The Learning Quilt

For some reason I decided to make a quilt. I think it was because I had birthday money left and thought I would buy fabric-that and Walmart now has precut fabric. So nice of them. I bought three pieces that I liked and then cut them using the folded marks on them because I don't like to measure so it seemed like the easiest thing to do and at first it worked. Well the first purchase did and I am sure the second would have had aiden not discovered what I was doing and needed to help me sort the squares from the rectangles. (Lately, we have made every project into a learning activity. Usually, she starts it and then I just go with it. She loves patterns and she then figured out I had a pattern going -well I did until the day before when she "helped" me by watching and I don't know what happened. Lesson learned-sewing is a one man sport in this house it does not need to be a team effort.) Anyway, the first 5 rows look good as far as alignment-stitching is a different story. The last two are all out of whack but I was tired of this project and ready to move on to my next one. Today I ran to Walmart in the rain with Aiden and the boys and picked up the backing and the batting. And tonight I put it all together. There are so many problems and errors with this that I could not list them all. My initial plan was to make something the boys could lay on and play in the living room because of the hardwoods. But in the last few weeks they have started scooting and are not staying on anything for long. So now it will become the blanket in the bottom of the pack n play. I know the backing is not a perfect color choice but I just grabbed something. I have some spots to fix on it in the morning. My sewing time is limited to when everyone is awake since I have to sew in the kitchen. Despite all the errors, I am sadly proud of this little quilt (can you call it a quilt if it is not quilted in the back? It will be tomorrow-maybe.) I wasn't trying to make it perfect. I was trying to teach myself to sew and to use the machine without wanting to kill it or break things (I only threatened it and called it stupid once.) I learned how to fix the machine problems-who knew there were different size bobbin spools...well I would have had I read the manual all the way through. Had I purchased all of my supplies prior to starting, I would not have taken too long to make it despite the day the bobbin fought back and the the upper thread coming unthreaded all the time. But I figured it all out.




Anyway, here is the Learning Quilt (the black dot is where Aiden laid her washable marker on it "accidentally"). Don't look at it too closely or it will scare you.

The misadventures with burlap

A few weeks ago while we were in Tractor Supply, I found burlap bags for a dollar each. I had been wanting to make the burlap cross for my front door and thanks to the most wonderful website in the world -Pinterest-I had many other ideas for burlap. I wanted a candycorn, a pumpkin, a Santa hat, etc. So I snuck in and started cutting out my first Candycorn. It was smaller than I needed but I was trying to conserve my burlap and it was a trial run. And then my helper found me. Which ended up turning into a lesson on mixing colors to get the right colors we needed...we needed orange and I had yellow and red. So she wanted to paint and I realized that I have never really crafted with Aiden. Evan has always hogged it and it became a fight or a bigger chore so our crafting was limited to whatever they do at church. So I let Aiden paint and paint she did. When she wasn't painting she informed me that she needed to be painting. So the first candy corn was small and I really didn't like my decorating. The second looked more like an egg-so I know what I am doing for Easter. Then I decided to tackle the cross. I learned that burlap is easier to cut in singles and not doubled up. It was hard to cut out and then I painted it red (because I had the most of that color) and put black dots on it. I couldn't decide if it reminded me of a ladybug or a watermelon. So I tossed all of those and cut out letters today for Aiden to have something to do. These are the results. I told her we would glue them together, glue some ribbon on and they will be Christmas ornaments. I still have some scraps and if I can get back to Tractor Supply and they have bags then I am going to get a few more. Aiden loved painting and her favorite thing was when I found clear glitter paint to cover the letters. Oh, I was a rock star for a few minutes. The girl loves her sparkles.

Here are her ornaments (she chose the colors and we need to trim up some strings that escaped when painting)

My Next 30 Years

Last Saturday I turned the Big 3 0. It was not as traumatic as I thought it would be-maybe since I was so tired and never thought about it until Mike reminded me or I had to console Aiden that I was not going to look like an old lady overnight. I woke up with heartburn and my back was so sore I could not move-four kids laying on me at various times. So I felt old Saturday and I was in a really foul mood. In the midst of all of the fighting I was breaking up (a typical Saturday around here now that that is the only time the girls are really together) I came up with my To Do list for my next 30 years. (This is not in the order of importance).

1.) learn to sew -I did this week. Not hard at all-I guess I was just not mature enough in my 20s.

2.) Eat at the Lady and Sons

3.) Cook with Paula Deen in her kitchen.

4.) Meet Ian Somerhalder-and not get arrested while doing so.

5.) Visit the Vampire Diaries set-it is so close. I am pretty sure I can be there and back before dinner.

6.) Go on a long road trip to Wyoming and Montana.

7.) Go back to Hilton Head Island. Quite possibly the most laid back place I have ever been.

8.) Master this gardening thing.

9.) Be crafty-I am trying but it just hasn't clicked yet.

10.) Break free of my jeans and t shirt/velour pants and jacket and tshirt look.

11.) Be brave enough to have red hair.

12.) Learn to ride a horse

13.) Wear really large hats in my late 50s.

14.) Wear linen with my really large hats.

15.) Set time out of my day for my Bible time-reading my Bible app at 6:30 every morning does not count.

16.) Have legs like Heidi Klum

I was hoping to come up with 30 things. One for each of my next 30 years but I went blank after 16. Maybe that is a good thing though. With that many I have enough time to focus on everything.