full grown woman

Inspired

I was inspired by this post and thought I would do one of my one, but mine won’t be so much about quilting, but more about all the things I would want to say that I haven’t in the vein of being “real”.

1. I have a really hard time being a mom. I love my children a ton, but sometimes I don’t love being a mom. The noise, the messes, the general irritation of it…I don’t love it.

2. One of my biggest fears is being perceived as lazy because I’m fat. I’m not really lazy, but being fat does prevent me from having the energy I would like to have, and well…it is a vicious cycle.

3. I am horribly judgmental of those that have poor spelling and grammar skills.

4. I am currently suffering from depression. The most horrible thoughts run through my head nearly constantly. It is a battle every day to beat those thoughts down and live a “normal” life. But I will never stop fighting.

5. Cereal and seafood are the most disgusting food substances I can think of. Shocked, aren’t you?

I feel better now.

Mug Rug Swap

We did a mug rug swap in the Front Range Modern Quilt Guild and I was the recipient of the cutest lil’ mug rug and some other cute surprises!

That’s a chocolate marshmallow cross, the cutest little pin cushion and some pins to go with it. I had also told her in a getting to know you type questionnaire that I loved carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and she made some for the meeting, just for me!!

Unfortunately, I was a big dummy stupid head and didn’t take a pic of the mug rug I made. Doh!

Uninspired and tired.

I’m just feeling sooooo bleh. I’m tired, sooooo very tired, and feel like life is busy, busy, busy, but with little I enjoy.

Also, you know how you look forward to something for a very long time, it comes…you enjoy it to its fullest, but then it is gone and then you wonder, now what? I am sort of “suffering” from that too. Last Saturday, Matt and I went to dinner thanks to the in-laws and some free baby sitting action, and then we went to see Kurt Elling in concert. I know most of you are saying, Kurt Who??? But for me, he is IT. I haven’t heard ANYONE in all of my musical experiences quite as wonderful and talented and pure as him. He began to sing the first song and I burst into tears. I was there, sitting mere feet away from the singer I hold in highest esteem, and he was singing, and it was PERFECT. It is truly a thing of beauty when you hear something like that. In our artificial world of auto tune and studio made musicians, to hear the REAL thing, flawless, genuine, full of emotion and joy and, did I mention, FLAWLESS, it seems nearly like you witnessed something miraculous. I was completely and utterly moved. Then, quickly as it started, it was over, and I felt empty. Joy with some bittersweet sprinkled in during the concert; sheer emptiness after. What is that??

LCQA Block #9 and some other fun creations

Dag nabit! I was nearly caught up and then life got in the way as it tends to do.

But, here is block #9 in all of its glory:

This is probably my favorite block to date. It challenged my “line up the points” skills and I think I did very well to that end.

Next up is a dress I made for Lily Boo. You might remember The Fracking Doll Dress post and how I LOATHED making that dang thing. Well, now that I have a ton more sewing under my belt, I decided to tackle the toddler version.

It went soooo much easier this time.

A somewhat reluctant model...

I am quite proud of how it turned out! I still need to practice some refining techniques, but overall I am pleased with how it went.

Lastly, I decided to take a class at Fabric Bliss and conquer the zipper. Zippers tend to incite fear in a lot of inexperienced sewists, so I figured I should just take a class and get over it. The class was to make a zippered wristlet, and who couldn’t use a cute wristlet!

The class was so much fun! I was the only student, which of course made it really easy to learn and ask questions.

Here is the finished product:

It even has a cute little pocket inside for your ID and a credit card!

I loved it so much I went home and made another using Bliss fabrics:

I bought more zippers so I can keep on making them!

A Birthday fit for a Princess

On Tuesday, we officially left the “terrible twos” and entered the threes! Lily is completely typical in that she loves all things princess, and so we decided to have a couple of friends over and throw her a little princess themed birthday.

You can’t have a party without rollie blower thingings…right?

She shall rule her kingdom with lots of grace and pink.

Unfortunately, this picture doesn’t adequately capture her sheer ANTICIPATION of blowing out the candles. She was consumed. Utterly and completely a bundle of nerves awaiting the magical blow-out-the-candles moment. It was one of the cutest things I have seen in my life. I was so proud of her being able to control the impulse to blow out the candles until after we had finished singing “Happy Birthday” to her.

