of DS games, and a Pogo stick.  They played happily all afternoon.

 

And now for my sewing update for SEWJo Saturday -- I am working on a quilt using "Modern Meadows" fabric by Joel Dewberry.  I've had this fabric for a while now but have struggled with what to make. I finally settled an a herringbone design.  Here are the initial strips:

I also finished and hung my dresden plate quilt underneath our entry window, in the stairway landing.  A sunny little view before you head down to the dark basement.  :)

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I'm not even sure what "claiming my blog" means....but I'm doin' it.
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Finishing up a UFO

No, not an Unidentified Flying Object....a UFO in the quilting world is an "Unfinished Object."  This is one of those projects that was once started, but never finished.  I made my first Dresden quilt a few years ago.  I really like the pattern -- but it is much more pastel and girly than I would usually make.  However as the season changes (every other day -- snow one day, warm enough to shed the jackets the next day) -- I started thinking about binding this quilt up and displaying it for Spring.  This weekend while watching General Conference I was able to sit, listen, and bind.

I am linking up to SEWjo Saturday.

P.S.  If you didn't see my last post regarding my Grandma's embroidered bird -- please feel free to scroll down and tell me what you think!  Thanks.

Easter Baskets and Birds....Must be Spring

I am linking up to Sewjo Saturday again.  I made these fabric Easter Baskets -- I have wanted to do this because we don't have a lot of extra storage space, and fabric baskets will take up much less room than the old wire ones.  I used this tutorial -- I hope Owen's Olivia is okay with me linking to it because mine aren't nearly as pretty (or as well-crafted) as hers.  But my boys don't want pretty anyway.  :)

And I'm hoping that I since I might get a couple extra people coming to this blog post, I could ask your advice.  I have these embroidered quilt blocks from my Grandma -- I would love to make a great quilt with them. So I'm thinking about the Economy Block with the bird in the middle.  As for fabric -- I'm debating between Modern Solids by Handmade by Alissa  or Happy Vintage.  What do you think?  Do I embrace the vintage-ness or go for some more modern solids? 

Birthday Wishes

After a fight over the computer, Eric (and Tanner) had the following conversation with Brian:

Eric:  "For my birthday, I'm going to wish for Andrew never to play the computer again!"
Tanner: "My birthday, me want a giant Minion cake!"
Dad: "What are you going to do with that?"
Tanner: "Eat the eye!!!"

Not exactly things on my birthday wish list, but I'm sure they wouldn't want anything on my list either. 

Lots of sewing stuff

I know, you are so excited to see all of my sewing....all at once.  Well, it is Worldwide Quilting Day, so there!  I have an excuse.

I have joined the Vintage Quilt Revival Block Along.  This means that I am trying to finish a block or two each week, then uploading the picture to Flickr, and at the end of 10 weeks I'll have a bunch of sampler blocks for a quilt.  Each week they have a random drawing to win some quilt stuff...which I was pretty sure I was going to win one of these weeks, but haven't yet!  I was so hopeful.  :)  It has been fun.  Many of the blocks are paper pieced.  I've enjoyed learning the technique, but I do not love all the fabric it uses up.  It is nice to see all those lines matching up so nicely though!  Here are a couple of the blocks.

I am looking forward to spending more time on the quilt that is on my design wall.  I love this quilt -- simple and a little more modern.

I also wanted to make a new pillow cover -- I decided on a rainbow pillow as a nod to St. Patrick's Day.  I didn't have a pattern and just decided to do it "improv"style.  I am linking up to "Sewjo Saturday"-- a link party (I think that's what it's called. :). 

Lastly, I finally finished Tanner's superman quilt.  I haven't loved it -- Superman fabric is not something I get super excited about.  But I wanted to do something that he would like, and he does love his "Huperman blanket".  I machine quilted it with big wavy lines -- it was the first time machine quilting a large piece (only done pillows or table runners a few times.)  I have to say -- it was not very fun for me.  In fact, my sister called while I was doing it and I told her "I hate this!  It is so worth paying someone $$$ to do this for me!"  

After that big quilt I decided to "practice" machine quilting on this table topper.  I started this a while ago, did some quilting on it with invisible thread (read somewhere to do that.)  That did not work out for me.  So I unpicked it (ugh) and then just let it sit for several months.  Anyway, I pulled it out again and finished it.  I showed my boys, thinking they might this it was kind of fun to have houses on the quilt.  But when I didn't readily point out that they are houses, Eric said "Are those H's?" They do look like that too.

