a little inspiration

Since my last post was so heart wrenching, I thought that I better keep it light this time. Are you ready for some quilts from the Long Beach quilt show?

First though I have to say that I met Lizzie B.



They had the best booth, it was bright and colorful and completely over-the-top, I could have spent all day there! I bought a pattern from them "Be Creative" and I am already working away on it. It will be a great addition to my new cubicle so that I don't have to stare at boring walls all day. Plus, since I will be in the creative dept. how much better could it be!

Also in her booth was Mary from Marin & Colusa. My mom has known her for years, and she is one of my very few followers!! It was great to get to see her demoing her new stitching lines. If you do a lot of half square triangles check them out... oh, don't forget to look at her patterns too.

The quilts were a little too improve and not enough piecing skills for my tastes, but the following quilts grabbed me enough to photo, so get a cup of cocoa, and sit back for your virtual quilt show.

Two Weeks Notice

For the last 6 years I have had the privilege of staying at home with my 2 beautiful girls. There were many times in the first few months that I dreamed longingly of going back to work. I have taken in a few jobs over the years but always with my kids with me, I got to watch a friends twins in my home, I worked in the children's dept. at our church, and I have done freelance graphic design. But now, I have to get a real job. I always thought I had one, but since I only got paid in kisses and hugs, it doesn't help to pay the mortage.

So starting August 3rd, I will be one of those women who choose a career over spending the day at home with her kids. My heart is breaking. I keep trusting God that this is his plan, BUT I WANT MY PLAN! I go to sleep in a state of anxiety worrying about them, I wake up all jittery still worrying. But with this recession, there are no guarantees that my husband will have a job next week, and with his hours already having been cut for summer, we needed to make some changes. So someone else will give them hugs when they're hurt, will get to read them stories, and will listen to the funny things they have to say. I miss them already!

I have always wished we had the money to do more for them. Unfortunately, now we won't have as much time to do it. Sigh.

In the words of Anne Shirley,

"I am considerably rumpled in spirit".

Kami

The Reveal

My baby is already 6 years old. I can't believe it has been that long since my life has been turned upside down. And although life is different, I realize I'm right side up again and life has never been better.

In six years I have learned that

kids ask a lot of questions, and they really do want them answered

even the tiniest of scratch hurts, and the ouchie has to be shown off for days

and that I love to tickle little tummies, armpits, knees, necks, feet, sides...

Katelyn had a lovely day with her cousin Hannah playing in the pool, with little toys on beach towels, back in the pool, eating Hawaiian pizza for dinner, and swimming yet again! Finally, she opened her presents, and we got her an American Girl Doll. Rebecca is the newest historical character and looks amazingly like Katelyn. Because the clothes are almost as expensive as the doll, I chose to make her another outfit for her American girl so...

May I introduce, Rebecca, now modeling the Miniture Selvage Dress.

I still need to hem everything. Because I had already wrapped the doll, it was best to not guess on the exact length of sleeves and skirt so if you see a few stray threads ignore them. I was shocked at how long it took to sew the selvages together. It "seams" so easy, but I really wanted a good mix of dots, and words, and of course I tried to find selvages that were just the right length rather that getting out my long ones. Will I use them again? Definately. Just give me a chance to find the flat surfaces on my sewing table first. My selvages had a way of exploding out of the basket.

Have a great day,

Kami

Sew many dots

Here is the final clue to the selvage project.

I am giving it as a gift tomorrow to Katelyn as part of her 6th birthday present.

Any more guesses?

And I had to include this blue selvage on a conspicuous location, it has a quote from A.K. Rush "Creativity is really the structuring of magic." It is so perfect for Katelyn who lives for craft time.

Also, I am a winner! Yellow Bird Quilts was having a givaway and I won one of their prizes. I really have no idea what to make with the beautiful fat quarters they sent me. I usually don't buy Asian prints, but these are lovely. What would you make with them?

Kami

An All Sewing Day...kinda

Yes, from about 10 am on I was able to sit quietly with very few interuptions and just sew. Unfortunately, I was on a hard plastic chair in the ER.

About a 1/2 hour after my DH woke up he had a grand mal seizure and after calling emergency services, an ambulance arrived to take him to the hospital. Let me tell you I was a shaky nervous wreck, thankfully the neighbor across the street came over when she saw all the emergency vehicles and watched the kids while I showered and packed. I grabbed my applique bag and a couple of books, clothes for Jason and left just as my dad showed up to watch the girls for the day. What I really wish I packed with everything else was my ipod. Jason dozed in between the docs doing their thing so I got to sit and sew while listening to beeps and the quiet conversation from the nurses across the aisle. I would have loved music, or an audiobook to help the time pass.

Thankfully, he is home and resting well tonight. He had to have a 5 hour drip of phosphates because his levels were "critically low". But he's stable and we are looking forward to a slew of doctors appointments over the next few days. I just hope he stays that way.

So here is your next clue for the selvages. I was first inspired to collect selvages because of Jodie at Vintage RicRac. Look around and you might find my inspiration piece. I am choosing pink as my coordinating color.

Kami

Home again!

I just started trying to post on my blog when I stopped to take a drink of water from my glass. Well in the 2+ hours since I last took a sip, a spider moved in and started making a web. I didn't notice until it started crawling on my NOSE!! I am now sufficiently freaked out.

It is nice to be back home from vacation. Did I forget to mention that I was leaving? We spent a lovely week in Shaver Lake relaxing with family, fishing, boating, and roughing it in our tent. Actually, the weather was lovely, warm durning the day when we wanted to play on the water and cool in the evenings when we could snuggle into sleeping bags. Well, all except Alyssa. From the time she was little, she has never been able to tolerate blankets on her legs... So here are some picts taken in the middle of the night when I kept needing to get up to tuck her back in.

I admit, she looked okay, but it was chilly enough that I kept hearing her thrashing because she was cold. So I would cover her, and a couple of nights before I could even fall back asleep, I could hear her kicking her little feet out again.

Do you notice how in the second picture she is buried under her blanket to try and keep warm. Silly girl. By the end of the week, I just layered her in extra jammies and we both slept through the night.

Like any vacation, this one passed in a blur. There were not nearly enough hours in the day to have all the fun that we had planned. I packed oodles of games, and we only got to play a handful. My mom brought lots of cards that she designed for us to craft with and there wasn't enough time for that. My book didn't get finished until the drive home... But we spent lots of time on the lake shore. Although the water was cold the girls kept going in and swimming, and they loved going riding on the wave runner. The highlight of the trip was the 8 passenger boat cruise around the lake with all of us and Aspen, my brothers' dog. While we liked the coves and floating in the water with no one else around, Aspen was bored. However when we stopped at a deserted island and let her off the leash, Aspen became hyper. Extremely! All week, Katelyn was tolerant of her but a little scared with her on the leash. With this beige blur racing around her on the island, she became hysterical--tears, shakes, screaming.... I could barely get her to walk back to the boat she was so afraid that Aspen would take a short cut and come racing past her again.

Does that look like the face of a killer? I didn't think so either.

I am still itchy thinking a spider is crawling on me. I killed it and can't stop feeling it's little legs tickling my neck. EEWWWWW!

Finally, the laundry is all done; mountains and mountains of laundry. I have washed enough that I have now run out of space to put clean clothes in the girls drawers, so it is time to go through AJs drawers again and see what she has outgrown.

But I thought I deserved a little fun, so here is your trivia question of the day. I have started sewing something together. Any guesses what I am going to turn this into?

I know this last photo is blurry, but I really like the soft colors that show up on the back side when sewing the selvages together. I wish it would show in the finished project.

Kami