Hopscotch

The Hopscotch Top from Oliver + S. Might possibly be my favorite pattern of theirs.

Well, next to the Swing Set top...The pants are the pj pants from the Bedtime Story pj pattern.

Fabric is City Weekend Interlock by Oliver + S.

I'm not bragging when I say I made two tops and one pair of pj pants in one day, I tell you this so you can know how easy this pattern is!! It looks like it might be difficult because it's knit fabric but it's not.

 After making these I went to the basement to see if I had anymore knit fabric. Sadly I don't :( I'm itching to make more! I am in the process of making more out of the contrasting dots but I'd like some different prints. I love this style so much. And I especially love Ava's color combo. Emily's combo is just ok to me. She loves it and she actually picked out which one she would have.

 How sweet is this fabric??? And Ava?? Ava doesn't get a full shot because she's wearing pj pans with panda's on them and they so don't match! Have I mentioned how much I love this pattern? Oliver + S patterns always have a great fit. Notice the shoulder seams on this top? Perfect. Usually with other patterns the seam would be way past their shoulders. And this knit is sooooooo soft!!!! Oh, both shirts are a size 5.

Below is the quilt for my sister. It's missing it's borders but the picture below this one shows what they will look like. The pattern is Flowers in The Garden from here.

One of the shams below. The fabric is Pure by Moda. Hopefully I'll be quilting it myself in January.

Today is Jon's birthday! He turns...38!

A tree quilt and Christmas Morning

The "lovely little forest quilt" pattern is from here (purlsoho) 

and the Gnome paper-pieced pattern is from here (artisania) .

I didn't long-arm it, a lady in Montana did.

The back. Not a good photo but you can at least see the quilting.

** edited 10/2016 to add approx quilt dimensions 

and how it's laid out***

So just to recap: the LOVELY LITTLE FOREST QUILT PATTERN is from purlshoho (click here) and it's free. It's a small wall hanging so I made 4 and put those 4 into a quilt.

The GNOMES are a paper-pieced FREE pattern from Artisania (click here) I made 3 or 4 and sprinkled them in the quilt where a tree would go.

Below is a diagram of the quilt. Please understand that I did all measurements AFTER quilt was made so these measurements are APPROXIMATE! 

1/4 seams are included in the measurements.

Christmas morning. Santa is kind of a pig. He just stuffed their Santa bags and ran!

Checking out each others toys.

Emily got a dinosaur holding a blankie and teddie bear from Papa J and Grammie Dar.  And Ava got some super soft hand puppets from Aunt Julia and Uncle Steve.

Uncle Jeff and Cousin Jevin got her these monster feet clompers. We had these when we were little but they were made from large cans and rope.

The other day I sent them outside to play in the snow armed with squirt bottles filled with colored water. You can't see it very well but they squirt it all over the snow. You have to put a lot of food coloring in it or it'll be too faint.

At the Schweinfurt Christmas Market.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas!

Seven Pj's

Pj set made for a friends little girl. Ava is just modeling it. The white tee is from H&M and the bear is cut out from the flannel left over from the pants. This has to be one of my most favorite flannels.

A pj set for Ava below.

I bought these kitty shirts in different colors at H&M for 5 euro each to be worn with the pants I made.

This flannel below is soo sweet and girly. It goes with the bunny/kitties/bears one.

All the pj bottoms are flannel. Pattern is Oliver + S Bedtime Story pj's.

The 3 on the left are for Emily and the two plus the floral ones she's wearing are for Ava. I ran out of elastic...

I had been saving the bunny fabric above but finally cut in to it. It's called Dumb Founded Bunnies. How can you cut up fabric with that name??
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I've been working on my sister's birthday quilt. The fabric is this and the pattern is this. It's going to be 102"x102"!!! And so beautiful!

His beak blinks like a blinking beacon!

I finally finished this stocking! Everyone else's is done but mine had been sitting for 2 years I think half completed. I am VERY happy with how it came out so I'm actually glad I waited. I used a basic-sized hole punch plus one size larger and one size smaller to make the dots on the tree (thank you Laura C. for that tip!). My friend Dara's mom is the one who did the name embroidery.

