so sweet....

A long time ago....
when Cornelious was about 9...
he is 22 now....
He wanted to make a quilt too. Now that was a long time ago,
I don't remember the details....I must have shown him how to cut it and then let him loose on the sewing machine.
I might have recommended this block, something fairly simple.

When he finished, he really was finished....he's never attempted another quilt.
It was very wavy and crooked....I wasn't sure what to do with it or how to quilt it. I hadn't been quilting that long myself at that point.....I loved it...but was stumped.
It was a wonky quilt before wonky was even close to being "in style"....before people started making blocks that were "off" on purpose.
So it was put in the box of sewing stuff and there it stayed all those
years.

Not to long ago I went digging....and found the distorted little quilt top. Just as sweet as I remembered it to be.

Only now I knew what to do. I would iron and steam the crap out of it....
and steam it some more.....
I made it lay nice and flat.

Now this where the quilting purist will shriek and cringe in horror (mom).....



I machine quilted it.

Yes I did....and I love love love the way it turned out.

It is just so darn sweet!

another mini....

I am not a big beer drinker....really....but I am surrounded by those who partake on a regular basis.
Gwen's middle son has started making his own beer.
He has a micro-brewery set up at home.
I was able to taste some of his brew over Christmas.
That is why this little quilt is on its way to Gwen's.....it is in the mail.
Then she can give it to him!

His name is on the back so she won't accidentally forget to give it to him.

string blocks

Last week, when I was gathering up skinny scraps, I felt like trying some string blocks. A long time ago I tried using muslin for the base....that seemed so thick when I finished.

So this time I tried it on paper. Plus they were small....only 4 inches finished. Heaven forbid I jump at it in a big way.

They were fun to do. I made 12 of them.

Karen recently jumped in too.

In a big way.....

Hers are 8 inches.

We both agreed that our favorite part was trimming these weird shaped blocks back down to a perfect square.

I am pretty sure she will go for a whole big quilt. I love the start of it!



I ended up using 4 of mine to make a small table top sized quilt. It is about 16 inches square.

I don't know what I will do with the other 8 blocks. For now they are tucked away until further notice....waiting to come back out....to be part of something big or small.

I sewed the border the same way...on paper....and look at this.....

there is even binding on it!!!

mini heart quilt....

This is a very easy to assemble mini quilt.

I will tell you what I did....

the link for Mrs. Moen's directions are at the bottom of this post.

I grabbed a scrap piece of batting from near my sewing machine.

I applied some heat and bond (cut to roughly the same size)....

then started laying scraps of fabric on it, overlapping slightly.

Everything was then ironed down.

Since it was for an aniversary, the words happy love were stamped on.

Becareful of little b's d's p's and q's....they can be confusing.

anyway....

I used acrylic paint, it dries quickly.The next layer was tulle. I used white and it was a "finer holed" kind....

Mrs. Moen's looked like bigger gaps on hers. I seemed to work just the same.

I also used my favorite wavy stitch, not straight lines like the origonal.

When the wavy stitching was all done, I marked a heart in the center.

I zigzagged a couple times around the heart sewing down this funky, hairy yarn.

Then I put the binding on. The whole thing only took a couple hours.

http://mrsmoenhowtos.blogspot.com/search/label/Make%20a%20Heart

I think next time I will use lighter fabrics...then I can stamp more words all over it.
I am guessing this is about 12 x 12 inches.

snow drift gaffitti

This is along hiway 18 here in Iowa.

We have recieved enough snow and wind this year to create

LARGE
HUGE

GIGANTIC

drifts of snow.

This is one of the bigger ones I have seen.

Big walls of snow along the highway where they have cut out the drift.

So what does one do with a wall of snow?

Well, one thing would be.... to write on it.

Temporary graffitti walls.

how handy is that? come spring it all disappears....

That's sweet...God is good......


Hmmm.....Beer is great. OK.....Some like it.... some don't...

But people who live in Iowa....

what??!!

people who live in Iowa are what???!!!

Are Crazy!!

what a dumb little poem, it doesn't even rhyme!!!

district individual speech

I spent the bulk of Saturday at more speech competitions. Crispy had decided to do this individual thing too. No groups here...you are all alone up there in front of the judge.

His coach even made him a poster to hang up while he did his Expository Address...and no I don't know how to pronounce that. It is basically a how to speech.
His speech was about how you can use the guitar to meet girls. He did a great job with it...the judge like his animated facial expressions as he delivered the speech. I found myself giggling and laughing through out it.

Sheric and Joe (no relation)......

Sheric did his on Mousetrap Cars. I never knew there was a competition with these little homemade cars. They are powered by the snapping of a mousetrap.

Joe was a nervous wreck...he signed up for Spontaneous Speaking. You draw a subject out of the hat and go with that. He ended up with "Will Toyota survive"

What a relief that was. He knew enough about that to make a coherent speech.

I grabbed a picture of the results sheet. Ones!
The majority of the kids from our school, "Q", recieved ones....which means in two weeks they will be at the state competition....so tractor joe and I will be going on a 3 hour road trip to get there....

And....

this is the best part.....

Yes I will be checking and searching for geocaches hidden down that way!!

preschoolers color and paint....

Our preschool teacher was going to be gone on Monday. A good time to make a surprise for her and our classroom.
Over the weekend I cut 5 1/2 inch squares of muslin. Then ironed on 5" squares of freezer paper....(this made the coloring easier on the muslin.)
We are working on numbers right now.....I had these 4" inch stencils at home. I did the numbers 1-12 with a black crayon.
Their job was to.....
1. color the number with a crayon.
2. paint the fabric with plain water to get the square wet.
3. then paint the square and make it colorful.
I watered down the regular paint at school so it has a dyed look. Our water color paint is really used and has a "muddy" color to it, mostly the yellow. I had no idea if that would work well or not, but it did. We were able to get pure yellow and even pink that way. I brought them home and ironed all of them. Then trimmed them all to 5 inches square. I had some sparkly/glittery blue star fabric to use. (thank you Gwen) Since preschoolers are drawn to sparkly/glitery things I thought that would be perfect.
I took this picture as the sun was setting last night....thats why there are pins holding down the binding. If I wanted a natural light photo for the best color I needed to take the picture right now. The binding is the backside of the fabric...it matches, yet is different.
It is going to school with me today. Won't our teacher be surprised!!