After all the pain of machine quilting Tanner's quilt, I am ironically planning on quilting another one....though it's not quite so big and I'm straight line quilting it this time.  This is a quilt I started over a year (or two?) ago.  Lots of little pieces and so I ended up taking several breaks from it.  I think it'll look great when it's finished.

So that's what I've been doing these last several months.  Thanks for letting me share.  :)

Tannerise

I was trying to go to Bloglovin to look at quilt blogs....because I have nothing else to do.  No dishes.  No mail.  No dirty bathrooms.  Nothing.  ha.  Anyway, I accidentally typed "Blogger" instead.  So here I am.  I've been wanting to write a post about Tanner's speech.  Guess this is the time.

Tanner's speech is definitely coming along.  He still misses some very important first letters of words.  It makes for his own little language that only I can understand (sometimes.)  I become the translator for Brian and any other person that isn't around him all day long.  So if you want to learn Tannerise, here are the basics:

If the word starts with certain letters, just replace them with another easier to pronounce letter.  So for "S" say "H"; "F" say "B", and "V" say "B" or nothing at all.  So for example, some common words/phrases are....

"Ho Bunny"
"Cool Hong!"
"Harry Umpire!"
"Ho Heepy"

Translation --
"So Funny"
"Cool Song!"  (his constant request from the back seat, "RockRoll!  Cool Hong!")
"Scary Vampire!" (That is what he plans to be next 'Happyween.")
"So Sleep"  (As in, "Me not ho heepy, Mom!")

It can be tricky, but believe me, it's an improvement from the yelling/gesturing days.  :)

Valentine's Day Pillow

Okay, so this is the third time I've written this short post.  When I try and upload the photo my browser crashes.  Hopefully I'll manage to publish it this time!

Last year after Valentine's Day I bought some fabric on clearance.  I have few (if any) valentine's day decorations, so I came up with this XO pillow.  I think it's pretty cute!  Might have to make some more.

Semi-Annual Post

I obviously have a difficult time getting around to posting.....maybe it's because my 2 readers are people I talk to frequently.  ha.  Oh well, here's a little recap of the last few months.

October
Happy Halloween!  We took Andrew and Eric to the Utah Symphony Halloween Concert.  They did so well...and it was fun to see the costumes and hear the great music.  Here Brian and the boys are standing in front of a glass sculpture in the lobby of the venue.

For a neighborhood party we had a prisoner, ninja, and rock star.  For Halloween night we had a prisoner, ninja, and Diego (so many great costumes passed on front he older boys and this little vest is what he chose.)  He's already planning to be an "Umpire for Happyween" next year, or in other words, a Vampire for Halloween.

November
I took exactly 3 pictures in November.  Hmmm.  We did have a nice Thanksgiving with my Provo siblings.  And I'm sure there were plenty of holiday preparations.  I did get this one great shot of Tanner -- our super cute preschooler getting off the big bus after school.  He always gives the bus driver a great big smile.  And his speech has improved dramatically.  Yeah!

December

We have had plenty of snow this year.  Tanner had a great time.  And the boys all made a great snowman that only lasted about 20 minutes due to some rambunctious friends.  It was kind of sad to see him smashed so quickly.  But glad they had fun!

Christmas Eve we got together with my Provo siblings.  We had a Christmas lunch, gift exchange, and a very professional Nativity play -- with only very willing actors (ha. ha.)  The boys were the 3 Wise Men.  

 Mom and Dad actually came for the Christmas Even event, then they came and spent the night at our place.  This meant we got to have them for Christmas morning chaos too! (:  I guess I didn't get any pictures of the adults.  We were just focused on the very excited kids.  Here they are in their Christmas Eve Pajamas.

 Christmas morning -- playing with toys -- Legos, Scooters, and Zorro.  It was such a nice day -- hardly any of the usual "I'm bored" and bickering.  If only we could give them new toys every day.  ha ha.

 Over New Years we went to the cabin in Idaho to be with my family.  It was great to see Grandma and Grandpa, Aunts and Uncles, and cousins.  It was really fun to see the frozen lake too -- I have never been up there in the winter and it's pretty spectacular.  The boys loved the snowmobiling of course -- our cabin neighbor has a dog sled he hooked up to the snowmobile and the kids had a great time.  And after years of hearing the men's ice fishing adventures, I actually got to see it in action.  And in the famous words of Eric "I know one thing.  It takes a long time to catch a fish!"  I didn't see them pull any out of the little holes, but I still enjoyed seeing the ice tent, and being out there on the ice I could see why they enjoyed the quiet stillness of the wintery lake.  So different from a cabin with 5 families inside!  (;