It takes a village

I am so so pleased to show this quilt.  Mommy Neighborhood is my first ever bee quilt finish.  It is also the first that I have mixed hand and machine quilting. 

The texture of the hand quilting portion is pretty amazing.  I only wish I was a better photographer to capture the white on white.

But this Mommy Neighborhood quilt is so much more than the fabric choices and the quilting.  I am grateful to my friends that made some blocks for me:  Rachel, Sarah, Jessica, Anna, Keri, Karen, Vanessa, and Veronique.  These and other online knitting friends (Katie, Laura, Suvi, Jennifer, Sindu, Charity, and Sheryl) were there for me during my pregnancy and ever since Henry was born.  They all have children Henry's age and we've become friends through sharing our trials and joys in raising our kids.  They were there for me through insomnia, severe infection, postpartum depression, anxiety attacks and Henry's diagnosis of autism.  Their commiseration, humor, acceptance and encouragement have helped make me into the mom I am today.

Hillary Clinton said that it takes a village to raise a child.   
This quilt will hang on my wall and remind me of the village that it takes to raise a mom.  

Thank you, thank you, thank you to my friends.


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Notes about this quilt:

• the green strips of lawn were inspired by this quilt,
•  I have two tutorials posted for making tiny house blocks if you are interested:  one and two.

Barely coming up for air...

I'm *still* in the throes of holiday crafting.  Yes, the holiday was yesterday, but I don't see my family until next weekend---so their gifts aren't done yet.  I can tell you that if I manage to finish them all, it would be a post-holiday miracle.

Anyway, I have tons of photos to share and projects to write about, but I'm just popping in to show off one thing, my advent calendar:

This is from a tutorial by Elizabeth of Oh, Fransson! on the Sew, Mama, Sew! blog.



I used a variety of fabrics and highlighted more prints than the tutorial suggested.

I also changed the seam allowance for the pockets so more of the background fabric would be seen.  I chose a loopy quilting pattern rather than the meandering stitch.  This is the first time that I've ever used a free-motion quilting presser foot. 

There is a lot of room for improvement in my quilting technique, but I'm still pleased with how it turned out.






I used Kei honeycomb dots for the binding.  Don't you just love a good dot fabric?

This was the first time that I ever hand stitched the binding to the back of the quilt.  It really does look invisible.

I hope your holidays were delightful.  We've been busy reading books, playing with trains, dancing to Bing and doing "dishes!"  Henry would rather roll up his sleeves and drag a chair up to the sink than play with his toys.  Silly guy :)

Huge Crafting Post

I've been crafting like a busy bee over here, but have been slacking in the photographing and blog posting departments. It doesn't help that we've had a very rainy couple of weeks which makes for poor lighting for the pictures. Anywho...

I recently finished a picnic blanket using vintage sheets and very loosely using the instructions from Amanda Blake Soule's book, Handmade Home. I love, love, love the prints and colors. I also love using sheets that I've collected over many years of shopping at secondhand stores. Yay for thrifting!



That project has gotten use on a picnic and in the backyard already.

I whipped up this hat in three days for a baby shower at work. It is the same pattern as Henry's green hat and I'm thinking of making him another one (bigger of course).



I've also been knitting popcorn! Why? Well, I found a pattern for knitted popcorn and cranberry garland at Knitpicks. I love the look of fresh popcorn and cranberry garland, but I don't like it when it starts to fade and fall apart. I also have the worst time not breaking the kernels when stringing the popcorn. Solution: knit it!



I should have some new baby sweater knits and some handmade stamps to post here soon. Until then, I'll be busy crafting and waiting for sunshine.