housing project continued

I'm still working on my Lazy Gal Summer class project. It has been fun creating these houses and exploring all the slightly different possibilities for house construction. I have made 19 houses so far, and have pulled fabric for six more. I think I will need more than six houses though. I have plans for making some thinner and taller ones.

housing project

I join Tonya’s Lazy Gal Summer class earlier this year. And now that I have my swaps under control, it is time to work on something else. It’s fun to start new projects. But I try not to start any before I finish up what’s already in progress. I have a handful of unfinished quilts, and I don’t want to add anymore.

The theme of Tonya’s summer class is repetition. I wanted to make houses. I have made lots of wonky log cabin houses, but I wanted to try the more traditional house block. After browsing through Collaborative Quilting by Freddy Moran and Gwen Marston (again), I was really fired up to start.
Here are the blocks so far:



I will square them up when I put the whole thing together. I think I want it to be snuggle-on-the-couch size. And I’m not sure if it will just be houses or if I will add other things yet. For the houses, I set up a few particulars about fabric. The main parts of the houses will be dotted fabric, yellow windows, black dotted roofs, color coordinated doors and the background will be lime/bright green. I want it to be fun but not chaotic.

More pictures on flickr

let’s call it science...

but in reality we call it life. Part of living is learning. Learning by discovery, by exploring, by observing, by touching, by seeing, by smelling even by tasting (but not in this case). One of my son’s morning chores is to put fresh water in the three birdbaths in the backyard. We have a birdfeeding station there also and enjoy watching the birds daily. From our dining table and family room, we are able to watch the birds come and go. The kids and I are pretty good at identifying the birds by their physical appearance but also by their behaviors and songs. We’ve been watching them for years. We have a running list of birds we see in our backyard and also a list of birds we have seen away from our home. This spring, we have the pleasure of watching several bird families raising their young. We have families of tufted tit mice, house finches, mockingbirds, Carolina wrens, Carolina chickadees and red-bellied woodpeckers.

Yesterday, Zach came in to tell me there were black dots in the pool. Much like these (this picture was taken today):



Upon further research we decided they were frog eggs. There were patches of them all over the pool. We have a frog living near our pool, and we had heard her the day before. The next time I see her (I’m assuming she's a she, and she's the one who laid the eggs), I need to identify her. So we put some in a jar with a little water, just to keep watch. Then I went and scooped the rest out – who wants to swim with frog eggs? Not me!



Last night, we checked on the eggs, and they had unfurled. I thought maybe they had died. But this morning you could see little tails and they were wiggling occasionally.



Also this morning, I went to check on the pool, and found more frog eggs, which were then scooped out. And while I was scooping I found this little dead baby bird.


(he has frog eggs on him)

This little one was too little to fly, and I have not seen a nest near enough for him to fall into the pool. I think maybe a predator had taken him and accidentally dropped him in the pool. So the kids watched while I turned him over and we observed his feathers, eyes, feet and opened his mouth. I asked Zach what kind of bird did he think it was. I was thinking Mockingbird, but I didn’t say anything. He said mockingbird, and after I asked why he pointed out his reasoning. Pretty good!

Now, if I had a dissecting kit (on my list of things to get), and I thought the kids could handle it, we would have opened up him.

I love sharing these moments with my kids. I love to see them learning by just living.

many thanks to you and you and you...

and you and you

I have received some really great packages lately. But I haven't properly written a bloggy thankyou. So without further ado lets start at the beginning...

From my good friend over at Crafty Turtle, I received a hu-uge box of fabrics. I don't have a picture of them, so let me tell you about them. My friend works at Crate & Barrel and I think some of these came from there via her own stash. She sent a bunch of upholstery fabric swatches and some large marimekko yardage. Both of these have somewhat overwhelmed me. I'm not sure what to do with them. So I have put them away and I'm letting my brain come up with some ideas. I already have one idea for some of the upholstery fabric. And I have a feeling some of the fabrics will be past on to some of my online sewing friends like you. Crafty Turtle understands passing on the fabric love, right? In the box there was also a salt and pepper picnic shaker set and some barnyard animal sprinkles which have been sprinkled on a lot of things already!

