Anyone Can Quilt

Cuckoo stitching.

Horray for cuckoo clocks!  I love them, but sadly don't have a real one of my own.  So to fill the little empty cuckoo clock shaped hole in my heart, I stitched one.  What else could I have done when I saw this adorable pattern?  I couldn't help myself. 

Hi little squirrel!  Don't eat that mushroom, it might be poisonous. 

Now, what to make with it?  I could make a little pillow, but of course my family would proceed to sit on it and smoosh the living daylights out of it.  You know how it goes.  You have pretty pillows on the couch, and you, in your infinite wisdom, know how to sit with the pillows.  You sit down right in front of them, being mindful not to smoosh them at a weird angle.  You sit in front, and then scoot back a bit, so the pillows are nestled evenly against your back.  Your precious family though, sit on the front of them and then sliiiiide forward and down, so when they get up the side view of your precious pillow looks like a deformed triangle. 

Next idea; a little wall quilt.  Oh yes, I will be saving my precious cuckoo clocks life, and it will be forever greatful.   And I think I've got just the perfect fabrics.  I'm off to go on a fabric hunt.  Fun!  x

An oldie but a goodie, and look at that weird little dog.

Hello my friends!  I have been such an absentee blogger these past few months.  You're all so sweet to stick with my infrequent postings.  I seem to go through phases of frequent inspiration and blogging, and then bouts of....well the opposite of that.  The quilting inspiration is still there, but sometimes I can't make myself take pictures and get them onto the computer.  So today I said, enough is enough!  I need to get something on this here blog!  So I pulled one of my favorite old quilts off of the couch and asked my girls to hold it up on the front porch for me. 

Apparently, Rosie wanted to help hold the quilt up.  But she's just too short.  And she doesn't have opposable thumbs.

"A little higher on the right please!"  She's so helpful. 

"Yo de la hee hooooooo!!!!"  She also has a fabulous yodeling voice. 

"What's that?!"  Does someone dare walk down the sidewalk on this fine summer day?  She might have to give them a what's for if they recklessly decide to walk in front of our house. 

False alarm, wait, is that a bug?

Do I smell an earthworm perhaps?  I like to roll around on a nice earthworm. 

I'll go check it out. 

What's that!? 

Oh that silly little girl of ours.  She cracks us up.  As do all of our animals.  We have six now.  SIX!!  That's a lot for us.  Dog, cat, two guinea pigs, rabbit, and a bird.  Phew.  But we love them all.  Poor kitty had to go to the vet recently, turns out he has a urinary tract infection, and a yeast infection in his ears.  Horrors, poor thing.  I've been enjoying giving him his medications as you can imagine (to him, ear drops = pure hell, and to make it even more evil, the ear drops have to be refrigerated).  Good times, I just love cat wrestling.

Now I'm worried about all of the neighborhood cats who hang around my house, the little angels who poop in my flowers.  They're always outside, I think most of them are stray cats, so they have noone to take care of them.  Noone to notice if they aren't feeling well.  I worry about these things.  I wish I could round up all of the stray cats, put them on a kitty bus, and get them checkups. 

Anyhoo, sorry to bore you with all of that.  About the quilt, it's one of my favorite patterns.  Super easy, but looks interesting still.  It's made of 5" charm squares, with little 2 1/2" squares sewn diagonally onto two opposite corners, then flipped back to make little triangles.  I'm wanting to make another one of these for the summer, I have the perfect charm packs waiting, Rose Parade by Moda.  The fabrics are so summery and cheerful.  I'll do a quick tutorial when I start that quilt for any beginning quilters who'd like to see how it's put together.  It's really easy!

I hope you're having wonderful weather, and that all of your furry and feathered sweeties are healthy.  And thank you for all who told wonderful bird stories on my post about little Stewart, I loved reading them!! xo

 

 

Cause it's more fun than laundry, that's why.

You know the feeling you have when you have a million things to get done around the house?  And it all seems to be growing exponentially?  If you're anything like me, you'll resolve to spend the day getting things done.  First up, the laundry.  You'll get on top of it today if it's the last thing you do.  With resolve you gather every last dark piece of clothing from around the house (or whites, whatever floats your boat) into your two arms cause you don't want to empty the laundry basket that is already full of clean clothes from last week... that you haven't yet folded, they're all wrinkly and such.  You try to get to the laundry room without killing yourself.  Of course you can't really see any dangers in your path (the cat) due to the huge amount of clothes in your arms covering your face.  But alas, you do finally get there, after many dropped socks (which are all properly cursed at). 

Now you feel like you've accomplished a little something, so you might as well go to your sewing room for a little break.  Then you end up perusing Etsy and finding the cutest embroidery pattern in the world.  For only $4 you can't resist purchasing it.  To make a long story a little shorter, as soon as the pattern was mailed to my inbox I was tracing the pattern onto some muslin and happily choosing felt and embroidery floss.  Did I have time for this nonsense?  No.  Do I really care?  Nope.  Am I happily stitching on an adorable cuckoo clock?  Yes.  Am I thrilled at the fact that there are jackalopes involved?  Absolutely. 

I love wool felt.  It makes me happy.  I ordered this stack from this wonderful Etsy shop.  She has so many gorgeous colors, it's hard to choose which ones to get!  My embroidery floss also makes me happy.  I won this super silky Cosmo floss from my friend Monica's giveaway last year.  Wow, it's sooo nice.  It costs more, but is so enjoyable to stitch with. 

I am messy.  But creative messes make me happy.  Unlike kitchen messes which were supposed to be cleaned up after the laundry.  Hey, that's what kids are for right? 

I'm slowly working on getting this quilt pieced too.  We're still (still!!) wrapping up the end of our homeschool year.  Only a couple weeks left!  Woohoo!  Then I'm hoping to get caught up on some quilts.  Of course, I always say that.  I know I'll be outside doing yardwork, going on camping trips, and canning jam.  Maybe finishing the laundry (that was a joke). 

I don't feel too guilty about stitching when I should really be doing other things.  It really recharges my mommy batteries.  Then when I do get back to housework, teaching my children algebra and cleaning up cat barf, I have more of a skip in my step, even a sense of calm.  After all, the little things really are the big things aren't they? 

I hope you give into some creative distractions this week.  Who needs clean socks anyway?  x