One of my two Works In Progress

 

Well I've been working on this one for a very long time - in my head. I found these sweet little reproduction fabrics with dogs on them a little over a year ago and thought they would make a nice little quilt. Since then I've been trying to collect other prints to coordinate with these dogs. I' was kind of going for a more contemporary feeling to bring these little guys more up to date and I wanted to stay in the same color families using tone-on-tone prints just for stability. You wouldn't think blue fabrics would be so hard to find but this weekend I finally gave in and settled on my last three fabrics. I still don't really care for these last three but I've put it off long enough and need to get something done. I won't tell which ones they are but you can probably figure it out if you look close enough.
I cut and sewed for most of the day and then tonight when I was trying to figure out my layout, decided that I didn't like what I was going toward and ended up ripping it all out and starting over. So here's my first block and I think I'll be happy with this. I still don't have an overall picture of what this quilt is going to look like but it's a start. If you haven't figured out by now, I don't really like to use patterns because most of the time I buy my fabric before I know whant I'm going to do with it and when I find fabrics I like, I'd rather just put them down how I see them in my head. When I find a pattern I like, I'll find fabric to go with it afterwards.

 

My original plan was to make this quilt and donate it to the Ozarks Berry Festival Quilt Auction this summer but I'm not sure if it will be done in time so it may have to wait another year.

 

Just for fun, here's a cute pic of Char as we were getting ready to start dyeing some Easter eggs.

Another blanket, a new technique

So this is a blanket that I made for one of my friend's new baby boy. Technically it's called a "Rag Quilt" and the ragged edges are supposed to get softer with each wash. It's made up of three layers: cotton on the front, flannel in the middle, and minky/ chenille on the back - makes for a pretty heavy blanket.
My mom made Charlotte one when she was born and I'd seen a simpler pattern similar to this online. I thought it looked easy enough to figure out with out any instructions so I went for it. It took much longer than I expected and was much harder than I expected, with much re-working, but I think it turned out really well. Since I had so much trouble with it, I vowed not to do another one for a very long time and definately not until I had some better instruction on how to join the corners - but we all say things we don't mean. I haven't looked at these pictures since I put the blanket in the mail and now looking back at them, it makes me want to do another. At least next time, I'll know better what NOT to do!

Just a close up of the ragged edges on the front.

Here's a close up of the back side: the light blue is the minky dot and the brown is just a soft chenille.

My first knitted creation!

So I've been taking a knitting class the last three Saturdays. It's been very basic but I think I can figure the rest out. We each made a stocking cap of our choice. Here's mine:

You can't really tell, but the bottom couple of inches are a rib stitch which I really like.

Once I get the basics down pretty well, I'll try using different colors and all of that good stuff!!

A baby cousin for Charlotte!!!

Check out Val's blog, so excited!!!
http://jonandvalsmith.blogspot.com/

Family Fun Night at Daycare

Friday night the Sunshine House hosted a family night for everybody to come out and have some fun. They had games, prizes, and snacks set up in each of the rooms. It was fun to visit the other rooms and with the other parents and teachers - usually I'm only there long enough to drop off and pick up.

This is the toddler room that Charlotte just moved out of in January. She wanted to stay in here all night, I guess she missed all the fun stuff, but I think she missed her teachers most of all.


The is Curly, the guinea pig in the older kids' room - looks just like Linny on The Wonder Pets! He only came out long enough to grab his carrot and get back in.


This was the fishing game with Miss Dawn. She won a great big bag of candy on her first try!


This was the cup-cake walk in the Twos room. Charlotte won a cup cake on her first try again, Thanks Miss Chantelle!


Her momma taught her how to eat cupcakes the right way!


This was the wall painting station with Miss Amber. Char started painting the floor but we eventually made it to the wall.



This is her favorite teacher from the toddler room, Miss Lori. Apparently since we've moved out of the toddler class, Charlotte still has to have her "Lori" fix every morning before she's ready to start the day in the Twos room.
Miss Lori painted her a pretty tulip and Miss Jennifer painted her a pretty flower on her hand. Charlotte went to every room and showed everyone her "pretty" flower. So cute!


All our faves: Miss. Lori, Miss Jennifer, and Miss Lisa.
Jennifer helps Lori with the toddlers and Lisa used to be in there when Charlotte first started. Now Lisa's the assistant director but this week she's going to be back with Char in the twos for a little while.Yea!!


Our new teachers: Miss Amber and Miss Chantelle

December Catch-up

Alright, Here are just some fun pics from December

Char found my bag of hair-things and thought she needed to put ALL of them on. And yes, she did this all by herself, I was in the other room and came in to find this...


This was at our friend's Ryan and Keisha's 30th Bday party.



Gingerbread house building. Charlotte was mad bc I made her stop eating candy for two seconds to take a picture.

After the gingerbread house, we put together our one outdoor decoration - the penguin. It was a nice enough day to just sit and hang with him for a few minutes. Yep, that's candy cane all over her mouth.

At the Fayetteville Square.

The miniture pony on the square

The pony rides we tried out in October, still not quite ready for them.


Our House



We dog sat for Val so each of the dogs got their pic taken in front of the tree.
Here's Buster

Barkley

Oscar

and Boscoe


Charlotte and I went down to Lonoke for my mom's side of the family's Christmas dinner.
We got to Lonoke a little early before the party so we found this little park and stopped to play for a while.






Here's a pic of the sunset on the way. All of those tiny black spots on the water were ducks.

My cousin's deer


My dad found this funny little trike and decided it would be fun to push Charlotte around on it. It was fun until she crashed a few too many times.

Jonathan is such a good sport to play with Char so long



Our newest ornament, thanks to a church gift exchange. I do love some Chick-fil-a!!

Christmas at our house






Charlotte wanted to help put the sit 'n spin together.

Then she wanted me to try it out.