Next up is a package from the fabric fairy, Lucyellen06. My fabric stash was in need of some of her more quite, gentle fabrics. My fabrics tend to yell and be slightly annoying. But hers are more sophisticated than that. Aren't they lovely?




And here we have a wonderful scrap package from carol over at wip. She suggested that we swap a quart sized baggie of scraps. Pure scraps - not cutting into our stash. She sent me all of these great I spy fabrics. Some will be used for wonky i spy log cabins and some will be for my little houses. Aren't they great! I, on the other hand, flaked out and forgot to send any i spy fabric. I packed up the baggie for her without even thinking to look in my i spy box. I was just thinking scraps, scraps, scraps. Oops!




Continuing the runway theme, next in the spotlight is this great little mini quilt from Susan at chickenfoot. We are both participating in the mini quilt swap on flickr (she's one of the hosts), and we got excited and decided to have our own little swap. She promptly sent this little one to me, a mere 6 inches on each side. And I have promptly farted around and still haven't finished my end of the deal. Lame, no? Well, I worked on the quilting and binding last night and just have to finish hand stitching it to the back. Never fear! It will be on it's way in the next few days! Susan also included a vintage button card with three pretty aqua and white buttons on it. I hope I'm not supposed to keep them on the card, because I plan on using them!




And last (i know! aren't I horrible for not writing bloggy thankyous sooner?!), here is the mini quilt swap package from GoingSewCrazy. We are swap partners this month for the mini quilt swap. Look at her cute little quilt! Her embroidery stitches are so tiny and neat. And she bound it in polka dot fabric - the only choice in my opinion. She also included some great scraps and this sweet little spool doll. Cute Cute! I also owe her a mini quilt. And like Susan's mini quilt, it is in the final stages of binding, soon to be on its way.




Whew! That was a lot of thanking, but more importantly is was a lot of kindness sent to me by five wonderful women. Thank you kind ladies! and please forgive my tardiness in not thanking you sooner and sharing it on my blog. I know that I have thanked you each before now, and have posted pictures on my flickr page, but each of these gifts was deserving of a bloggy thank you.

helloooo....anybody still here?

I'm sorry that I haven't been around friend. How are you? I've been going through a funk. A no sewing, not much computering, and definitely not blogging funk. I've been resting, reading, planning school - trying to make sure I have my priorities straight. Trying to find the balance between my home life and resposibilities and my internet life of reading blogs, preparing for swaps, flickring. I know most of us go through this from time to time. I know I want to keep blogging, so I need to make a conscious effort to do so. So here we go....

I've been tagged for a few memes. How do you pronounce meme anyway? Is it mem or me me or meem or what?

this one is from Susan at chickenfoot

The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

1. what was i doing ten years ago?
(Zach was one, Billy and I had traveled to New York for a wedding in the spring, and we were buying our first and current house) ha ha, I was thinking about this post and realized that I had only gone back 9 years - oops. 10 years ago we were living in a tiny duplex and zach was just a few months old.

2.five things on my to do list today:
laundry, putting away all the clutter, schooling, sewing, taking the kids to gymnastics

3.snacks i enjoy:
chocolate chip cookies and milk, potato chips and dip, chocolate milk

4. things i would do if i was a billionaire:
restore a historic home for us to live in, RV around the US with the family, travel the world making the world our classroom, hire a fitness trainer, plan for our future and our children's future, try to live a normal balanced life so my kids don't grow up to be self centered brats

5.five places i have lived:
St. Petersburg, Fl and Gainesville, Fl (call me Mrs. Excitement)

6. people that i want to know more about:
people who read my blog!

OK friends, I will try to be a better blogger! Up next will be all the thank yous I need to say for all the wonderful mail I've been receiving.

