10 Things to do in Spring Break

1. Make some Rain Makers (I hope to do a separate post on that.)

2. Make quilts with a bunch of people.

3. Visit with friends and cousins

4. Sleepovers.

5. Give your girls freedom in the sewing room.

6. Make cards for Daddy's birthday.

7.  Let your kids help you plan and make the party food.

8.  Go to an indoor playground.

9.  Visit a nature reserve when you finally get some sunshine.  And let your kids take lots of pictures.  And make sure you take some of you with them.

10. Do chores. :-)

Sorry about the poor quality of the mosaics.  My computer and I weren't getting along so well this morning.

Kids clothes week challenge

I'm going to join in this year on elsie marley's KCWC!  Not sure what I all want to do but I do know I want to make my kids a few things and this will give me the motivation to do some.

An update on my quilt...I'm finished quilting it!!  I hope to sew the binding on today and then I can sit and stitch it down over the next few days.  Tessa is very excited!

Have a wonderful weekend!  We had a big dump of snow this week but the sun is shining today and it's all melting again - yea!

4 Sisters (in law) and 12 kids = 5 quilts

It was a win-win-win day! It's Spring Break right now (2 weeks long) so my sister-in-laws, their kids and me and my kids got together to sew up some rag quilts. It was an easy enough project for everyone. My s-i-l's all know how to sew (one of them sewed her own wedding dress, so yes, she can sew very well!) It turned out to be a good day of working together and something to do on a rainy day. The quilts are going to be donated to our local Pro-Life Society where they will be given with care packages to new moms.  And as a bonus, our flannel stashes became a bit smaller.

Following is a pretty photo heavy post with some captions.  Maybe it will inspire a similar activity with someone else?!

M worked with Benjamin to make a Giraffe Quilt.  All of the fabrics had giraffes on them.  She's a bit a lot crazy about giraffes.

Benjamin, handing the pieces to M so she could sew them together.

Carolin was a bit disappointed that she couldn't sew anything but still happy to be with all of her cousins.

It was good to have lots of floor space to lay things out.

Deanna worked with S and Auntie Karen.

Kind of a beautiful sight to see!

Love this picture of Zachary watching his cousin at the machine!  

Take a picture of us hugging, Mommy!  I love that my kids have such a great relationship with their cousins despite the fact that most of them are quite a bit older.

Tada!  We're finished.  These two pretty much did the whole thing by themselves.  Though the snipping was shared by everyone.

Teamwork!  If you know Deanna you know that these colours suit her personality.  She picked them out.

The giraffe quilt!  Finished.  They did really well without too much help either.  

M with the pedal to the metal!  Because we had only 3 machines, M had to wait to start sewing.  Her quilt turned out really well!

Snip, Snip!  Deanna took a turn with the camera.

Melissa and Aunty Kathy's quilt. 

Last one finished!  Yeah, a day well spent.  And my house was full. of. threads.  Wow!

After washing.  I thought I'd take a photos after they were washed because it makes such a difference in how they look.

Apparently it's hard work holding up quilts.  As you can see, we are having a bit of sunshine today!  Gorgeous!

I'm Free-motion Quilting!!!

Finally!  After 3 trips to the sewing machine shop and lots and lots of this...

It's finally working and I've got a start on Tessa's quilt!

Yea!!!

I just thought I should add that I have done some free-motion quilting in the past on my little Kenmore machine but have been having a lot of trouble with tension on my new machine (which is made for quilting!).  No thread snapping anymore though just lots of playing with the tension.

Work In Progress Wednesday #1

I thought it would be fun to join in the WIP Wednesday posts at Freshly Pieced. Hopefully it will keep me focussed because I have a lot to get done in the next month or so. See my list below.

I'm sewing the rows together on Zachary's Quilt.  I love how it's looking!

Cut out 2 bear carriers for C and Z for their birthday.  They shouldn't be too difficult.

Map of Canada wall hanging.  This is pretty tedious so it's still sitting her unfinished.

My big huge list.  I know, I know I'm dreaming.  But I am determined to make headway.  The week after Spring Break I am dubbing 'Sewing Week' here.

For the girls Sunday dresses.  I love how happy they look!

I'm linking up to WIP Wednesday.  Check out all the other activity happening!

A Sister Swap!

I got this in the mail from Alisa today!

Don't you love that cute card!  Comes from a little sweetness on etsy.

Alisa asked if I wanted to do a pillow swap with her.  She really wanted a pillow for her living room to match this quilt but thought it would be fun to make one for each other and I agreed!  She sent me a bunch of scraps - so fun!

Now I get to browse her pinterest inspiration and come up with something.  Maybe something like one of these?

source

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I didn't send you anything this week, Alisa.  I looked through my fabrics but I don't have anything specific that I want.  You know I love colour and that we have an orange wall in our house :)  What size should I make yours?

Baby Shower Bunting

I'm organizing a baby shower (with someone else) to be held at my house tomorrow night.  I've wanted to make a bunting for a long time so I finally made one!

This idea is obviously not my own, but I just made up my own thing instead of following a tutorial.  You see, I am lazy and didn't want to sew the triangles right sides together and have to turn them all and iron them all so I just sew them together wrong sides together and then pinked the edges.  It works for something that will never get washed anyway.

I made it gender neutral so that it can be used for more church baby showers.  I love this combination of colours so I love the finished bunting!

Now to make a birthday bunting before Carolin and Zachary's birthday in April.  I will.  I will.  Hold me to it, okay?

Sunday Drive

Just thought I'd share some photos we took last week Sunday on the way from church. I'm always curious about other towns and places. Maybe some of you are too?

Lately on the way to church we have been seeing so many bald eagles.  The kids always count them and once they counted more than 70 eagles!  They are amazing birds.  Above is a female bald eagle young bald eagle.  I learn something new every day.

I just love this photo.  This is Mt. Cheam in the background.  A typical setting for any number of photos around our area.  It was a pretty nice day for February.

And here is a male adult bald eagle.  If I wasn't wearing my Sunday clothes I might have tried to walk a little closer.  This photo is on full zoom (12x).

And one last photo to assure you that I don't actually live on a farm myself.  But we do have a mountain as a backdrop.  I'm good with that!

Have a great week!

Ben's Penguin

Penguin tutorial is from the Purl Bee blog. Great free pattern for any penguin lovers out there.

I sort of messed up the neck a bit.  Not following directions properly will do that.

I was going to make the penguin for Ben's birthday but I didn't finish it.  So I enlisted his help in finishing it.  He did most of the stuffing.

He's not perfect but he's loved.  Ben even took him to school to show him off.  That's saying something for an 11 year old!

We should have used black thread on the black fabric, but I was too lazy to change the thread.  oops.  

Whipped up a pair of hot pads for my s-i-l for her birthday.  I recently won a set of fat eights from I Have To Say and put them to good use with this project.  Thanks Randi!

Terrible photos.  I literally took these photos as I was running out the door.

Have a good weekend!

Alisa