WanderingGarden: January 2012

Friday, January 27, 2012

Happenings

Andrew won an annual award at work. We are all very very proud of him!

Gavin has his birthday party tomorrow. If the weather holds he will get to have his cousins here from CO for it! :o)

Andrew and I are starting to work with the youth at church. This is exciting and challenging.

Seth is making good progress with learning to read and is starting to see himself as a reader.

Gavin has decided he is learning to read, also.
He also cut the dog's fur when he was supposed to be coloring... Sigh.

I will be having surgery in one week on my sinuses.
I am feeling very overwhelmed with everything happening in the next couple of weeks.

Marley is really settling in nicely and is such a good dog!

Friday, January 20, 2012

Brothers at play.

Haircuts, part 1 and 2

Gain wanted something longer on top so he could do stuff with it.

Seth wanted me to stop after I trimmed up around his ears. After it dried Daddy and I agreed it looked funny.

Gavin continued to get compliments on his hair, including his faux hawk that he wore to church on Sunday, so Seth decided on something similar. And here are some silly pics from after his and Daddy's haircuts...

Puppet Show

Seth made a couple of puppets for scouts and helped Gavin make one the next day. I got my very own puppet show!

The pupeteers!

Making toys.

Seth and Gavin got kits for screwing together their own trucks for Christmas. They really enjoyed this project a lot. Gavin even watercolor painted his while Mommy was busy one afternoon. They can't wait to take their screwdrivers to Papa Buzz's house in March to learn more about woodworking!

Monday, January 9, 2012

Quilting Sisters

As a girl I always wanted to quilt. Mom started me on doing some handquilting on a pillow which took way tooooooooo long. I realized that I didn't have the patience for a big project ike a quilt, yet.

In my late 20's I started collecting a few quilts because I loved them so much (not homemade ones, though). And tried a bunch of times to get a Christmas quilt done for my Mother-in-law.

And then my little sister started quilting. Can I just say I love having a common hobby with my sister!!!?!!! She is good at all the things I am not when it comes to quilting. That is for sure. Anyhow, I finally decided it was time for me to try again in earnest a couple of years ago. She and I have had numerous quilting phone calls over the last couple of years, and I have enjoyed putting my new sewing machine to work. I have practiced piecing and mostly made quilted bags for people I love while she has finished several quilts. I am so impressed with her.

***Sidenote- I have several quilts in various stages, but none completed. :o). However, I am getting close and working on FINISHING a lot of my projects this year. Am I the only one who likes to pick out the fabrics, but them and then gets distracted by a new project? ***

Anyhow, Abby called me last week with a new project which I didn't think I had time for. A sleepless night later and I decided to go for it. The challenge was to choose a set of 12 prints and 3 solids that could be made into a quilt (using the selection at fatquartershop.com like the big sewing bloggers do). I started with a fabric by Lotta Jansdottor, since I would LOVE to work with her fabric. They only had a few of her pieces, so I picked a color that interested me and then thought about where I would like to go next. I really wanted to experiment with texture and pattern, angles and curves. I decided to really limit my colors to one color and neutrals, white, creams, tans, black. Here they are:

This has been a great experience and it made me think outside the box of what I have put together for the many other projects I have done, more intentional in some ways. So I am going to post this here and link it to the contest. If you love fabric like I do you will enjoy looking at what others have posted as much as I have. Now back to my huge pile of UFO's (unfinished objects)...

Location:Quilting Sisters

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Meet Marley

This dog has some boys of his own. They spent the day learning about each other and playing together. Seth didn't even want to go to Cub Scouts because he wanted to stay home with his dog. Gavin brushed him tonight and has been hugging him and telling him he loves him. Marley is timid and submissive, but starting to feel at home here. He hasn't been eating on his normal schedule yet, and I am sure he is missing his family and brother dog that he used to live with.