And because I think every post should have a picture, here is one of me trying to muster up some sewing creativity. Can you tell what I'm making? I'll give you a hint. It's made out of logs and will be 6 inches square. One more hint. Mini Quilt Swap

i love my scrapbox

I've said in the past, on flickr, that I love my scrapbox. I have a printer paper box with a lid full of scraps. They have come from many places. My own sewing, quilt friends near and far (you know who you are), friend's mother's and grandmother's bits of stash, my own mother's hand me down scraps. My mother even gave me a shoe box full of 2" strips that she used for making log cabins. She said she was tired of them. And between you and me, I can see why! There are some ugly strips in there.



I like to create from my scrap box. It is like a treasure hunt to dump the box out and go searching for fun pieces. I create "wonky" log cabins from my scrap box mostly (here is a tutorial - not original but how I do it). But I have also created some of my smaller quilts almost entirely from my box. I love to use lots of fabrics when making something. Why use a fabric twice and definitely not three times in the same quilt. The more the merrier in my book. I love the scrappy look.

And I think I realized recently why I love my scrapbox so much. There is none of that "unfold a piece of fabic, iron it, cut what you need, fold it back up nicely, put it away nicely - repeat again and again and again....". I dump my box, dig, find what i want, maybe iron it, cut a bit off or use the whole thing, and throw the unused piece if there is any back into the pile on my bed, and stuff the whole mess back into the box when I'm done. And sometimes when I'm working from my box, I will take some of the bigger pieces and just cut strips from them and toss them back in so that they will be ready to use. A small part of me wants to slice up my whole stash! But that wouldn't really be using my scraps now would it? So I guess I will stick with my current set up.

My biggest goal right now is making a wonky scrappy I spy log cabin quilt out of my scraps. If you sew for any children in your life, you will have left over bits of usable i spy pieces for the centers, but you probably have lots of "leftover" pieces that no one wants to spy. Frog legs, horse butts, butterfly wings, puppy tails etc. Here is where you can use them up! I just slice all those leftover bits into "logs" for my cabins. So you can spy the centers and bits of other things too!


here you can see the cat and chicken, but do you also see the aligator, frog, cherries, stars and fish? None of those extra strips were big enough for anything, until now!

here is my quilt so far:



My box is getting quite full - stuffed to the gills is more like it. So my dear friends, I may in the near future, offer up small little envelopes of scraps to you for free! If there is any interest. And under the condition that you may get a few uglies in the mix. And that you may not send me anything! What do you think?




******important notice**********
You may have notice already, but if you haven't you will. I must confess, that I am horrible about responding to comments. I could say that I get too many to respond to - ha! not true. I could pretend that I'm too busy with life to get back to you. Again, not true. I mean, life is busy, but we are all busy and it is all about priorities anyway. The truth is........I'm a big fat lazy butt. It's true and you should know that. I do read my comments. I love my comments from you. And I do check you all out and see what you are up to on your blogs. And if I there is something that needs to be answered that is asked in the comments I will answer it at the end of the next post. Ok? Just so you know before we get to far in this relationship, I'm a lousy responder. Still like me?

creating

During the last few days of binding, binding, binding I've been thinking and planning what I want to work on next. What do I want to work on for me and my family, quilts and clothes, the 4 way swap, etc. So my brain has been going full force with ideas. I wouldn't let my self start anything new until all the binding was done.

Well, yesterday I was finally free! And I was paralized with what to do. Here I was with the time to work, and all I could think of was what could I tackle now? What is my next goal? What can I get DONE? I only have "x" amount of time, what should I do?

Thankfully, I was able to step back and really think about it and realize that I wanted to create. To play. To dive into my scrap box and see what happens. No goals, no deadlines, no finished product - just create. I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to make for my 4ws pals, so I decide to think about the mini quilt swap. The group had been trying to decide what the size range should be for the group. 6 inch square or a range, if a range what range? So I started to think about how much could I cram into a 6 inch square of space? Well, here is how much I can cram into a 6 inch square:



Little House


a side note about blogging: I spend (a lot of) time on flickr. I started with flickr, and now that I have a blog, I almost don't know what to do with it. My posts tend to be just slightly more than my flickr posts as far as content goes. So I'm trying to think about what I want to blog about, to share more than just pictures, to not treat it like an extension of flickr. So I'm trying bloggy friends.