I photo copied some Island of the Misfits fabric that Jess had given me a while back and then used the photo copy as a pattern for Rudolph and the plane. I tried to make the tree exactly like the one on the fabric. Damn, I just realized I forgot to put Rudolph's antler nub on. Now I just need to remake the kitties stocking..any ideas? There are no cats in that movie. There is a lion though...

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You can see how big the frames are in this picture!

I know this might offend some but I have to say it. Ava's big thing right now is to say:

"Oh my God!"

And she says it when it doesn't apply.

The other night Emily put 20 hair clips (Ava calls them kippy-kips) in Ava's hair. Ava comes in the kitchen to show me and Jon, saying "look at my hair, it's so pretty, oh my God!"

It was really really funny!

Should I shave my stash?

Or wax it?

I'm talking about my Mustache Ornament of course!

I got the stash template from here. I cut two out of black wool felt and then glued them together sandwiching a tiny piece of cardboard in between.

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Keep Calm and Eat a Cookie

Our Christmas cards. I got the idea to make it after playing around here. And here is a brief explanation of What "Keep Calm and Carry on" is. I sent Kelly the Half Eaten Gingy pattern from Elsie Marley and she made it into what you see above. I ordered them from Snapfish. Thank you for your help Kelly!

 

I guess the above inside message is not funny if you don't know Ava.

Basically you are being wished a badly-behaved Christmas:)

Last night was Jon's unit Christmas party were two lovely ladies cut in front of us in the Santa line. Not by accident either. They just walked up and got between me and the next person. No I didn't say a thing for reasons I don't want to get into but I was so pissed off I wanted to leave right then and there. All I could think of was "welcome to schweinfurt!". I know there are mean people everywhere but it was my first unit function, my first time around his work people.

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Emily borrowed that dress from her friend Cheyenne.

Doesn't Santa look seriously retarded? Look at his eyes..

Pink Frosted Cuteness

Is it OK to be so in love with something you made that you can't stop looking at it? 

 I LOVE these donut ornaments!!!! And Jon also really liked them! That's always a bonus:)

The pattern is from here just photo copied at I think 70% to make them nice and small.

I used wool felt.

Yesterday the girls went to the dentist for the 1st time! They were soooo good. I had to put in Emily's records that she had a seizure a while back. The dentist, after looking at her teeth, said that Emily probably chipped two teeth when she fell while having the seizure. Apparently there are two teeth that kids usually chip when they fall. She's not had any bad face plants except the seizure..so we think. When she fell and I turned around at the sound of it, I swear she was rolling over from her stomach on to her back. But who knows. I don't have the best memory and could be embellishing on what really happened!

 Ava actually did better than Emily. Emily got scared at one point and when I told her I was right here and everything's OK she got all dramatic and cried some which I think an attention thing. But Ava was in love with the slug suction thingy. Slug being Emily's word for drool. In the picture below she's holding it. She didn't cry or get upset or try to get down.



Sushi Ornaments

I made these felt sushi ornaments a while back but wanted them to get to their new owners house first before posting.

They are for my friend Jocelyn. I have fond memories of us eating at Rick Shaw Corner in Tierrasanta where we lived and went to high school. She would eat  20+ California rolls and I would eat bowl after bowl of plain white sticky rice with tons of soy sauce.

I made Emily and Ava a Totoro hair clip. They love this movie along with Ponyo. Uh oh, I see a free beanie pattern here. Too bad I don't crochet...

 A mushroom tree in the kitchen. The round boxes are from Ikea this year.

My "ode to Emily" shelf.

I was never satisfied with the way these were framed  before (don't they look better now?) so I ordered larger prints (20"x30" from kodak gallery) and had them re matted. In case you don't see a difference, the photos are larger thus making the mats smaller:) When inserting Ava's picture back in the frame I accidentally scraped a strip off the front of the picture in two spots. You can see one of them in the left hand corner of her picture. I almost cried. Now I have to reorder the picture again.

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This morning, Ava woke up and came into the kitchen, pointed to some mini Reese's peanut butter cups my sister sent us (and i swear Julia, they accidentally broke open so I HAD to start eating them and couldn't wait till Christmas day) anyway, she pointed to them and said
"I want THOSE in my mouth".
"I WANT THOSE IN MY MOUTH MAMA!"
punctuated with weird eye-rolling.
I think I'll start talking like that.