The other thing I was proud of for me was the ability to really enjoy it all. In the past I’ve been so caught up in the details:

• Is the house clean enough?
• Do we have enough food?
• Where will everyone sit?

And so on. It was not the normal worrying one does before throwing a party, but an unhealthy obsession with perfection and anxiety and unrealistic expectations of how the event would go. This time, I had a much healthier perspective and was able to let most of my anxiety go and focus on really having joy in the moment. Joy over my beautiful, crazy, precocious, silly, smart daughter be so full of life and happiness for her birthday. Joy spending time with my friends and family. Joy over the blessings God has LAVISHED upon me.

There was a little wistful sadness too, as mothers tend to have. It was THREE years ago that I experienced the rush of birth and the miracle of it all. The miracle of my 10 pound 8 oz girl entering the world and my life forever being changed. I do miss those moments of holding her and staring into her eyes and feeling completely surrendered to love and affection for her.

Happy Birthday my beautiful princess. I can’t wait to see what THREE! has in store for us. (Yeah, I’m scared too. =) )

I heart Craigslist.

So, I’ve been sewing along on my Kenmore 385 just fine. And, really, it is JUST fine. But, I have been stalking an opportunity for an upgrade. Something that would be a little smoother to sew on, have some nifty features and so on.

And then, an ad on Craigslist caught my eye for this machine:

It is a Janome MC4800QC!!

The lady who sold it to me paid $1400. It was in MINT condition, she had even saved the original receipt! She included a walking foot, quarter inch foot and open toe darning foot. OH YEAH!!!

I got it for the steal of a price of $475.

I am in sewing heaven!!!

Kicking Booty….LCQA #8

This block was EASY peasy and fun to put together! Here’s mine:

A little baby quilt.

An acquaintance asked if I could make her a baby quilt for her to use as a gift for a friend of hers who had adopted a girl. Her requirements were that it included bees and purple.

So, after sending her some fabric options, this is what I put together:

(I realize my photos suck, and that’s something I plan to work on this year.) The front is flannel, which was MUCH more challenging to work with than I anticipated and the back is minky dot…again, challenging. I don’t love it, but someone wise once said, a good quilt is a finished quilt. I ended up tying it with some embroidery floss and I think it turned out well considering my level of expertise.

LCQA Blocks 6 and 7

Oh yeah…I’m kickin’ booty and takin’ names!!

Block 6 is a bit of disappointment to me, but it went together quickly. I’m not exactly sure what I don’t like about it, but I just don’t.

Block 7 was challenging and I really enjoyed putting it together. I am even impressed with how well I matched points!

Now my goal is to get 8-10 done before she posts block 11.

Mr. Butters.

I mentioned awhile back in my 2010 roundup, that we added Mr. Butters to our family, and that I would blog about it later. Well, it is MUCH later, but I wanted to wait and see how things worked out with him before I introduced him here.

Here’s the story of how Mr. Butters came to be a part of our family:

Our neighbor came over one day and said she had found a dog on their construction site and that he was a great dog but she couldn’t keep him. Apparently one of the workers took him to the kill shelter, and she sent another worker right down there to adopt him. This worker also couldn’t keep him long term but was committed to keeping him as long as it took to find a good home.

I’ll admit, I had been missing having a dog, but my heart was still broken over Zeus, and I wasn’t sure I was ready. But, I agreed to at least meet him.

The worker brought him over a couple of days later and I was less than impressed. He was beautiful, but ornery and ill behaved. We said we would think on it, but my heart wasn’t really into it except that my children were nearly instantly smitten with him.

I decided to look into training options and I found a board-in program that would keep him for 2 weeks and take him from unruly puppy to well trained dog. (Or at least closer to well trained dog.) The price was pretty reasonable, and after a lot of talk and begging from the children, we decided to go for it.

We picked him up the 26th of December from training, and he was indeed, a much different dog!

Since that time we have really grown to love him and accept him as one of our family. He only has a quite annoying habit of eating socks that we need to break him of, but other than that, he’s a delight.

Here’s our sweet doggie:

No one can tell us exactly what breed he is except that he definitely is a lab. We’ve been told he is mixed with bull mastiff, golden or a couple of other breeds and we’ve been told he’s all lab. I just think he’s cute.